Performing and Supplicating Mānik Pīr

Home , 24 Parganas, Fakir, Haji Shariatullah, Khan Jahan Ali, Muhammad Enamul Haq, Pir (Alevism)

Infrapolitics in the Domain of Popular Islam Syed Jamil Ahmed

In isolated rural pockets of the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal, which sprawls across an international border separating Bangladesh and West Bengal (India), a number of performances are held in honor of a Sufi culture-hero popularly known asM anik Pir.1 These performances assert that Manik Pir is a miracle worker who was born by the generative action of a flower and not the conjugal union of humans, and that the pir possesses the power to reinstate eyesight, enable pregnancy, restore life to animals, and empower the lame. He can also restore dead humans to life and cure all forms of illness. Numerous devotees supplicate Manik Pir in times

1. Among the Sufis, the term pīr, derived from the Persian, denotes a spiritual director or guide.

Syed Jamil Ahmed is a director based in Bangladesh, and Professor at the Department of Theatre and Music, University of Dhaka. He has received two Fulbright fellowships (1990, 2005), has published essays in Research in Drama Education, Asian Theatre Journal, TDR, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, South Asian Popular Culture, and New Theatre Quarterly, and has taught at Antioch College, USA (1990), King Alfred’s College, UK (2002), and San Francisco City College, USA (2005). His book- length publications in English are Acinpākhi Infinity: Indigenous Theatre in Bangladesh (University Press Limited, 2000), In Praise of Nirañjan: Islam, Theatre, and Bangladesh (Pathak Samabesh, 2001) and Reading against the Orientalist Grain: Performance and Politics Entwined with a Buddhist Strain (Anderson Printing House Private Limited, 2008).

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 of distress, especially when all other means fail.2 The performances and rituals supplicating Manik Pir function as “infrapolitics” of the subaltern classes, i.e., “a wide variety of low-profile forms of resistance that dare not speak in their own name” (Scott 1990:19), effectively generating “resistance of a different kind: dispersed in the fields we do not con- ventionally associate with the political; residing […] sometimes in what looks like cultural difference” (O’Hanlon 2000:110). The Figure 2. Sahar Ālī Sardār as Mānik Pīr brings Kānu Ghos. (the doll) back to “invisibility” of infrapolitics life in a mānik pīrer gān performance at Kāsimpur village in Sātkhirā district, is largely by design, part of a 23 October 1995. (Photo by Syed Jamil Ahmed) tactical choice of the subaltern classes facing situations of fear, intimidation, and, borrowing a phrase from Marx, “[t]he dull compulsion of economic relations” (1965:737) that enforces subjection. Hardly traceable in the public transcript, (i.e., “the open interaction between subordinates and those who dominate” [Scott 1990:2]), the subaltern classes articulate their infrapolitics as a hidden transcript or the “discourse that takes place ‘offstage,’ beyond direct observation by the powerholders” (4). In my examination of how infrapolitics operates in the domain of “popular Islam,” a term that refers to, for the purpose of this essay, “the derivative and synthetic patterns of the little tradition characteristic of communities on the periphery rather than at the center of a putative Islamic civilization” (Gaffney 1992:39), I first explore indigenous performances of Manik Pir and then investigate the rituals of his cult. Both of these sections remain anthropologically informed and attempt to unravel the devices that the cult of Manik Pir generates in laboring against threats of extinction and assimilation while at the same time seeking to enforce domi- nance by exercising symbolic violence and promoting the cult’s religious habitus. A substantial number of popular (“folk”) genres—such as tales, theatrical performances, songs, and religious rituals—operate in a realm that lies strategically between public and hidden transcripts, where they articulate disguised ideological insubordination and critique the dominant classes “while hiding behind anonymity or behind innocuous understanding of their conduct” (Scott 1990:xiii).

2. All the information incorporated in this essay regarding performances and practices related to the cult of Mānik Pīr, unless stated otherwise, have been gathered by field-level research investigations. Information from Sātkhirā and Khulnā districts in Bangladesh, and Kolkata, Nadiyā, and North 24-Parganas in West Bengal has been gathered by the author from four investigations conducted on 23 October 1995 (in Sātkhirā), 7–8 October 2007 (in Sātkhirā), 2–3 November 2007 (in Sātkhirā and Khulnā), and 27–30 March 2008 (in Kolkata and North 24- Parganas, West Bengal). Alim al-Razi, a PhD candidate at the Department of Theatre and Music, the University of Dhaka, has gathered information from Syhlet; Santanu Halder, an ex-student of the Department of Theatre and Music, has collected from Kotālipādā, in Gopālgañj district; Ānanda Dāsa, local correspondent of the Daily Sangbad in Jessore, from Jessore district and Saymon Zakaria from Kuśtiyā district.

Figure 1. (previous page) A performance of mānik jātrā by the Śobhnā Mānik Jātrā troupe on 2–3 November 2007, at Śobhnā village in Khulna district. Sitting on the “throne” is Jayanūr Bādśāh,

SyedJamil Ahmed the king of Bālur Bāzār. The musicians are sitting to his left and right. (Photo by Alim Al Razi)

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 Figure 3. Sahar Ālī Sardār, a fakir of Mānik Pīr, Figure 4. One of the musicians as Maynā Bud.i begs invoking Mānik Pīr in a mānik pīrer gān forgiveness from Sahar Ālī Sardār as Mānik Pīr, performance at Kāsimpur village in Sātkhirā in a mānik pīrer gān performance at Kāsimpur district, 23 October 1995. (Photo by Syed Jamil village in Sātkhirā district, 23 October 1995. Ahmed) (Photo by Syed Jamil Ahmed)

Performing Manik Pir in the Domain of Popular Islam It was an October evening in 1995. I was sitting on the straw-strewn ground of the courtyard of a farmer’s homestead in Kasimpur, an average village not far from Satkhira, a town in south- western Bangladesh. A little away from me, at the center of the courtyard, the asar (performance space) was already set up for a manik pirer gan performance. A mat made of date-palm leaf lay awkwardly on the ground; it was not large enough to cover the nine foot square space. At its center was a bamboo pole that held up an awning also providing support for a gas-pressure lantern emitting a harsh glare. Children and adult males sat all around the asar, their attention silently focused on the performers. Women sat further away, where the glare of the lamp had softened considerably. A substantial number of the spectators were Hindus, Muslims being the majority by only a slim margin. On the western side of the asar lay the asan (a low wooden seat), Performing and Supplicating M a nik i r P on which was placed a camar (a whisk; fig. 2) and thea sa (a small baton with an inverted crescent attached to its top). Five musicians were playing their instruments: the harmonium player sitting on the side opposite to the asan; the judi and the dhol players on the northern side; and opposite to them the prem-judi and the cau-tara players.3 Three of them were Hindus and two, Muslims. They were all males, farmers by profession. The gayen (lead narrator) was a Muslim. Wearing all white—a pañjabi4 and a pair of pyjamas—he was standing near the center of the asar facing the asan as he sang a song invoking Manik Pir and inviting him to occupy the asan (fig. 3).

