'How Best Do We Survive?'

A Modern Political History of the Tamil Muslims

Kenneth McPherson

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136198335
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This book traces the social and political history of the Muslims of south India from the later nineteenth century to Independence in 1947, and the contours that followed. It describes a community in search of political survival amidst an ever-changing climate, and the fluctuating fortunes it had in dealing with the rise of Indian nationalism, the local political nuances of that rise, and its own changing position as part of the wider Muslim community in India.

The book argues that Partition and the foundation of Pakistan in 1947 were neither the goal nor the necessarily inescapable result of the growth of communal politics and sentiment, and analyses the post-1947 constructions of events leading to Partition. Neither the fact of Muslim communalism per se before 1947 nor the existence of separate Muslim electorates provide an explanation for Pakistan. The book advances the theory that micro-level studies of the operation of the former, and the defence of the latter, in British India can lead to a better understanding of the origins of communalism.

The book makes an important contribution to understanding and dealing with the complexities of communalism — be it Hindu, Muslim or Christian — and its often tragic consequences.

1

The Muslims of the Madras Presidency–Origins and History to 1901

In 1901 the Muslims of the Madras Presidency, excluding the Mapillas of Malabar and South Kanara, were not a single community but rather were divided into three distinctive groups defined by language and history. Apart from their shared religion, interaction between the groups was limited, but after 1901 increasing interchange led to the emergence of a broadly based Muslim political identity in southern India by the 1930s. But the mix of differences and commonalities between the various Muslim groups that existed in 1901 determined the nature of the political compact that emerged in succeeding years.

Origins and History: Tamil Muslims

Before the British arrived, Tamil Muslims were found mostly in populous rice-cropping coastal areas south of Chennai. Merchants from the Middle East introduced Islam to southern India as early as the seventh and eighth centuries when they settled in ports along the Gulf of Manaar and the southern Coromandel Coast, from Kayalpatanam in Tirunelveli district to Pulicat, north of Chennai. They married Tamil women and were incorporated into local society by Hindu rulers eager to use them as intermediaries in international maritime trade. Over the centuries the community grew in size as Arab missionaries and wandering sufis gained converts.

Muslims in the Tamil areas readily integrated into local society through intermarriage and mercantile activity backed by local rulers. Dress, language, social customs and even some religious observances marked local Muslims as an integral part of Tamil society despite their exotic religion. The place of Muslims in local society was not dictated by their religion, but by their relationships with local power élites and other groups in the Tamil social landscape.¹ As late as 1902, for example, a Tamil Muslim (a Rowther) from Tirunelveli district was convicted of siding with Maravars in a Shanar–Maravar riot, and as the judge observed, ‘there was a social side to the anti-Shanar disputes; the Mahommedans had a strong interest in opposing the claims of the Shanars for a high place in the social scale of Hindu society.’² Communal conflict based on religious differences was rare in both Tamil- and Telugu-speaking areas of the Madras Presidency in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There were some clashes occasioned by religious differences after 1901, but they were less common than clashes between rival Hindu groups, and certainly less common than Hindu–Muslim clashes elsewhere in British India.

Before the coming of Europeans, most Tamil Muslims lived in urban centres forming substantial mercantile communities. Indeed, in towns like Nagore and Nagapattinam in Thanjavur district they were in the majority and sustained a thriving urban-based religious and cultural life. From the early medieval period, Tamil Muslim wealth was underpinned by the coastal carrying trade, the pearl and chank fisheries of the Gulf of Manaar, trade with the Malay peninsula and Sumatra, and later the Middle Eastern horse trade on behalf of local Tamil Hindu rulers.

Tamil Muslims were not a homogeneous group. Their self-image was defined in geographic terms (birthplace) and by their membership of a specific endogamous sub-group. The various Tamil Muslim subgroups claimed distinct origins and occupations. The Marakayyars (from Tamil marakkalam) considered themselves the élite. They were merchants who, from medieval times, were closely involved in royal finances and with Hindu temple markets. In addition, they had close ties to Arab and Southeast Asian trading and pilgrimage centres.³ They were set apart from other Tamil Muslims by their adherence to the Shafi’i madhab (school of Qu’ranic law). Famed for their philanthropy they claimed Arab descent and considered themselves superior to other Tamil Muslims whom they regard as ‘converts’ still influenced by Hindu religious and social practices. The main centres of Marakayyar settlement were Nagore and Nagapattinam.

