Benares, syncretic city of yore

Benares, syncretic city of yore
Seema Alavi

The controversy around the shooting of Deepa Mehta's film, Water, in Benares highlights once again the relevance of interpretating the past for living the present. The delineations of the past are very often reconstructions drawing on the needs of the present. Thus, in the case of Benares, the dominant image of the city as ``Hindu'', ``holy'' and its people predominantly ``devout Hindus'' is simply one of the many perspectives on the city. Since it suits the political ideology of the Sangh parivar, it has been blown out of proportion. The intolerance of the parivar to alternate views on the city, and the UP government's lack of will to implement the orders of the Information ministry is being camouflaged by shifting the focus on the government's responsibility to respect the sentiments of the ``Hindus of the holy city''.

But how ``Hindu'' is the city of Benares? Is that its only identity? At what historical moment did it acquire this identity? These are questions which need to beaddressed for understanding the increasing spate of mind-boggling intolerance in our society.

The city of Benares has long been a great shrine and civilisational centre. But the civilisational methods of the city were never monolithic ``Hindu''. The entire region remained an epitome of cultural tolerance, accommodating waves of diverse ethnic groups that settled in the area. The semi-tribal communities of the region accepted the Muslim Sharqi dynasty as their rulers in the 14th to 15th century. It is in their reign that the region began to be colonised by waves of Rajputs moving in from Western India. As the Rajputs filled the landscape as important landholders they also joined the administration of the Muslim rulers. Indeed, when Akbar, the Mughal Emperor, took over, not only did the Rajputs of the region serve him but he also patronised the city as a chief centre of learning.

This accommodative trend continued even after Mughal decline when the region came under the control of the Awadhnawabs. The more well-known 18th century rajas of Benares, Balwant Singh and Cheyt Singh, owed their transition from zamindars to rajas to the goodwill of the Muslim revenue administrator of Awadh, Rustam Ali.

Significantly, the accommodative, culturally synthetic strand in the Benares Raj was just one of its multiple profiles. Another equally important aspect was the regime's increasing projection of itself as a ``Hindu'' raj. Raja Cheyt Singh spearheaded this drive.

It was also in this period that the practice of burning corpses at Harish Chandra ghat became common among high caste Hindus. Finally, it was also in this period that a growing involvement of the raja with the Ram tradition was noticed. With the British take over of Benares, after crushing the ``insurrection'' of Raja Cheyt Singh in 1782, the ``Hindu'' credentials of the region only further intensified. Particularly because British Residents began to take steps to control social customs like female infanticide and sati practiced bythe Rajputs living in the region. The Hindu reaction was quite clearly in terms of ``protecting'' their religious identity.

However, British interventions were cautious, marked as they were by their professed orientalist philosophy of ``preserving Hindu tradition'' at Kashi, which came to be regarded as a centre of Brahmanical learning. British rule thus changed the character of the city. From being defined as loosely ``Hindu'', it was now projected as an overtly Brahmanical Hindu one.

Again, this was yet another of the city's multiple identities. Coexisting with this profile was also one of shared beliefs between Hindus and Muslims. Neither the rajas of Benares nor the British could change this shared world of the region. The invocation of the sacred to bear witness to the justice of a claim during a trial was practiced by both communities.

These are some of the elements of the city's ambivalent past: syncretic, Hindu, Brahmanical and non-Brahmanical folk tradition. The presentprojection of the city and its people as Brahmanical Hindu suits the political ideology of the Sangh Parivar, but amounts to perpetrating an injustice on its history.

òf40óThe writer is associate professor of history at Jamia Millia, New Delhiòf39óØ