3. The judi is a pair of cymbals; the dhol, a two-sided drum; the prem-judi, a percussion instrument made of two rectangular wooden pieces; and the cau-tārā is a four-stringed instrument. 4. A pāñjābi is a loose full-sleeved shirt worn as an upper garment. See figures 3 and 4.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 The gayen was Mohammad Sahar Ali Sardar, a fakir5 of Manik Pir from the nearby Akhrakhola village who had married and settled down as a farmer after obtaining permission from his guru Takabbar Ali Baul (from Bhañga village in the same district). Sahar Ali is a mechanic of shallow tube well pumps and sells medicine at local hats (weekly markets), where he sings marfati songs6 to draw a crowd. I was on a field trip for my doctoral research on the indigenous theatre of Bangladesh when I accidentally landed at the site of this performance of manik pirer gan. In rural pockets of Satkhira administrative district, farmers (mostly Hindus) often pledge (manat) such a performance to Manik Pir when a member of a family is seriously ill or when pestilence strikes their cattle. After the pestilence passes or the ailment has been overcome, a performance is sponsored in fulfilment of the pledge. On this occasion, a Muslim farmer had sponsored the performance as a pledged offering after members of his family had been freed from a long bout of persistent sicknesses of various kinds. Sahar Ali began to perform “Kanu Ghošer Pala” (The Episode of Kanu Ghoš), possibly the most popular piece related to Manik Pir in Bangladesh today. As he sang, describing as well as enacting what transpired in the lyrics, the musicians played their instruments and then joined in to sing the refrain. Sahar Ali interrupted his song occasionally with prose narration; and where he wanted to move at a faster pace, he simply recited the verse. But the most important scenes were enacted with characters. In these, one or more of the musicians rose, performed the role(s) (without any change of costume) (fig. 4), and then returned to play his instrument. “Kanu Ghošer Pala” is the story of Manik and his twin brother Gopta—the sons of King Karam-din and Queen Dudh Bibi (the “Milk Lady”)—who had renounced the princely life of pleasure, arriving at the town of Gokul. There they proceed to the homestead of Kanu Ghoš and his brother Kinu Ghoš, the masters of a hundred thousand cows, and request some milk. Because the mendicants are Muslims, Mayna Budi, the mother of Kanu and Kinu, refuses but later concedes grudgingly—providing Manik a pitcher with a hundred holes and asking him to milk a barren cow. With Allah’s blessing, Manik Pir has no problem in obtaining milk from the cow, and collects it in the pitcher that leaks no more. Mayna Budi, enraged because she suspects that the two fakirs have tricked her, seizes the pitcher full of milk. Jaya Durga, her daughter-in- law, is horrified by Mayna Budi’s sinful act and offers the two fakirs a little milk in secret. Pleased by her act of devotion, Manik Pir blesses her by placing his hand over her head, but just at that moment the old woman appears. Angered by her daughter-in-law’s conduct, she hastens to Kanu to complain that his wife was engaged in an illicit relationship with a Muslim fakir. Kanu rushes back home and assaults the fakirs with a wooden staff. The incensed mendicants utter a curse and disappear. Immediately, Kanu Ghoš’s homestead is set ablaze and all his cows are struck dead. Kanu Ghoš is reduced to begging and collecting cow-dung. Manik Pir continues to punish Kanu by sending a snake to bite and kill him. His bereaved mother rushes frantically to the twin mendicants, acknowledges her guilt, offers them nine pots of milk that she has managed to collect, and begs their forgiveness, which they grant immediately. Then the three of them go to the crema- tion ground where Manik Pir brings Kanu back to life (fig. 2) and restores his home and all his cows. Kanu Ghoš, Jaya Durga, and Mayna Budi bow to the brothers in reverence. In northern Bangladesh, a performance with a text similar to manik pirer gan is the jag gan. It is seen mostly in the month of Pauš7 after the main Aman paddy8 has been harvested. Young

5. Fakirs are Muslim religious mendicants. 6. Mārfatī is a genre of folk music in Bangladesh that is heavily influenced by Sufism. These songs “explain the mystery of creation of the world, the universe and the body, and thus teach methods of discovering the Supreme Being” (Chowdhury and Harvilahti 2003:380). 7. Pauš is the 9th month in the Bengali calendar, which extends from mid-December to mid-January. 8. Āman is the most important variety of paddy in Bangladesh and is grown from July to mid-December. SyedJamil Ahmed

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 Figure 5. The performers of the Śobhnā Mānik Jātrā troupe putting on their makeup before the performance at Śobhnā village in Khulna district, 2 November 2007. (Photo by Syed Jamil Ahmed)

boys as well as adult Muslim farmers in the Rangpur, Rajsahi, Bogra, and Pabna regions participate in this performance in praise of Manik Pir. It is believed that participation in such performances brings the divine grace of the pir. In one version of the performance, Manik Pir appears as the junior partner of Sona Pir in Goalpada,9 but the people of the region refuse to acknowledge their divinity and pay them due respect. In reprisal, the two pirs magically strike dead the guilty men along with 900 thousand cows and two million calves. When the women begin to wail, the two pirs take pity on them and revive their men and cattle. With the miracu- lous power of the pirs thus established, the people submit to them and sing their praise (Hai 1987:320–23; Chowdhury 2003b:342; Ahmed 2003:201). The infrapolitics of the cult of Manik Pir in the two performances discussed above is articulated by a hidden transcript. In manik pirer gan, the name of Kanu, who is the master of a hundred thousand cows, is evocative of Kršña (also called Kanai), the cowherd folk-hero who would often steal curds and butter from the milkmaids of Gokul. Hence, when Kanu and his mother refuse to acknowledge the cult’s symbolic capital in the form of legitimate demand for recognition, deference, veneration, and obedience, Kanu is reduced to ashes. At this level, the Performing and Supplicating M a nik i r P pir is equated with the popular image of iconoclastic and marauding bands of Islamic conquerors who seek to rule by the sword alone. A similar act of symbolic violence is evident in jag gan, when Manik Pir and Sona Pir in Goalpada (also evocative of Gokul) cause havoc because the inhabitants refuse to acknowledge their divinity. Dineshchandra Sen may be quite correct in explaining that the reason behind “the extraordi- nary respect paid to [Manik Pir] by the rural agricultural Hindus who are worshippers of cows” may be based upon “some healing power that he possessed in regard to the diseases of [their]

