India

"Indian civilization, unlike the Western, has historically had no issues with the idea of homosexuality and transgender peoples. There is an inherent acceptance in the Indian psyche that this is a private matter in which society should not meddle. And there is no injunction against them in Indian religious texts... On the contrary, traditional Indian narratives have had representations of the male and female principles combined in the popular deity, Ardhanareeshwara. The iconography of this deity melds the female and male bodies, transcending the binary of gender and taking the seeker towards the realm of the limitless beyond all categories. There are also sacred stories of people changing their gender."

"Pakistani textbooks have a particular problem when defining geographical space. The terms "South Asia" and "Subcontinent" have partially helped to solve this problem of the geo-historical identity of the area formally known as British India. However, it is quite difficult for Pakistani textbook writers to ignore the land now known as India when they discuss Islamic heroes and Muslim monuments in the Subcontinent. This reticence to recognize anything of importance in India, which is almost always referred to as "Bharat" in both English and Urdu versions of the textbooks, creates a difficult dilemma for historians writing about the Mughal Dynasties."

"Sacrificing cows is definitely in accordance with the requirements of shariah, rules the Fatawa-i-Rizvia. It cites an ayat from the Quran which does not have a word about the cows, .... It goes on to quote several ulema to the effect that slaughtering cows is an essential and long-standing practice of Islam. If Hindus object to the killing of cows on ‘communal grounds’—the grounds of the Hindus, note, are ‘communal’, the grounds of Muslims are spiritual obedience to Allah!—then it is not right for Muslims to refrain from killing cows. In fact, decrees the fatwa, on every occasion Muslims should keep up what has been prevalent in Islam for so long. If they stop it, they shall be sinners. The fatwa goes on reiterating this point, and returns to emphasize again that if the Hindu asks that cow-killing be stopped on account of his religious point of view, then it is not right for Muslims to stop killing the cows. And if the Hindu cites his false faith to have it stopped, then the Muslims must not stop it. And, warns the fatwa, the Islam of those who agree to do what they, the Hindus, are saying is counterfeit. For if you agree to their proposition you will be strengthening their false religion and doing so is not permissible in shariah. The fatwa proceeds to quote the fatwas which had been issued earlier by the ancestors of Abdul Bari and by Abdul Bari himself: that if someone restrains us from sacrificing a cow, then it becomes obligatory to sacrifice it, because we cannot give up our religious work under duress. Those who advocate the contrary to please the polytheists, the fatwa declares, are out to undermine Islam. They are great sinners, they are mufsid, they are amr-bil-haram, they are the enemies of Islam, they are the dacoits of Muslims, they are brothers of the Devil—Shaitan ke bhai, the workers for the Devil—Mis ke karinde, the enemies of truth, the heirs of the hypocrites. Quoting the Quran, the fatwa declares that they shall be consigned to Hell for ever. So much for persons—like Maulana Abdul Bari—who advocate that Muslims give up slaughtering cows. As for anyone who leaves the sacrifice of cows under their influence, the fatwa declares that he too is the enemy of Allah, the worker for Satan, the abandoner of that which is obligatory, and one fit for the fires of Hell. The continuation of the sacrifice of cows and the prohibition against participation in the meetings of Hindus, declares the Fatawa-i-Rizvia a little later, are both among the necessities of religion. He who declares the former haram and the latter halal— as Maulana Abdul Bari was doing, and as, in regard to meetings, Mufti Kifayatullah was doing—is calumnizing Allah and the Prophet. By the ordinances of the Holy Quran, declares the fatwa, his abode is Jahannum, Hell, and it is incumbent to apply the injunction of kufr upon him. And again: to stop sacrificing cows for the sake of Hindus is haram, declares Fatawa-i-Rizvia, citing as authority the Durr-ul-Mukhtar. And he who does what is haram, it pronounces, sets himself up for the torture of Jahannum, of Hell. He who is guilty of that which is kufr in Fiqh is out of Islam, his wives have become haram for him: he must embrace Islam again, he must go through the nikah again if he wants the status quo ante to be restored. And again: it is proper to continue sacrificing cows. To stop doing so out of consideration for Hindus is haram. Unity with Hindus is haram. And the ones who are advocating this unity (it was in the name of unity and, worse, as an expression of gratefulness that Abdul Bari, etc., were advocating that Muslims give up killing cows) ‘are by their own admission sacrificing the entire life of the Quran and Hadis on idolatry’."