Most Tamil Muslims were Labbais (claimed to be a term of respect used in addressing the educated, given the Labbais’ penchant for religious education). Although looked down upon by the Marakayyars, their main shrine was located in Nagore and shared with the Marakayyars. Most Labbai were found in the coastal strip between Kayalpatanam in Tirunelveli district to Pulicat, north of Chennai. Although few individual Labbai matched the wealth of the Marakayyar magnates, the British regarded them as ‘exceedingly industrious and enterprising in their habits and pursuits there being hardly a trade or calling in which they do not succeed’, and noted that ‘There are few classes of natives in Southern India, who in energy, industry and perseverance, can compete with the Lubbay [sic]’.⁴ The range of Labbai occupations was impressive: many depended on the sea as coastal fishermen, pearl divers and shipowners who traded with Sri Lanka and the Malabar coast while others were betel nut cultivators, weavers, petty traders, mat makers, jewellers, shop- and stall-keepers and leather workers. Unlike the Marakayyars they descended from converts who embraced Islam as a result of north Indian sufi activity, and they adhered to the Hanafi’i madhab like the Muslims of the Deccan and north India, although they had translated the Qu’ran into Tamil. In addition the Labbai developed a considerable body of devotional literature and poetry in Tamil. Although the British noted the ‘industry and perseverance’ in economic matters of the Labbai they were largely ignorant of their ancient and complex Tamil Muslim secular and religious culture and described them as ‘quasi-Mahomedans’,⁵ so entrenched was their view that orthodox Muslims in the Presidency could only be Urdu Muslims.

A smaller group of Tamil Muslims were known as Ravuttan, Ravuttar or Rowthers. Their name was probably derived from the Tamil irauttar, meaning ‘horse’, based on their ancestral role as cavalrymen for local Hindu rulers, and they appear to have converted 400–500 years ago. Many became merchants, the most prominent of whom were as wealthy as the leading Marakayyar and Labbai merchants. A fourth group, the Kayalar, appear to be a sub-group of the Marakayyar who dealt in the socially undesirable skin and hide trade. They were originally from Kayalpatanam, and shared with the Marakayyars an adherence to the Shafi’i madhab.⁶ There were also smaller groups known as Jonagan and Panjuvettis (otherwise known as Pinjari) who were cotton cleaners.⁷

Despite differences between the Labbais and Marakayyars they were united by a ‘common pattern of belief and worship which focussed on networks of pilgrimage and ecstatic cult devotion’ created from the fourteenth century by wealthy merchants.⁸ These networks were based on numerous mosques and dargahs (shrines of saints) associated with ‘kin centres’ (ancestral villages), which were generally visited at least once a year.⁹

The identification of Tamil Muslims with Tamil culture led to claims that the Tamil Muslim sub-divisions represent a Muslim variant of the Hindu caste system.¹⁰ Certainly endogamy is widespread, but the egalitarian ethos of Islam is strongly entrenched amongst Tamil Muslims and endogamy is not practiced to maintain the purity of blood, but rather to match spouses who share the same socio-economic and cultural traits. Intermarriage between members of the different subdivisions is not uncommon in urban areas, although it is certainly less common in rural areas. This is partly due to the territorially distinct distribution of the various sub-divisions—Marakayyars and Kayalars are concentrated in coastal urban centres, whilst Labbais and Ravuttars are found in both coastal and agricultural areas. The characteristics of Hindu caste—hereditary occupations, rigid endogamy, strict rules of social intercourse and commensality—are absent amongst the Tamil Muslims who exhibit a remarkably egalitarian outlook. Hierarchy is not based on bloodlines or membership of a particular sub-division, but rather on age, wealth, religious learning and social conduct. Exceptions do exist, most notably among the Kayalars whose business dealings were considered socially undesirable. However, the absence of caste amongst Tamil Muslims makes them exceptional amongst Indian Muslims.¹¹

Tamil Muslims were prominent in trade with Sri Lanka and across the Bay of Bengal with Sumatra and the eastern shore of the Bay from Tenasserim to Melaka. Known in Southeast Asia as Chulias, they ranked second after Gujarati merchants as the most important mercantile community.¹² Muslims fled Melaka when it fell to the Portuguese in 1511, but Chulias continued to trade out of Kedah and Phuket and ports in lower Burma. Indeed, until the early decades of the nineteenth century, they were prominent partners of English, Dutch and Danish private and company traders between southern India and Southeast Asia.¹³

Despite their economic power, Tamil Muslims never exerted political power. The two periods of Muslim domination over parts of the Tamil countryside followed invasions by Muslims from north and central India. Malik Kafur established the short-lived Madurai Sultanate in the fourteenth century that was dominated by Urdu Muslims. Likewise, Urdu Muslims dominated the regimes of the Nawabs of the Carnatic and Tipu Sultan in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Tamil Muslims were not involved in either administration. However, the Nawabs of the Carnatic did seek the support of Tamil Muslims by patronising the ancient mosques and dargahs scattered across the Tamil countryside.