9. This name may be taken to be a compound of “goyāl,” literally, “cowshed,” and “pādā,” literally “a locality.”

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 sacred animals” (1920:123). Hence, it is no wonder that this Muslim pir is literally inscribed with milk: born of the “Milk Lady,” he is appeased when milk is offered to him and enraged when it is denied. But this explanation needs to be qualified with reference to the trepidation— if not “terror” (a term overtaxed in recent times by the zealous application of Bush, Jr.)—that the “worshippers of cows” may also harbor regarding Manik Pir. It is necessary to not forget that Manik Pir demands unqualified devotion that cannot be questioned or reasoned—like the Islamists who demand unquestioned allegiance from believers in the name of Allah. However, where he differs starkly from the Islamists is that he does not demand conversion into Islam and rejection of all gods save Allah (as the primary declaration of faith would require a believer to acknowledge). At the same time, he fights against the likes of Mayna Budi, who discriminate against the Muslims, and Kanu, who would want to violently eradicate the Muslims; but he has no quarrel with Jaya Durga. It is here that the performance of Manik Pir functions as “invisible” infrapolitics of the subaltern classes. The articulation of infrapolitics is reversed when one enters West Bengal, where intellectual Marxism, Naxalite movements, and trade unionism have dominated the region’s economic and state-level politics for three decades; and where the Hindu population heavily exceeds that of the Muslims.10 Jag gan featuring Manik Pir is not seen here. Rather, a performance by this name in Koch Bihar and Jalpaiguri districts presents Kršña’s lila (sport) with Radha or erotic tales. Sona Pir has been transmuted here into Sona Ray and narratives recounting his exploits are presented in kecchar gan (Bhattacharya 1970:108–17). However, manik pirer gan is seen in the South 24- Parganas administrative district, where Muslim fakirs perform a text similar to “Kanu Ghošer Pala” (Brahma 1989:251–52). In one version of the performance, Manik Pir appears with Gaja at the door of a poverty- stricken Muslim hut-builder. He is so poor that he is called Murad Kangal (Murad the Beggar). Because he has nothing to offer the two fakirs, he pawns his son Yusuf to the grain merchant (Saudagar Caca) for one seer11 of rice. Manik Pir is highly pleased with Murad Kangal’s act of devotion. He prays to Ma Lakhi (goddess Lakšmi) to bless poor Murad and cook his food. The (Hindu) goddess grants the (Muslim) pir’s prayer and Murad is no longer a kangal (Ghosh 2002). In this performance, one can read the public transcript as a submission to a Hindu deity when Manik Pir invokes Lakšmi, the Hindu deity of wealth, prosperity, and fortune, to bless Murad Kangal. But it is also possible to read a hidden transcript: that Manik Pir demonstrates his influence over a very important Hindu deity, thus proving the efficacy of his cult. Because Lakšmi accepts his prayer, a devotee of Manik Pir is doubly favored since s/he gains access to both the divinities. It is actually a bargain: if you buy one (i.e., Manik Pir), you get another (i.e., Lakšmi) free. Another Manik Pir performance in West Bengal is patuya gan. As seen in Medinipur district, itinerant performers employ scrolls (known as Manik Pir Pata) depicting the exploits of the pir as a visual aid in their performances. These scrolls, which are less than two feet wide, display a number of panels, all showing miracles of Manik Pir. Four panels of a scroll painted by Dukhu Shyam Chitrakar shows Manik Pir blessing a sick child and healing him, a pile of offerings made to the pir, followers propagating the worship of the pir, and new converts coming to see the pir (Singh 1995:104). Nestled within these registers is a hidden transcript: a Muslim pir successfully wins over the Hindu population and is more efficacious than the mighty deities of the Hindu pantheon.

10. The Left Front, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has ruled West Bengal for three decades. In effect, it is the world’s longest-running democratically elected communist government. According to the 1991 census, 74.69 percent of the population of West Bengal is Hindu and 23.25 percent is Muslim (South Asia Research Society 2008). 11. A traditional weight unit in South Asia, a seer is equivalent to 0.9331 kilogram. SyedJamil Ahmed

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 Across the border, back in Bangladesh, the infrapolitics of the cult of Manik Pir sometimes extend beyond Hinduism and Islam. In manik jatra, performed by the Sobhna Manik Jatra Company, Manik and his twin brother Gopta appear at the palace gate of Jayanur Badsah (fig. 6), the king of Balur Bazar. Refusing to accept alms from the guard, they seek an audience with the king and inform him that his four sons, Injil, Tourap, Jabbur, and Forkan, will fail to maintain his kingdom. Gopta advises the king to make offerings to Manik Pir and seek his blessing for a son who will be an able successor. After the king makes his offering, Manik Pir gives him a flower for his youngest queen (Tara Bhanu) to eat. When the king complies (fig. 7), the queen, who is childless, shows no respect for the pir because all her previous attempts at supplicating the divine failed to bear her a child. Though she carries out her husband’s command, her lack of respect infuriates Gopta. He curses her that she will be exiled to the forest and her son will be the cause of her husband’s blindness. The rest of the performance shows the banishment of Tara Bhanu to the forest (where she remains under the protection of Manik Pir and Gopta), the birth of her son (Tajal), the loss of King Jayanur’s eyesight (fig. 8), and the journey of Injil, Tourap, Jabbur, Forkan, and Tajal to the land of the fairies to steal a gole baka-ali flower to restore their father’s vision. The four brothers are caught and imprisoned, but Tajal succeeds in obtaining the flower by winning the heart of the fairy princess Ayra. He frees his brothers, but Injil, in an act of outright betrayal, kills him (fig. 9) and goes back home to claim credit for stealing the flower. However, Tajal recovers, speeds back home with Ayra, and proves that Injil is guilty. Jayanur has Tajal married to Ayra and installs him on the throne of Balur Bazar as the people of the kingdom rejoice. At each moment of crisis, when all appears to be lost, Manik Pir and Gopta appear unfailingly as saviors of the righteous Tajal. Performing and Supplicating M a nik i r P

Figure 6. Mānik and his twin brother Gopta appear at the palace gate of Jayanūr Bādśāh, the king of Bālur Bāzār, in the mānik jātrā performance by the Śobhnā Mānik Jātrā troupe on 2–3 November 2007, at Śobhnā village in Khulna district. (Photo by Syed Jamil Ahmed)