"An example is the elaborate plant taxonomy in ancient India. According to the assessment of William Jones, published in 1795, this taxonomy was more advanced than the standard Latin-based ones used by Western botanists. Jones writes: 'I am very solicitous to give Indian plants their true Indian appellations, because I am fully persuaded that Linnaeus himself would have adopted them had he known the learned and ancient language of this country …'"

"But during Mughal and British rules, the Abrahamic views on sexuality were imposed, and the Queer community was marginalized and faced harassment. Even The New York Times has grudgingly acknowledged this fact, although it blamed only the British and remained silent on the role of Muslims.... We must understand that the Western Queer/Trans movement is a revolt against the Abrahamic religions’ bigotry on sexuality.. While it is true that India needs to work harder on the upliftment of the trans community, the Western Marxist approach is counter-productive."

"Then there are ragas and raginis designated for dance. Dance in its art form is as elaborate as music, and is based on Hindu natya-shastra. Sculptures of dancers and musicians carved on ancient and medieval temples, now mostly surviving in south India, bear testimony to their excellence, popularity and widespread practice."

"From thence the King marched towards the mountains of Nagrakote, where he was overtaken by a storm of hail and snow. The Raja of Nagrakote, after sustaining some loss, submitted, but was restored to his dominions. The name of Nagrakote was, on this occasion, changed to that of Mahomedabad, in honour of the late king. Some historians state, that Feroze, on this occasion, broke the idols of Nagrakote, and mixing the fragments with pieces of cows flesh, filled bags with them, and caused them to be tied round the necks of Bramins, who were then paraded through the camp. It is said, also, that he sent the image of Nowshaba to Mecca, to be thrown on the road, that it might be trodden under foot by the pilgrims, and that he also remitted the sum of 100,000 tunkas, to be distributed among the devotees and servants of the temple."

"Al-Bîrûnî records: “A famous idol of theirs was that of Multan, dedicated to the sun, and therefore called Aditya. It was of wood and covered with red Cordovan leather; in its two eyes were two red rubies. It is said to have been made in the last Kritayuga… When Muhammad Ibn Alkasim Ibn Almunabih conquered Multan, he inquired how the town had become so very flourishing and so many treasures had there been accumulated, and then he found out that this idol was the cause, for there came pilgrims from all sides to visit it. Therefore he thought it best to have the idol where it was, but he hung a piece of cow’s flesh on its neck by way of mockery. On the same place a mosque was built. When the Karmatians occupied Multan, Jalam Ibn Shaiban, the usurper, broke the idol into pieces and killed its priests…”"

"“On the 1st Rajab 990 [AD 1582] he (Husain Qulî Khãn) encamped by a field of maize near Nagarkot. The fortress (hissar) of Bhim, which is an idol temple of Mahamai, and in which none but her servants dwelt, was taken by the valour of the assailants at the first assault. A party of Rajpûts, who had resolved to die, fought most desperately till they were all cut down. A number of Brahmans who for many years had served the temple, never gave one thought to flight, and were killed. Nearly 200 black cows belonging to Hindûs had, during the struggle, crowded together for shelter in the temple. Some savage Turks, while the arrows and bullets were falling like rain, killed those cows. They then took off their boots and filled them with the blood and cast it upon the roof and walls of the temple.”"

"'Everywhere in the lanes and bazaars lay the headless trunks of the slain and the whole city was burning. Many buildings had been knocked down. The water of the Jamuna flowing past was of a yellowish color, as if polluted by blood. The man [a Muslim jeweller of the city, robbed of his all and fasting for several days] said that for seven days following the general slaughter the water had turned yellow. At the edge of the stream I saw a number of huts of vairAgis and sannyAsis [i.e., Hindu ascetic], in each of which lay a severed head with the head of a dead cow applied to its mouth and tied to it with a rope round its neck."

"Qasim first asserts the superiority of Islam over the polytheists by committing a taboo (killing a cow) and publicly soiling the idol (giving the cow meat as an offering)."