Although lacking political power, Tamil Muslims were part of the fabric of Tamil society. Their mercantile skills intersected with the interests of local Hindu rulers keen to enhance their revenue by promoting international maritime trade from at least the eleventh century. By the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Tamil Muslim merchants controlled the profitable pearl and chank shell-fisheries of the Gulf of Manaar and the trade in cavalry horses from the Middle East until ousted by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century.¹⁴

Origins and History: Urdu Muslims

From at least the thirteenth century there was a land-based expansion of Islam into central and southern India from the Ganges valley. The first substantial wave of Urdu- and Persian-speaking immigrants came with Malik Kafur in the fourteenth century. They settled in garrison and administrative centres in the Deccan districts where they served first Muslim and then Hindu rulers as a service and military élite. Further immigration continued for 400 years, under the Deccan Sultanates, the Vijayanagara empire, the Mughals, the Nizams of Hyderabad, Tipu Sultan, the Nawabs of the Carnatic and the British. Most immigrant Muslims were Urdu-speakers, and the élite amongst them brought their distinctive Indo–Persian culture with them. Some Urdu Muslims were descendants of South Asian converts, but others claimed Arabian, Persian and Central Asian descent.

Like Tamil Muslims, the Urdu Muslims were divided into several groups. The Navaiyat formed a Shafi’i élite and claimed descent from settlers who arrived in the Deccan from Basra in the thirteenth century. They prospered as merchants and in the service of local rulers in central India before moving south into the Tamil country with the Mughals in the early eighteenth century. Following the eclipse of Mughal authority in the south in the early eighteenth century, the Navaiyat found employment with their successors, the Nawabs of the Carnatic. Other Urdu Muslims claim descent from Pathan warriors and Persian Shi’ite merchants. However, the majority had mixed origins—being descended from the ulema, soldiers, scholars, artisans and camp followers who settled in and around Muslim administrative centres.

Urdu Muslims were not so clearly divided into sub-divisions as the Tamil Muslims. Status in Urdu Muslim society ostensibly stemmed from one’s particular rank or ashraf. Ideally an ashraf was an endogamous unit based on racial descent or descent from the Prophet, and these rules were jealously preserved to maintain the purity of bloodlines, particularly amongst Urdu Muslims who claimed foreign descent. But intermarriage was not uncommon given certain conditions, principally associated with wealth and the adoption of certain cultural and social practices. With wealth individuals could claim, and gain, a higher ashraf status—thus the saying ‘Last year I was a julaha [weaver], this year I am a Sheikh, next year, if prices rise, I shall be a Saiyidl!’¹⁵ While this saying indicates the possibility of upward mobility, it also indicates that amongst Muslims in lower economic strata there were caste-like attitudes relating to economic and social activities and their relationship with more prosperous Muslims. The egalitarian ethos of Islam was less evident in this Muslim milieu than it was amongst the Tamil Muslims. External boundaries (based on language, culture and religion) defined Urdu Muslims and gave them a stronger sense of group identity than the Tamil Muslims that was reinforced by links between the Urdu Muslims of the Presidency and Urdu-speakers in the princely state of Hyderabad and northern India.

Although Urdu was the claimed first language of those Muslims recorded in the decennial censuses as Urdu-speaking Muslims, the British noted in the late nineteenth century that ‘No educated native of this Presidency employs Ordoo (sic) in his private correspondence or in the transaction of ordinary business’ preferring ‘Deccanee’ as their language of common usage.¹⁶ Given that Muslim newspapers in the Presidency were published in Urdu, it seems most likely that Urdu was certainly the preferred language of wealthier and aristocratic Urdu Muslims whilst ‘Deccanee’—a variety of Urdu modified grammatically by contact with Dravidian languages such as Tamil and Telugu—was the daily language of most Muslims who claimed to be Urdu speakers. But as Urdu was the language of instruction in makhtabs and in the mosque alongside Arabic, British claims should be treated cautiously, and most Urdu Muslims were likely to be acquainted with both Urdu and Deccanee.

From the eighteenth century on, as British rule extended over southern India, there was a steady stream of Muslim immigrants seeking new opportunities. Most were merchants from western and northern India; others were craftsmen and literati who gravitated to Chennai as the new centre of political and economic...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Glossary
• List of Abbreviations
• Kenneth McPherson, 1944–2010: An Appreciation
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. The Muslims of the Madras Presidency—Origins and History To 1901
• 2. The Politicisation of the Urdu Muslims of the Madras Presidency, 1901–1909
• 3. Lucknow and Muslim Leadership, 1909–1918
• 4. From Lucknow to the Reforms, 1917–1919
• 5. Experiments and Frustration, 1919–1921
• 6. Non-Cooperation and Council Entry, 1920–1926
• 7. In Search of Muslim Political Unity
• 8. The Failure of Reconciliation
• 9. Madras Muslims and the National Movement, 1934–1937
• 10. 1937 and Beyond
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Index