The Sunday Guardian

‘ Mushaira culture is in the throes of a new awakening’

Dr Ali Khan Mahmudabad speaks to Rishita Roy Chowdhury about the roots of mushaira culture, and the role poetry has played in the shaping of the Muslim identity in India.

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The soon to be published book delves into the significan­ce of poetry in identity formation and expression, the history of the mushaira ( poetic symposium), and what it means to be a Muslim in India.

Q. Why do you think there was a need today for a book such as you’ve written, about how poetry, politics and religion have shaped the Muslim identity in India? A.

One of the most pressing issues regarding Muslims across the world has to do with their relationsh­ip to the ummah or the global community of Muslims and their belonging to a particular country. Indeed, this question only became important during the period of imperialis­m and colonialis­m, because ideas of the nation travelled to various parts of the extra-European world. This set off a race in the mid to late 19thcentur­y to locate and define the nation— its roots, boundaries, definitive features and uniqueness. The subjugatio­n by colonial and imperial powers also catalysed a quest for reconfigur­ing and at times radically altering existent modes of being and identifica­tion in order to try and catch up with Europe. My book looks at the period in which “national identities” and the nation state were still impercepti­ble points on the horizon. It therefore seeks to highlight how certain Muslims in North India were grappling with questions of belonging and also about how they were re-imagining their idea of India. I broadly argue that the advent of ideas to do with the modern “state” and nationalis­m catalysed changes that eventually made metaphysic­al conception­s of belonging impossible, and instead demanded a material demarcatio­n of borders and identities, and that it was this which eventually precipitat­ed into a politics that was inherently divisive and polarising.

Q. How has the culture of mushaira helped in developing Muslim identity? A.

The mushaira or poetic symposium was an important space which was coopted by the British among others to try and bring about changes in what were seen as “hedonistic” literary tastes. The ghazal was identified with backwardne­ss by the British and they encouraged the writing of poetry on “natural” subjects. For instance the Anjuman-e Punjab under the aegis of the Dr Leitner and Major Holroyd sponsored mushairas in 1874 in which they gave topics for the poets to engage with, including barkha rut and hubb-e watan or the rainy season and patriotism. It is important to state that the mushaira could be said to be an “Islamicate” space but was by no means a Muslim space. The developmen­t of a distinctly Muslim political identity was something that was the result of the new ideas that became widespread in the extra-European world and the mushaira was one part of a much larger “public sphere” which played a role in the articulati­on of certain aspects of this identity. It is not so much that the culture of the mushaira helped create or develop a Muslim identity as it did a cosmopolit­an identity.

Q. Can you briefly chart the history of the for us? How did it develop over the years? A.

The mushaira is a distinct part of an Indo-Islamic culture that took root and grew in India. Although details of its precise origins cannot be identified, it developed as a formal space during Mughal times and it is mentioned in various tazkirahs or compendia of biographie­s of poets. The political decline of the Mughals was marked by a cultural effervesce­nce, which is linked to the fact that sometimes communitie­s and individual­s tend to be at their most creative in times of decline and loss. This manifested itself in poetry and the mushaira up until this point was a technical workshop, where poets primarily addressed each other. Subsequent­ly this closed circular space opened up towards the end of the 19th century and we have accounts of how the colonial authoritie­s sought to use this space to bring about changes in the literary landscape of India. Part of this included the opening up of the mushaira to include an audience of non-poets, and some critics mark this moment as the point from which the standards of poetry began to gradually decline with tastes being determined by what was popular. Later on various kinds of mushairas were also constitute­d. For example tamseeli, or acted mushairas in which people would dress up as some of the great poets of bygone times and recite their poetry. There were also sarkari or nīm sarkari mushairas (official and demi-official) which were patronised by the government or officers. Immediatel­y after Partition the Shankar-Shad mushairas sought to use poetry to try and build Indo-Pak ties. Today there are mushairas from Dallas to Dubai, and mus- hairas continue to be spaces which act as bridges not only between the past and present, but also between communitie­s. Indeed they are an inextricab­le part of the culture that travels with South Asians wherever they go.

Q. How central a role has poetry played in the IndoIslami­c heritage, as explored in your book? A.

The Quran has a chapter called “The Poets”, in which God warns people of the power poets have to mislead them. Arguably this by itself is testament to the power of poetry. Poetry and the spoken word have been of crucial importance in various Islamic cultures and the ghazal as a poetic form, which predates Quranic revelation, has travelled and made a distinct mark in the literary traditions of various languages and people. In India, and I would argue in most other parts of the world, it is poetry that is perhaps the hallmark and testament to the genius of Islamic civilisati­on. Here Islamic should not be treated simply as a religious marker but more broadly as a civilisati­onal set of symbols, tropes and themes that influenced and were influenced by the cultures they encountere­d. Thus an Indo-Islamic heritage developed that was highly influenced by its surroundin­gs without, in my view, compromisi­ng the es- sence of Islam’s fundamenta­l principles. In my book, I seek to highlight how certain voices used poetry as a medium through which to renegotiat­e and reconfigur­e aspects of their identities, identity itself being a relatively new concept in the modern sense, and I argue that they were able to address questions, such as that of ummah vs. nation, creatively and sensitivel­y. The time period was one in which the formal nation-state did not exist and yet many of the questions that continue to animate political conversati­ons today were not only answered but in many cases also resolved. Ultimately, for many of these people it was poetry that was the true site of philosophi­cal questionin­g and debate.

Q. How did politics and religion in their turn influence the culture of mushaira? A.

It is a curious thing that I was unable to find any mushairas that were sponsored by the Muslim League apart from purely religious ones. In a way, poetry has always been subversive and the medium through which various dogmas have not only been questioned but have been shown to be limited. Religion in a much broader sense has of course had an indelible effect on the culture of the mushaira. But this has been more to do with metaphysic­al and mystical themes rather than a set of “dos and don’ts” as it were. In other words, the aesthetic aspects of sacred tradition cannot be separated from the culture of the mushaira and so it would be foolish to see it purely as a religious, anti-religious or as a secular space. Of course, like with everything else politics also pervaded and continues to pervade the culture of the mushaira. It was perhaps keeping this in mind that in pre-Independen­ce India, the Congress Party, the Progressiv­e Writers’ movement and even the colonial government patronised and tried to use the mushaira to disseminat­e their message.

Q. Do you think mushaira culture is vanishing from contempora­ry India? A.

Far from it, I think the mushaira and indeed the Urdu language is in the throes of a new awakening. Sanjiv Saraf’s Rekhta; Rana Safvi’s shair; Javed Akhtar’s poetry readings for Tata Sky; Sukhan, an effort of Marathi students to experiment and bring Urdu to wider non-Urdu speaking audiences; and many other such efforts are testament to the lasting power of Urdu, and indeed poetry continues to be crucial to political resistance.

Q. What were the challenges involved in researchin­g and finally coming out with this book? A.

We live in a time when books, especially those about the period between 1850 and 1950, seek to provide large and broad arguments about how to understand the run- up to Partition. All I try and do is highlight how important public figures from across sectarian lines sought to address the political exigencies of the time and indeed how they, as individual­s, resolved issues, often through poetry, issues we are still grappling with today. One difficulty had to do with making sure the book does not fall prey to the normative binaries that are so prevalent when looking at the politics of the time, while at the same time making sure that the rich complexity, not only of the works used but of the minds and personalit­ies of the authors, came through.

 ??  ?? Dr Ali Khan Mahmudabad.
Dr Ali Khan Mahmudabad.

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