"The Emperor, summoning Muhammad Khalil and Khidmat Rai, the darogha of hatchet-men' ordered them to demolish the temple of Pandharpur, and to take the butchers of the camp there and slaughter cows in the temple' It was done (1705)."

"There’s a huge public relations campaign here. Many of our friends in the other party, and including, I must say, some of the nuts in our own party, soft-heads, have jumped on, have completely bought the Indian line. And India has a very great propaganda line."

"They first sallied forth in a body of about 500 persons to attack the market place of the village known as Poorwa, where they slaughtered a cow. With the blood of the animal they defiled a Hindu temple. Then they hung up the four quarters (of the cow) in the different parts of the market place. … The village of Laoghatty in the Nadia district was their next object attack. Here they commenced operations by the repetition of the same outrage to the religious feelings of the Hindus which they had committed at Poorwa, viz, the slaughter of a cow in that part of the village exclusively occupied by Hindu residents. … Titu’s party went on increasing and with growing confidence they went on killing cows in different places, making raids on the neighbouring villages, forcing from the raiyats agreements to furnish grain, compelling many of them to profess conformity to the tenets of their sect…"

"A new Muslim invader, Ahmad Shah Abdali, who tried to salvage the Muslim rule, had to give up after several attempts from 1748 to 1767 A.D. His only satisfaction was that he demolished the Harimandir and desecrated the sacred tank with the blood of slaughtered cows, two times in a row. But the Sikh and non-Sikh Hindus rallied round the Khalsa again and again and rebuilt the temple every time."

"Amedahad being inhabited also by a great number of heathens, there are Pagods, or Idol-Temples it it. That which was called the Pagod of Santidas was the chief, before King Auranzeb converted it into a Mosque. When he performed that ceremony, he caused a cow to be killed in the place, knowing very well, that after such an action, the Gentiles according to their Law, could worship no more therein."

"The waters of Tambraparni which were once white with sandal paste rubbed away from the breasts of charming girls are now flowing red with the blood of cows slaughtered by the miscreants"

"“Cow-sacrifice in India is the noblest of Islamic practices. The kafirs may probably agree to pay jiziya but they shall never concede to cow-sacrifice.”"

"The fatwa (Fatawa-i-Rizvia) goes on reiterating these arguments, the citations, the assertions—paragraph after paragraph, page after page. ... In Hindustan, it continues, cow slaughter is an act that greatly glorifies Islam. By our fatwas we have proven that here the sacrifice of cows is proper and to abandon it out of regard for Hindus is improper. The fatwa strongly condemns those who say that it should be given up—they are guilty of gunah kabira, it declares. It goes on to quote the fatwas issued by Abdul Wahab, by his ustad, Abdul Hai, and by other ulema of Firangi Mahal—pointing out that these are fatwas which have been included in the compilations of Abdul Hai in which he himself declares that to stop cow slaughter out of regard for Hindus is improper, that to continue it is proper. Cow slaughter is the glory of Islam, the fatwa declares, and the unity which is being observed with Hindus is haram, prohibited, it is qatai haram, wholly prohibited. Cow slaughter is the religious right of a Mussalman, it declares, and a right at that which particularly glorifies Islam. To stop it because of polytheists is to glorify the polytheists, while the sacrificing of cows is the glorification of Islam. This theme is reiterated repeatedly. And the Quran says you should make Allah and the Prophet happy—they have a better right that you appease them than the polytheists have ... unity with the Hindus is haram and to stop cow slaughter because of it is haram..., Even this precis of the fatwa is sufficient to show the steps by which something for which there was at best a permission is transformed by the ulema into a religious duty, the steps by which doing the one thing that hurts another the most becomes a matter of principle, a religious right, an Allah- and Prophet-ordained duty. To give it up would be to give up that which is a long-standing practice in Islam. If we yield on this, they will force on us anything. It would be to strengthen the false religion of the polytheists. It would be to abandon religious work under duress. It would be to do that which we are prohibited from doing—namely to honour kafirs. It will be to degrade Islam. On the other hand, to kill cows is to do the thing which particularly glorifies Islam."