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 In order to read the hidden transcript in manik jatra, one needs to take into account that in chapter 3, verse 3 (“The Family of Imran”), the Qur’an refers to the Torah as “Tawrat” and the New Testament as “Injil.” Again, in chapter 17, verse 55 (“The Children of Israel”), it refers to the Psalms of David as “Zaboor,” and in chapter 25, verse 1 (“The Criterion”), it refers to the Qur’an as “Furqan.” When Manik Pir and Gopta incite Jayanur Badsah into believ- ing that his four sons, Injil, Figure 7. Tārā Bhānu and Jayanūr Bādśāh in the mānik jātrā performance by Tourap (i.e., Tawrat), Jabbur the Śobhnā Mānik Jātrā troupe on 2–3 November 2007, at Śobhnā village in (i.e., Zaboor), and Forkan will Khulna district. (Photo by Syed Jamil Ahmed) fail to maintain his kingdom of Balur Bazar, they invoke these Qur’anic signifiers. The implication is clear: none of the followers of the four religions, including Islam, will be able to maintain and uphold the kingdom, which, by extension, implies the world. Jayanur Badsah is advised—and he accepts the advice—that only a child born by the flower of Manik Pir, i.e., Tajal or the “Crown of the Kingdom,” will be able to uphold the world. All disbelievers, including the queen, are employed to generate what the cult considers this legitimate demand for recognition, Figure 8. Blinded Jayanūr Bādśāh with Tājal (both sitting) and a minister deference, veneration, and (standing), in the mānik jātrā performance by the Śobhnā Mānik Jātrā troupe obedience. on 2–3 November 2007, at Śobhnā village in Khulna district. (Photo by Syed About a hundred miles Jamil Ahmed) north of Sobhna, where the Sobhna Manik Jatra Company performs manik jatra, another performance known as manik pirer git is presented by Polai Mañdal and his group of musicians from Lakšmi-dhad-diyad village (Bhedamara subdistrict in Kustiya administrative district). A few of the performers possess tiny land-holdings but most of them are landless farmers (known locally as jal-khata). Polai Mañdal believes strongly in the efficacy of Manik Pir’s authority and cites a personal experience as proof. He had stopped performing manik pirer git for a year and consequently was struck with an unknown stomach SyedJamil Ahmed

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 ailment. No doctor or kaviraj,12 he says, could cure him. Then he had a dream and pledged to perform again if he recovered from his ailment. Miraculously, he says, he recovered immediately. In fulfilment of his vow, he has ever since been performing each year without a break. During the month of Pauš, he and the members of his troupe go from house to house in his village and adjoining areas. In the courtyard of each house, they perform an episode of their narrative by singing, playing music, and dancing in a circle with Polai Mañdal at the center. At each house, they collect alms (in the form of rice, lentils, or money) in the name of the pir and bestow benediction in his name for the well being of the cattle. With the alms collected, they organize a sirni (or sinni, i.e., oblation)13 in honor of the pir on Pauš Samkranti, the last day of the month of Pauš. In their performance, Figure 9. Injil killing Tājal in the mānik jātrā performance by the childless Dudh Bibi, the queen Śobhnā Mānik Jātrā troupe on 2–3 November 2007, at Śobhnā of Karam Badsah, cries day and village in Khulna district. (Photo by Syed Jamil Ahmed) night for a baby. Her tears are so overwhelming that Allah’s throne is shaken. He cannot remain unmoved and sends Manik Pir as a child in her womb. Immediately after his birth, Manik Pir seeks permission from his mother to embrace the life of a fakir. Dudh Bibi is grief- stricken with Manik’s request. “What is this that you say, my child? I would rather you died in my womb than say what you said.” But Manik Pir does not listen to her and goes to the abode of Sona Pir in order to be a fakir.14 “Oh see him, people of the city”—sings Polai Mañdal as the gayen—“see Manik Pir abandoning his mother to become a fakir” (Zakaria 2004:16–20). The infrapolitics that performers such as Polai Mañdal are engaged in are articulated by Performing and Supplicating M a nik i r P a hidden transcript: that the salvation of the believer lies in accepting Manik Pir as the only authority who is capable of interceding with Allah on behalf of the believer. By extension of

12. A kavirāj is a physician who follows the Ayurvedic system of treatment. 13. Śirnī or sinni is a porridge-like preparation made of wheat or rice flour, milk, and molasses or sugar, to which fruits such as banana and cardamom, etc., may also be added. 14. Sonā Pīr is popular among the Muslim peasants in northern Bangladesh and is thought to be the equivalent of Sonā Rāy, venerated by the Hindu community of the same region.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 this faith, the so-called Five Fundamentals, or the five most important obligations of a Muslim under the Shariah (or the Islamic law), are made redundant.15 This is how performances of Manik Pir articulate infrapolitcs in scattered rural pockets of Khulna, Jesssore, Kustiya, Rangpur, Rajsahi, Bogra, and Pabna regions in Bangladesh, and 24 Parganas and Medinipur regions in West Bengal. His cult, Muhammad Enamul Haq believes, must have grown as a result of “the liberal and fraternizing influence of the Sufis” in the 15th and the 16th centuries, which made it possible for the Hindus and the Muslims to draw together “in mutual toleration and fraternity” (1975:288). According to Sen, legends of the pir developed around the same time (1920:98). Investigations have also revealed that at some places in Bangla- desh and West Bengal, Manik Pir has been venerated for 300 to 400 years (Maity 1988:145). Hence, it is not unlikely that since the 16th century, or shortly after, itinerant mendicant followers of Manik Pir have been traveling from village to village and door to door, eulogizing their patron pir in a manner not too dissimilar from Polai Mañdal’s as performance of manik pirer git. Manik pirer gan may have evolved during the second half of the 18th century, a time when narratives in honor of the pir were first written. Manik jatra must have evolved in the second half of 19th century when various forms of jatra became widely popular all over Bengal. Importantly, none of these performances were invented by the followers of Manik Pir. These followers simply adapted the minimal elements of Sufi doctrine to the existing performance genres of the non-Islamic population in order to establish and glorify their faith and struggle against the “pagan” deities as propagated in numerous performances of non-Islamic faiths and cults. A clear example is jag gan in honor of Manik Pir and Sona Pir, which is strikingly similar in form to jag gan in Koch Bihar and Jalpaiguri that presents Kršña’s lila. Devising these performances through appropriation, the followers of Manik Pir strove to establish and glorify their devotion by incorporating the theme of unflinching faith in Manik Pir and invest in him four supernatural abilities: to restore eyesight to the blind, enable the childless to conceive, reinstate life to an animal that has been dead for up to seven days, and empower the lame to walk. The disciples are not required to have the doctrinal knowledge of a theologian or be proficient in the intricacies of esoteric Sufi knowledge. Rather, they need only to trust the comforting faith that the pir is always present to help the believer in distress. However, if one is willing to agree with Max Weber that “the most elementary forms of behavior motivated by religious or magical factors are oriented to this world” (1978:399), and with Pierre Bourdieu who argues that systems of religious beliefs and practices are the “transfig- ured expression of the strategies of different categories of specialists competing for monopoly over the administration of the goods of salvation and of the different classes interested in their services” ([1971] 1991:4), it is possible to see, again following Bourdieu, “[w]hat is at stake is the monopoly of the legitimate exercise of the power to modify, in a deep and lasting fashion, the practice and world-view of lay people, by imposing on and inculcating in them a particular religious habitus” ([1971] 1987:126). Following this line of argument, there can be no question that the cult of Manik Pir, as a system of symbolic power, is indisputably “predisposed to assume an ideological function, a practical and political function of absolutization of the relative and legitimation of the arbitrary” (Bourdieu [1971] 1991:14). In their religious labor against non-Islamic faiths, the performers of Manik Pir seek to validate a particular vision of the sacred represented by the pir, who is the only intermediary