"Thomas B. Macaulay, the first Law Member of the Govemor-General’s Legislature, took up Grant’s ideas on English education, and was also a great admirer of Mill’s. In his notorious 1835 Minute on Indian Education, he maintained that Hinduism was based on “a literature admitted to be of small intrinsic value, … [one] that inculcates the most serious errors on the most important subjects … hardly reconcilable with reason, with morality … fruitful of monstrous superstitions.” Hindus had therefore been fed for millennia with a “false history, false astronomy, false medicine … in company with a false religion”"

"They have made present-day India, and Hinduism even more so, out to be a zoo – an agglomeration of assorted, disparate specimens. No such thing as ‘India’, just a geographical expression, just a construct of the British... – that has been their stance.... Caste is real. The working class is real. Being a Naga is real. But ‘India is just a geographical expression!’... And anyone who maintains anything to the contrary is a fascist out to insinuate a unity, indeed to impose a uniformity, where there has been none. That is what our progressive ideologues declaim, as we have seen. In a word, the parts alone are real. The whole is just a construct. India has never been one, these ideologues insist – disparate peoples and regions were knocked together by the Aryans, by the Mughals, by the British for purposes of empire. Anyone who wants to use that construct – India – as the benchmark for determining the sort of structure under which we should live has a secret agenda – of enforcing Hindu hegemony. This is the continuance of, in a sense the culmination of, the Macaulay-Missionary technique. The British calculated that to subjugate India and hold it, they must undermine the essence of the people: this was Hinduism, and everything which flowed from it... India turns out to be a recent construct. It turns out to be neither a country nor a nation..."

"From the seventeenth century onwards, Christian missionaries made scathing attacks on the Indian classical dance-forms, seeing them as a heathen practice. This was often expressed by attacking the devadasi system on the grounds of human rights. The devadasis were temple dancers, dedicated in childhood to a particular deity. The system was at its peak in the tenth and eleventh centuries, but a few hundred years later, the traditional system of temples protected by powerful kings had faded away under Mughal rule, especially since the Mughals turned it into popular entertainment, devoid of spirituality. The devadasi system degenerated in some cases into temple dancers used for prostitution, although the extent of this was exaggerated by the colonialists."

"…The temple of Nagarkot, which is outside the city, was taken at the very outset… On this occasion many mountaineers became food for the flashing sword. And that golden umbrella, which was erected on the top of the cupola of the temple, they riddled with arrows… And black cows, to the number of 200, to which they pay boundless respect, and actually worship, and present to the temple, which they look upon as an asylum, and let loose there, were killed by the Musulmans. And, while arrows and bullets were continually falling like drops of rain, through their zeal and excessive hatred of idolatry they filled their shoes full of blood and threw it on the doors and walls of the temple… the army of Husain Quli Khan was suffering great hardships. For these reasons he concluded a treaty with them… and having put all things straight he built the cupola of a lofty mosque over the gateway of Rajah Jai Chand."

"Seven of these 22 riots, or roughly one-third of them, occurred on the day of the celebration of the annual Muslim festival of Bakr-i-Id at the end of May. The celebration of this festival is always a dangerous time in Hindu-Muslim relations. The Muslim regard it as a day of animal sacrifice, and as the animal chosen is almost always a cow the slightest tension between the two communities is apt to produce an explosion."

"A second example of a feature that is widespread but not universal in Hinduism is revulsion at the killing of cows. This is a recurrent theme in friction between Hindus and Muslims. What may be the earliest reference to Muslims in an Indian text correctly ascribes to them the view that there is no sin in eating animals such as cattle. A late twelfth- century poet in the north gives a fanciful explanation of the ugly physical features of a Muslim ambassador in terms of “the vast number of cows he had slain.” A southern poetess describing Muslim maraudings in the second half of the fourteenth century speaks of a river “flowing red with the blood of slaughtered cows.” A Marāṭhī ballad that may date from the seventeenth century tells of a Muslim general who desecrated a Hindu idol and built a mosque in its place: “After the mosque was built,” the ballad continues, “a cow was slaughtered.” Another early ballad describes a particularly obnoxious Muslim— a Rājpūt convert and a voracious cow- eater— who went so far as to order the sacrifice of a pregnant cow. Muslim sources complement this picture. For example, Shaykh Aḥmad Sirhindī (d. 1624) saw the sacrifice of the cow as “one of the most important rites” of Islam in India, precisely because of its offensiveness to Hindus— though wise or weak Muslim rulers would from time to time forbid the practice for just that reason..."

"Arun Shourie quotes Govind Singh as declaring: 'Let the path of the pure [khâlsâ panth] prevail all over the world, let the Hindu dharma dawn and all delusion disappear. (...) May I spread dharma and prestige of the Veda in the world and erase from it the sin of cow-slaughter.'"

"Another illustration of this spirit of exploitation is furnished by the Muslim insistence upon cow-slaughter and the stoppage of music before mosques. Islamic law does not insist upon the slaughter of the cow for sacrificial purposes and no Musalman, when he goes to Haj, sacrifices the cow in Mecca or Medina. But in India they will not be content with the sacrifice of any other animal."

"About this time, I heard of a well known Hindu having been converted to Christianity. It was the talk of the town that, when he was baptized, he had to eat beef and drink liquor, that he also had to change his clothes, and that thenceforth he began to go about in European costume including a hat. These things got on my nerves. Surely, thought I, a religion that compelled one to eat beef, drink liquor, and change one's own clothes did not deserve the name. I also heard that the new convert had already begun abusing the religion of his ancestors, their customs and their country. All these things created in me a dislike for Christianity."

"Many of the English-educated elites of India accepted the colonial condemnation of their heritage and apologized for its 'primitiveness'. Some of them turned into Hindu reformers, and found the devadasi system detestable for moral and even social-hygienic reasons. However, the devadasis saw their very existence threatened and sent handwritten pleas to the colonial government, explaining the spiritual foundation of Bharata Natyam. They quoted Siva from the Saiva Agamas, saying, 'To please me during my puja, arrangements must be made daily for shudda nritta (dance). This should be danced by females born of such families and the five acharyas should form the accompaniments'. Since these Agamas are revered by every Hindu, the devadasis asked, 'What reason can there be for our community not to thrive and exist as necessary adjuncts of temple service?' They opposed the proposed draconian punishment for performing their tradition, calling the legislation 'unparalleled in the civilized world'. Instead of abolition of their traditional profession, they demanded better education to restore their historical status. They wanted the religious, literary and artistic education as in the past, saying, 'Instill into us the Gita and the beauty of the Ramayana and explain to us the Agamas and the rites of worship'. This would inspire devadasi girls to model themselves after female saints like Maitreyi, Gargi and Manimekalai, and the women singers of the Vedas, such that:. . . we might once again become the preachers of morality and religion. . . . You who boast of your tender love for small communities, we pray that you may allow us to live and work out our salvation and manifest ourselves in jnana and bhakti and keep alight the torch of India's religion amidst the fogs and storms of increasing materialism and interpret the message of India to the world."

"James Mill, author of a popular History of British India, ridiculed the enthusiasm of early Sanskritists such as Jones and the very notion of Indian civilization, since the Indians’ condition was “one of the rudest and weakest states of the human mind” and “the Hindu, like the eunuch, excels in the qualities of a slave.”"

"Cow slaughter in India is a great Islamic practice—(said) Mujaddid Alaf Saani II. This was his far-sightedness that he described cow slaughter in India as a great Islamic practice. It may not be so in other places. But it is definitely a great Islamic act in India because the cow is worshipped in India. If the Muslims give up cow slaughter here then the danger is that in times to come the coming generations will get convinced of the piety of the cow."

"Meanwhile, another Tabligh movement had arisen in Haryana under the leadership of Shah Muhammad Ramzan (1769-1825). “He found that the converted Rajputs and Jats… were in no way different from their Hindu counterparts in culture, customs and celebration of religious festivals… Shah Muhammad Ramzan used to sojourn in areas inhabited by such converted Rajputs, dissuade them from practising Hindu rites, and persuade them to marry their cousins (real uncle’s daughters which converts persistently refused to do). They equally detested eating cow’s flesh. To induce them to eat beef, he introduced new festivals like Maryam ka Roza and ‘Rot-bot’. On this day, observed on 17 Rajjab, a ‘pao’ of roasted beef placed on a fried bread was distributed amongst relatives and near and dear ones… Such endeavours ruled out the possibility of reconversion and helped in the ‘Islamization’ of neo-Muslims…”"

"The truth is that I spoke clearly to Mr. Nixon [about the situation of the Bangladesh Liberation war]... I told him without mincing words that we couldn’t go on with ten million refugees on our backs, we couldn’t tolerate the fuse of such and explosive situation any longer. Well, Mr. Heath, Mr. Pompidou, and Mr. Brandt had understood very well. But not Mr. Nixon. The fact is that when the others understand one thing, Mr. Nixon understands another. I suspected he was very pro-Pakistan. Or rather I knew that the Americans had always been in favor of Pakistan—not so much because they were in favor of Pakistan, but because they were against India."