15. The Five Fundamentals (arkan ad-din, or the Five Pillars of Religion) are the five basic features of the religio-social organization of Islam that serve as anchoring points of the Sunni Muslim community’s life. The Five Fundamentals are (1) shahadah, or the profession of faith (that “there is no god but God: Muhammad is the Prophet of God”), (2) salat, or prayer (five times every day), (3) zakat, or almsgiving (obligatory tax payable annually on the assets ac- cumulated during the year), (4) sawm, or fasting (during the month of Ramadhan, the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar), and (5) hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca (mandatory for every able-bodied Muslim once in a lifetime, if one can afford it). SyedJamil Ahmed

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 to intercede on behalf of the devotee to the Divine. By disguising the underlying relations of interest through feigning apparent disinterest—for example, the healing of the sick child in patuya gan, transforming Murad the Beggar into an affluent person in “Murad Kangal,” or protecting Tara Bhanu and her son Tajal as in manik jatra—the performances generate symbolic capital in the form of legitimate demand for recognition, deference, veneration, and obedience. However, in staking a claim for total power over the lay people, the cult of Manik Pir has come in repeated conflict with Islamists. In the 19th century, the followers of Manik Pir were targeted by Islamic revivalist movements such as Faraizi, Tariqah-i-Muhammadiyah (or Indian Wahabism), Ta’aiyuni, and Ahl-i- Hadith, which all sought to discard un-Islamic practices and return to the pristine purity of the idealized tradition.16 These revivalist movements, led by a stratum of religious specialists (the ulama, or pure theologians and legists) who did not recognize the esoteric approach, mysticism, or the special spiritual powers of the pirs, used frenzied slogans such as “Islam in danger” to stir the people to wage jihad in order to liberate the Muslim lands from the British. “Rituals and practices that were linked to local culture were declared un-Islamic; they […] pushed for total ‘purification,’ including dress and manners, rituals and practices, language and identity” (Ahmed 2001:16). They were particularly vehement against performances such as those discussed above because these were considered clear signs of shirq (polytheism) and bid’at (sinful innovation). Religious intolerance is on the rise again in Bangladesh, as demonstrated by the recent spate of bombings orchestrated by Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), and Harqat-ul-Jihad (HuJi)—Islamist vigilante outfits that espouse the ideals of the Taliban. For these militant Islamists, “devotion to Islam calls them to the political activism in seeking an Islamic state with strict adherence to the shari’a (Muslim law) as they understand it to be instituted as both legal and normative order” (Bertocci 2001:71). Their hostility towards “un-Islamic” practices led them to bomb a cultural event in Jessore (1999), a celebration of Bengali New Year in Dhaka (2001), a cinema house in Satkhira (2002), four cinema houses in Mymansingh (2002), the shrine of a Sufi saint in Tangail (2003), the shrine of Sufi saintSa hjalal in Sylhet (twice in 2004), two cinema houses in Sylhet (2004), six rural cultural events (such as village fairs and performances) in Bogura, Nator, Jamalpur, Sherpur, and Pabna districts (December 2004–January 2005), and a series of 459 near-simultaneous targets across the country (2005) (Daily Star 2004; Islam 2005; Daily Star 2005). Consequently, some performances have disappeared. Jag gan has vanished from the Kurigram district in the north. Manik pirer gan is no longer performed in Jhenaidaha district, although it was very popular just 25 years ago. No longer do you hear of performances and sirni in Manik Pir’s honor during the crop festival known as Pauš-parvañ (or Pošla), which was once held all over rural Bangladesh on Pauš Samkranti, the last day of Pauš. Prior to this day, Muslim boys in a village would go around in the evenings throughout the month, singing songs in honor of Manik Pir, and Hindu boys would sing in honor of Lakšmi. As they made their rounds, they would visit different homesteads and collect money and/or food grains. On Pauš Samkranti, they would cook a celebratory meal in a field or near a forest and, after offeringpi tha

to the goddess Lakšmi or sirni to the pir, they would enjoy the meal themselves (Chowdhury Performing and Supplicating M a nik i r P 2003a:191–92). But none of these performances have disappeared entirely. In 1995, I could not trace manik jatra anywhere in southern Bangladesh. Many performers in the south told me that the form was

16. The movements of the Faraizi (led by Haji Shariatullah and Dudu Miayan), the Tariqah-i-Muhammadiyah (led by Sayyid Ahmad Shahid and Titu Mir), the Ahl-i-Hadith (led by Shah Ismail Shahid and Maulana Nazir Hussain), and the Taaiyuni (led by Maulana Keramat Ali) thrived in Bengal with high emotional fervour from c. 1820 to 1870. The Faraizi, the Tariqah-i-Muhammadiyah, and the Ahl-i-Hadith were “aimed at reviving the pristine teachings of Islam and purging Muslim society of un-Islamic local accretions”; however, the Ta’aiyuni movement “wanted to retain some traditional institutions such as Fatiha, Milad and Urs” (Khan 2003:178).