"In fact, 1967 was the best-ever performance by the Bharatiya Jan Sangh before it merged with the Janata Party. What could have led to this sudden spurt of support for Sanghis? In all probability, it was the 1966 police firing at sadhus and other Hindu activists who were protesting outside the Parliament in Delhi to demand a blanket ban on cow slaughter. While the official records of those killed is very low, the popular claims of those killed range between few hundreds to even thousands. Whatever be the real numbers, the fact that it led to the feeling of ‘Hindus under attack’ among a segment of people, in all probability helped the Jan Sangh in the ensuing elections. Firing on kar sevaks at Ayodhya similarly helped the BJP in the 1991 Lok Sabha elections."

"The Turkish [Muslim] invaders entered the town making dreadful din and clamor. Orders were issued clear and terrible: `The soldiers shall march into the town spreading terror everywhere! Cut down the Brahmanas [Brahman priests], wherever they may be-performing homa or milking cows! Kill the cows-even those which are pregnant or with newly born calves!""

"The prime minister sliced into Pakistan, which, she declared, based its existence on stoking hostility to India. Pakistan had long felt that it would get U.S. support no matter what it did, encouraging Pakistani “adventurism and Indophobia.” She complained that Pakistan turned every issue into a clash between Hindus and Muslims: “Indophobia was clothed in the metaphysics of holy wars and the defence of Islam.”"

"He who has one word in his mind, which becomes ten when he speaks, hundred when he writes and thousands when he quarrels is a babu. He whose strength is one-time in his hands, ten-times in his mouth, a hundred times behind the back and absent at the time of action is a babu. He whose deity is the Englishman, preceptor the Brahmo preacher, scriptures the newspapers and pilgrimage the National Theatre is a babu. He who declares himself a Christian to missionaries, a Brahmo to Keshabchandra, a Hindu to his father and an atheist to the Brahman beggar is a babu. One who drinks water at home, alcohol at his friend’s, receives abuse from the prostitute and kicks from his boss is a babu. He who hates oil when he bathes, his own fingers when he eats and his mother tongue when he speaks is indeed a babu . . . O King, the people whose virtues I have recited to you will come to believe that by chewing pan [betel], lying prone on the bed, making bilingual conversation and smoking tobacco, they will reconquer India."

"...It is the tallest iron pillar so far anywhere in the world."

"The Vedic Hindus called themselves Aryas, and the tract in which they settled themselves in India has the distinctive name of Aryadesa ... The Aryadesa or Arya-vartta [sic!] of Manu is bounded on the north by the Himalaya; and on the south by the Vindhyan chain."

"Visaladeva, the Chahamana king, proudly declares that “he once more made Aryavarta (Northern India) what its name signifies (abode of the Aryas i.e. Hindus) by repeatedly exterminating the Mlechchhas (Muslims, who had rendered the name meaningless by their occupation of the country)."

"Tradition attributed the Dhar Iron Pillar to Bhoja, who was well versed in iron metallurgy as is attested by his Yuktikalpataru . The pillar was double the height of the Delhi Iron Pillar and weighed at least one tonne more. It was the tallest and heaviest (7000 kg) pillar in the world."

"That (country) which (lies) between the Himavat and the Vindhya (mountains) to the east of Prayaga and to the west of Vinasana (the place where the river Sarasvati disappears) is called Madhyadesa (the central region). But (the tract) between those two mountains (just mentioned), which (extends) as far as the eastern and the western oceans, the wise call Aryavarta (the country of the Aryans)."