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 extinct. However, in October 2007, when I was visiting the same region on another fieldtrip, trying once again to find the missing links of a pir I failed to comprehend, two fakirs and gayens of manik pirer gan—Sheikh Nizamuddin and his disciple Sheikh Abdul Mannan from Raghunathpur village in Tala subdistrict—informed me that they have revived manik jatra. Later, I found that the Sobhna Manik Jatra troupe has been performing uninterruptedly for the past 32 years. Although jag gan has disappeared from Kurigram, it continues in Nator (Rajsahi region), as does manik pirer git and manik pirer gan in Kustiya, Khulna and Satkhira districts and Kesabpur subdistrict in Jessore. This is where the puritanical Islamists, who attempt to restore the putative form of “original” Islam, repeatedly fail. Even when a performance is erased at one location, it inevitably resurfaces at another. It is thus that the cult of Manik Pir, faced with intimidation from the Islamists, effectively generates an “invisible” infrapolitics that dares not speak in its own name, but effectively generates resistance of a different kind. In Bangladesh, where Muslims far outnumber Hindus, the cult of Manik Pir is hounded by the Islamists. Nevertheless, it effectively generates “invisible” infrapolitics by playing a continuous game of hide-and-seek with its adversary, evading and avoiding, slipping out from one location but reemerging at another—proving ineradicable. At the same time, it is engaged in infrapolitical struggles against popular Hinduism, as it directs symbolic violence against its adversary in manik pirer gan and jag gan. In manik jatra, it advocates renunciation of the world in the public transcript and yet seeks to be a world conqueror. Its infrapolitical struggle is directed against all of the four faiths recognized in the Qur’an as it seeks to install its ardent follower as the rightful inheritor of the Kingdom of World. In West Bengal, where the Hindu- Muslim ratio is reversed, it too reverses its strategy of symbolic violence and apparently submits meekly to popular Hinduism. Nevertheless, it craftily mobilizes its infrapolitics by demonstrat- ing its authority over Hinduism, touting its ability to influence a powerful Hindu deity. Supplicating Ma¯nik Pı¯r in the Domain of Popular Islam The core of the domain of Manik Pir in Bangladesh is in the Satkhira and Khulna administrative districts. It is here that performances and cult practices are widely prevalent. Importantly, the density of the Hindus in these districts is much higher than the national average.17 The cult is virtually unknown in Bagerhat district (which lies east of Khulna), where Khan Jahan Ali (d. 1459, a local ruler who owed fealty most probably to the sultan of Bengal) reigns supreme as the most venerated saint—although the percentage of the Hindu population is higher than Satkhira.18 In this domain of Manik Pir, the fakirs who administer the goods of salvation to different classes interested in their services hardly follow a systematic doctrine. The principles of mysticism that most of the fakirs of Manik Pir adhere to can be called a heterodox form of Sufism that draws elements from various sources—including the Chisti and the Baul.19 Some of them assert that they pursue the marfati way.20 A few others, such as Sheikh Nizamuddin, believe that Allah exists, most importantly as the innermost eternal Beloved who is the “Person of the Heart” (maner manuš), which is a cardinal principle of the Bauls. Sahar Ali claims to

17. The percentage of Hindu population in Sātkhirā is 21.4; in Khulnā it is 25.75; and at the national level, it is only 11 percent (Ashraf 2003:101; Mallik 2003:103, Chowdhury 2003:458). 18. The percentage of Hindu population in Bāgerhāt is 22.06 (Kamal 2003:366). 19. The Chistī is a prominent Sufi order in South Asia which evolved round the teaching of Khawja Muinuddin Chisti (1141–1230 CE). The Baul is a well-known popular (“folk”) community in Bangladesh and West Bengal. Its doctrine is syncretistic, because it blended elements drawn from Sufism, Sahajayāna Buddhism, and Gaudīya Vaišñavism. 20. The term mārfat (Arabic: ma’rifa) denotes “secret spiritual knowledge” (Chowdhury and Harvilahti 2003:380). “In Sufi terminology, it pertains to al-’ilm al-ladunni or al-’ilm bātini, the inspired or hidden supreme knowledge of oneself acquired through both rigorous ascetic exercises and through sādhanā (meditation)” (380). SyedJamil Ahmed

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 belong to the Chisti order, but the gayen Amir Ali Fakir insists that he himself belongs to the Naqshbandi order. By means of ritual, these fakirs stake their claim for the monopoly of the Bourdieuesque exercise of power to modify the practice and worldview of the lay people. But before tracing the strategies of the cult practitioners, it is necessary to comprehend the context of violence and the threat of the Islamists in which it operates. Sheikh Abu Rayhan, a college teacher who guided me through the villages in Satkhira Sadar, Kalalroya, and Tala subdistricts during my fieldtrips in 2008, introduced me to Ashfaqur Rahman Dipu in Kalalroya town. Dipu is a young man in his 30s whose right arm is missing, beginning midway between the shoulder and the elbow. When I asked him about Manik Pir, he appeared blank. Never heard of him, he said, although Kalalroya town was only a few kilometers from a cluster of villages where Manik Pir holds sway. Dipu was extremely polite, regretted that he could not offer me tea or a soft drink because it was Ramadhan, and offered to help if necessary. After we parted, Abu Rayhan said Dipu was a “daring” student leader of Chatra Sibir, the students’ wing of Jamaat-e-Islami (the largest Islamist political party in Bangladesh, which seeks to establish Islamic rule in Bangladesh).21 His arm was chopped off when he was a student at Rajshahi University, by the activists of Chatra League22 in reprisal for his atrocities on the members of their party. Dipu is now the principal of a local college and an influential member of Jamaat-e-Islami. Abu Rayhan also reminded me that we were in Kalalroya town, where the Pakistani army had butchered hundreds of Hindus in 1971. Hence, if the fakirs in Satkhira district are asked whether they follow the marfati way, most of them will immediately deny it and say that they are sariatis (followers of the Shariah) as well as marfatis, and that they have no quarrel with the ulama 23 because they say their prayers, fast during the Ramadhan, and sacrifice during the Eid-ul Azha.24 Muhammad Lutfor Rahman denied outright that he had anything to do with the marfati way and claimed to be a sariati. Nur Islam from Badiya-tola village (near Jessore cantonment) flatly refused that he belongs to any Sufi order. Only SaharA li, whose performance I had seen earlier in 1995, shared some of his discreet strategies and disguised efforts. He confided that he follows the marfati way in secret. When I asked why, he said that the marfatis are looked down upon by the community and are even hated. There are very few marfatis in Satkhira, he added. Sahar Ali was particularly distressed financially. Because it was the month of Ramadhan, he was not booked for any performance. He could not even sell medicine at local hats because singing songs was not permitted during the month of fasting. Apparently, the fakirs in Satkhira district are no better than sacks of potatoes who meekly surrender to situations of fear, intimidation, and “the dull compulsion of economic relation” (Marx 1965:737). However, choosing to be “invisible” by appearing to conform to the Islamist norms, operating below the visible coastline of the politics of everyday life, they are able to survive and generate low-profile forms of resistance. Consider the following “tale” current among the people of Paikgacha subdistrict (Khulna administrative district in Bangladesh). Performing and Supplicating M a nik i r P 21. The party worked together with the Pakistan army to thwart the independence of Bangladesh in 1971. It was banned after Bangladesh won independence but was allowed to resume its activity in 1978. 22. The Chātra League is the students’ wing of the Āwāmi League, which led the nation (or so it claims) in the War of Liberation and administered the country from 1972 to 1975 and 1996 to 2001. 23. The Arabic term ulamā is the plural form of ālim (“learned”). They constitute a community of legal scholars of Islam and the Shariah. 24. Eid-ul Azha (Eid al-Adha or ‘Id-ul Adha) is one of the two major religious festivals of the Muslims. Derived from Arabic, “Eid” and “Azha” denote “festival” and “sacrifice,” respectively. The festival commemorates Ibrahim’s submission to the will of God to sacrifice his son Ishmael. It is observed on the 10th of Dhu al-Hijjah (the 12th month of the Islamic lunar calendar). On this day, Muslims who perform the Hajj sacrifice animals on the field of Mina; others, if they can afford to, sacrifice animals at home.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 They gratefully acknowledge that Manik Pir taught their ancestors the technique of juice extraction from date-palm trees and how to make molasses. As popularly recounted, he would extract the juice, place it on a pot over an earthen oven, and insert one of his legs into the fire. Very soon the juice would turn into molasses (Saidur 1993:vii–viii). The hidden transcript of this “tale” challenges the omnipotence of none other than Allah. As the Qur’an (VI:142) states, “He it is Who produceth gardens trellised and untrellised, and the date-palms, and crops of divers flavour, and the olive and the pomegranate, like and unlike” (in Pickthall 1930:119). Although the “tale” contests the supremacy of Allah as explicitly stated in the Qur’an, the fame of Manik Pir the miracle worker is such that his devotees offer him the first draw of milk from a milch cow and the first fruit of a tree. In contemporary Bangladesh, the devotees of Manik Pir belong to all classes of the rural society; but the subalterns are by far the most numerous. In terms of their religious affiliation, they are mostly Hindus; only a few are Muslims. The majority of the Hindus belong to the “untouchable” jatis. In this context it is necessary to remember that given the large-scale migration of the priestly Brahmaña caste since the partition of Bengal in 1947, the caste barrier that the priests enforce, and the high expenditure involved in Brahmañical rituals, the Hindus of the “untouchable” jatis in Bangladesh have extremely limited access to orthodox rites and ceremonies. Their alternative is folk deities such as Bhagabati, a guardian of cows who is worshipped at the end of the month of Baisakh in Batiyaghata, Paikgacha, and Kayra subdistricts in Khulna administrative district. She is said to be a daughter of Siva, who may be worshipped in rituals officiated by Brahmañas or even by the householder himself.25 However, it is rare for a Hindu to worship Bhagabati exclusively and disregard Manik Pir completely. Many of them fear that if the pir is ignored, the cows will vomit blood and die. The point not to be missed is that for most of the devotees (Hindus as well as Muslims), the professed allegiance to the cult is variable, fluctuating, and nonexclusive. Facing situations of intimidation and violence, they play hide-and-seek with their identity by slipping from one frame of allegiance to another. Hence, it is not unusual for one to supplicate the pir in times of distress, yet declare his/her faith in other deities if they are Hindus, or Allah if they are Muslims, and even seek kaviraj and veterinary doctors when necessary. Clearly, Manik Pir does not have, or perhaps does not need to have, jihadi militants of unflinching devotion such as those reared by the Islamists. His devotees choose to remain invisible largely for tactical reasons. The ideological inclination of the cult of Manik Pir is brought into sharp focus when compared with the Maijbhandari tariqa (brotherhood), a genuinely indigenous Sufi-inspired movement in contemporary Bangladesh. The Maijbhandari commands a very wide following in southeastern parts of the country, particularly in the rural areas. “But this is not a cultic congregation of unwashed ruralites. Maijbhandaris are accomplished professionals and success- ful businessmen” (Bertocci 2001:58–59). Having arisen as an amalgam of principles drawn from the Qadiri26 and the Chisti orders, the Maijbhandari is the locus of a huge business capable of mobilizing enormous financial resources (60). The exponents of the tariqa have developed “a fairly elaborate ‘Seven Step’ (sapta paddhati) methodology for the attainment of their view spiritual perfection” (Bertocci 2002). They permit musical performance as a mode of worship (a practice drawn apparently from the Chistis), sanction participation in milad mahphil, and

25. Supplicating a Hindu deity for protecting cows appears not to have been a widespread practice among the Hindus of Bengal. For example, in Jagannāth-pur subdistrict under the Sunāmgañj administrative district (especially in the villages named Syed-pur and Bhabānīpur), the Hindus used to employ members of a “low”-caste Hindu community known as Bāsudalīya Gošthī for treating their cattle. When summoned, they would appear with their simple operating instruments (such as knives) and herbal medicine to treat the animals. They would also give charmed amulets for the protection of the cattle (Chakravorty 2007). 26. The Qādirī is another prominent Sufi order that evolved round the teaching of Abdul Qadir Gilani (1077–1166). SyedJamil Ahmed

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 practice dhikr.27 The annual khosroj sarif (birthday commemoration) of the second of the Maijbhandari pirs lasts for three days, during which time some 50 water buffaloes are slaugh- tered to feed the massive crowd of devotees. Although the tariqa used to face the greatest challenge to its legitimacy from the militant Islamists, recent signs indicate a gradual reversal in its relation with the latter. As Peter J. Bertocci ruefully observes: There is some evidence that this globalization of a shari’a-oriented Islam has begun to have an impact on the Maijbhandaris […]. [I]n contrast to the founder generation whose members […] never made the haj, the present leadership have done the pilgrimage and other frequent visits to Mecca. […] This is in keeping with the view of the movement’s current leadership that the movement should be seen as compliant with shari’a. (2002) Moving their ideological position closer to the normative standard insisted upon by the Islamists, the Maijbhandari tariqa will soon have little quarrel with them. On the other hand, the cult of Manik Pir as a popular religion is constructed with “the totality of all those views and practices of religion that exist among the people apart from and alongside the strictly theological and liturgical forms of the official religion” (Yoder 1974:14). The “official religion” in this case being Islam, the cult of Manik Pir articulates a complex and heterogeneous belief system of the people on the periphery, functioning as the “fringe phenomena [of] the unpermitted and the unsanctioned” (13). It never severs links with “the tenets of the faith but stretches them almost to the breaking point” (Trachtenberg in Yoder 1974:8). This strategy has made it possible for the cult to engage in a struggle that is pervasive yet discreet, and explains why the cult has not sought to be compliant with Shariah as the Maijbhandaris. The operation of the strategy of not severing the link but testing the limits is brought out most clearly in the mode of Figure 10. The māzār of Mānik Pīr at Mānik Pīrer T. ilā in Sylhet supplication of the pir. There are city, 22 December 2007. (Photo by Alim Al Razi) only two mazars28 of Manik Pir in Bangladesh today. One is located at Manik Pirer T. ila in Sylhet city (fig. 10). The second is located at Manik Tala inside the Jessore cantonment area (at one end of the Jessore airport runway). At both of these sites, Hindus and Muslims pledge sinni for recovering from persistent and complicated ailments and to be blessed with a child. But the most popular sites (and by far Performing and Supplicating M a nik i r P

27. Dhikr is a litany practiced by the Sufis for the purpose of glorifying God and achieving spiritual perfection. “Milad originates from the Arabic word mawlid. Institutionally, it means the time, date or place of birth, or the celebration of the birthday of a person, especially of the Prophet” (Ali 2003:4). A milād mahphil is an assembly or congregation of the celebration. Many Muslims argue that the celebration of the Prophet’s birth is contrary to the Sunnah. “Milad is observed in Bangladesh on 12 Rabiul Awwal [the date of the Prophet’s birth], as well as on many other occasions such as inauguration of a business establishment, entering a new house, birth of a child, death of a person, the anniversaries of birth or death of a person, and the marriage ceremonies” (Ali 2003:5). 28. Māzār (literally, “a place of visit”) is an Arabic term and is synonymous with dargāh, a Persian term. In Bangla- desh, the tomb of a Sufi saint is usually called a māzār (Rashid 2003:453).