"Aryavarata was the sacred land of Dharma, the elevated path to Heaven and to Moksha; where men were nobler than the Devatas themselves; where all knowledge, thought and worship were rooted in the Vedas, revealed by the Devatas themselves."

"Outside this fort (of Dhar) there is a Jami Masjid and a square pillar lies in front of the Masjid with some portions embedded in the ground. When Bahadur Shah conquered Malwa, he was anxious to take the pillar with him to Gujarat. In the act of digging out, it fell down and was broken into two pieces (one piece 22’ long and the other 13’). I (Jahangir) have seen it lying on the ground carelessly and so ordered the bigger piece to be carried to Agra, which I hope to be used as a lamp-post in the courtyard of my father’s (Akbar’s) tomb"

"We arrived at Wasnud…The Bheels were to be our watchmen as well as guides; and their shrill calls from one to the other were heard all night. We were told not to be surprised at this choice, since these poor thieves are, when trusted, the trustiest of men, and of all sentries the most wakeful and indefatigable. They and the Kholees [Kolis], a race almost equally wild, are uniformly preferred in Guzerat for the service of the police, and as durwans to gentlemen’s houses and gardens. All such persons are here called Sepoys, and with more accuracy than the regular troops, inasmuch as their weapons are still really the bow and arrow, “sip,” whence the Asiatic soldier derives his appellation."

"Turning from western to northern India, there were in Uttar Pradesh in the medieval period as of now, Chamars, Ahirs, Brahmanas, Rajputs, Koris, Kurmis and the Bhars. They have all lived, the high and the low, as part of the Hindu civilization. Curiously enough, the most numerous caste of Uttar Pradesh was, in about 1900 or at the end of the medieval period, the Chamars. As per the Imperial Gazetteer, “Musahars, Dosadhs and Chamars may be considered semi-Hinduized aborigines”, but this is unnecessary hairsplitting. All these castes were full- fledged Hindus, as vouched by Alberuni. Chamars formed the largest groups in the districts of Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Mathura and Agra,” as well as in Banda, Kalinjar, Jhansi, Jalaun, Hardoi, Kheri, Fyzabad and sev- eral other districts like Jaunpur, Azamgarh and Ghazipur.*> In Meerut and Bulandshahr districts, Chamars were the most nu- merous, comprising 20 per cent of the population. So also was the case in Aligarh, Agra and Mathura.”*In Banda and Jalaun too they formed the largest class. But let not the list be made too exhaustive."

"The Meos, like the Hindus, did not marry within the gotra… Meos… continued with their Hindu names or suffixed them with Khan, and celebrated not only Diwali and Dashehra but most important, Janamashtami. Because of geo-historic tradi­tions of proximity to Mathura and Vrindavan, Krishna is inte­grated into Muslim consciousness at folk level in the Brij and Mewat area…Few Meos…could recite the kalima."

"The Bhils who mainly reside in the hilly country between Abu and Asirgarh and have also spread into the plains of Gujarat and spilled over into northern Deccan, are Hindus. Some even claim to be reckoned as Rajputs. But many of their sub-tribes or kuls pay no respect to the Brahmanas or Hindu Gods, nor do they build temples. They worship only Devi, but celebrate Holi, Dushera and Diwali like other Hindus.” They have always remained Hindu. It is not only among the Bhils but all over the country that many tribes have as many forms of Hinduism as are permitted by the Hindu spirit of accommodating social and religious diversities."

"Meos are the inhabit­ants of Mewat, the term for the hill country in the states of Alwar, Bhurtpur and…Delhi, and are probably folk of pre-Aryan origin. They are all Moslems in name…"

"Shafia Zubair said, “Meo community resides in Alwar, Bharatpur, Nuh, and in some parts of Mathura, where Krishna was born. I traced the ancestry of the community to know what our history is. The result says that we are from the lineage of Lord Krishna. Even if we have converted our religion, the blood does not change, and it belongs to Ram and Krishna.” Shafia Zubair added, “You should all remember who Meos are (descendants of Ram- Krishna) and consider them as Mewa (dry fruits). Nobody should tell us again and again that we are backward. It has given three MLAs (Zubair, Wajid Ali from Nagar, and Zahida Khan from Kaman) and you will see where the Mewat will reach in the next 10 years.” Therefore, Mewat should not be considered a backward region, she said."