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 the more numerous) are the thans,29 which, in Satkhira district, are usually under a jibil (also known as jil/jiuli/jibli) tree and, in some cases, under a simul or madar tree (fig. 11). There is nothing “elitist” in these trees—you could almost call them subaltern. The most striking feature of these sites is their invisibility, another tactical choice. Unless the annual sinni is taking place, you will be hard- pressed to locate one even if you are from the neighboring village. But the sinni is a large-scale communal event that is funded by unsolicited offerings from and labor of the devotees. Each important than has Figure 11. A thān of Mānik Pīr under a śimul tree at Murāri- a particular date for the event, which is kāt.hi village in Sātkhirā district, 7 October 2007. (Photo by usually in winter or spring. In most cases, Syed Jamil Ahmed) manik pirer gan is held during the day and the fakirs also perform dhikr late at night. An exceptional than is the one at Bhayöa village in Tala subdistrict, which is a small shed constructed under a jil tree (fig. 12). This one emerged very recently. During my fieldtrip on 7 October 2007, I was told it was only three weeks old. Here, a young boy named Serajul Islam, dressed in a white shawl and lungi, attends to minor ailments of people from nearby villages (fig. 13). He claims to have received the power from Manik Pir in a dream. Figure 12. A thān of Mānik Pīr under a jil tree at Bhāyöā village in Sātkhirā At these thans, only the district, 7 October 2007. (Photo by Syed Jamil Ahmed) males are the fakirs. Some of them also perform manik pirer gan and all of them officiate in rituals for protecting the cattle or curing sick people. However, the role of a fakir is only a part-time profession. Like Sahar Ali discussed above, they are small-scale farmers and often engage in local trading to earn a living. When the devotees seek the pir’s assistance for protecting or curing the cattle, they invite the fakirs to their homes to perform the rituals. When Sahar Ali is invited to a home, he applies simple Ayurvedic medicine for curing cattle suffering from fever, dyspepsia, dysentery, and other ailments. Indeed, Sahar Ali’s practice is reflected in a manik pirer gan text by Satyen Ray, where the author prescribes 64 Ayurvedic

29. A thān denotes a “place” or “house,” and is used to refer to the location or dwelling of an indigenous/popular/folk deity or a pīr. SyedJamil Ahmed

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 treatments claimed to be invented by Manik Pir (see Stewart 2009:312–32). However, most of the fakirs in Satkhira district claim that they are using the magical intervention of Manik Pir in their rituals when they treat ailing cattle. They apply pani pada (water charmed with magical recitation), mati pada (a lump of clay or a handful of dust similarly charmed), and goyal ghar banda (“closing” the cowshed from attack of diseases). They claim to have received the magical formula either from a dream or from their guru. When Amir Ali Figure 13. Serajul Islam, a fakir of Mānik Pīr, at the thān of Mānik Pīr Fakir (who is also the gayen at Bhāyöā village in Sātkhirā district, 7 October 2007. (Photo by Syed of a manik pirer gan troupe Jamil Ahmed) from Murari-kathi village in Kalalroya subdistrict [fig. 14]) is invited home to heal cattle, he performs excerpts from manik pirer gan and applies a handful of soil, obtained from the than at his village, on the head of the cattle or mixes it with water that he makes the cattle drink. In staking a claim for “the monopoly of the legitimate exercise of the power,” as Bourdieu ([1971] 1987:126) would say, these ritual practices generate symbolic capital for the cult of Manik Pir in the form of their legitimate demand for recognition, deference, veneration, and obedience, and thus contest the normative standard of Islamic practices, because use of magic is deemed to be a challege to the omnipotence of Allah. The point not to be missed is Figure 14. Āmir Ālī Fakir, with his śin˙gā (horn) that they are all indelibly inscribed with a hidden and dotārtā (a string instrument), at Murāri- transcript in their very silence regarding Allah. kāt.hi village in Sātkhirā district, 2 November In this space of the unsaid, the unspoken ground 2007. (Photo by Syed Jamil Ahmed) that remains invisible, there is a deep-seated and Performing and Supplicating M a nik i r P insubordinate—almost subversive—consciousness directed against the normative Islamic order. The strategy of mobilizing infrapolitics by testing the limit of normative Islam can be seen to operate in manik pirer bhikša, a ritual seen at Suya-gram and surrounding villages in Kotalipada administrative subdistrict. Here, when a cow gives birth to a calf, falls sick, or reduces its milk output, the owner pledges to offer the ritual for the animal’s health. Although Muslims are not barred from the ritual, it is mostly performed by Hindus. The ritual may be held on any day but most often it is held in the month of Pauš when the main paddy crop of Aman has been harvested. On the morning of the stipulated day, the performer(s) set out in

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 silence without any breakfast. They fast the entire day and call on homesteads of their village and those nearby (fig. 15). At each homestead, they strike the pot with the baton and collect alms of rice or money. They sell the rice at the local market (because it is forbidden for them to partake of it) and with the money they buy sweetmeats, half of which is offered to the local mosque and the other half distributed to the villagers in the name of Manik Pir. Clearly, the offering made to the local mosque allows the Figure 15. Bijay Ballabh calling on a local homestead at Śuyā village in practitioners to maintain Gopalganj administrative district on 12 December 2007, as part of the their link to normative Islam. mānik pīrer bhiks.ā ritual. (Photo by Santanu Halder) Nevertheless, the followers of Manik Pir are on the sly: they challenge the normative mode by refusing to make offerings in the name of Allah, and get away with it through their clever dissimulation. But it is not always possible to slip by their subterfuges. When I asked Sahar Ali about the thans of Manik Pir at Gazir Hat, Mithabari, and Deb-nagar villages, which he had mentioned to me in 1995, he informed me that none of them existed any more because “influential” people (obviously the Islamists) had taken them over. The thans had been built on land donated by intermediate and affluent Hindu farmers. During the war in 1971, they sought refuge in India and did not return after the liberation of Bangladesh. Their decision to stay back in India is not surprising given the fact that large-scale genocide was carried out against the Hindus in Satkhira district by the Pakistan army. Mass graves in Deb-hata town (not far from Gazir Hat village) and Kalalroya town (near Deb-nagar village) bear testimony to the crime. Because the plots of land donated by the Hindus were not registered to a trust at the government land records office, it was easy for the Islamists to take them over. I heard similar complaints regarding the than in Murari-kathi village. Quite a few villagers said that the land around the simul tree was once much larger and there were quite a few trees on it. It has been gradually “eaten” away by the Muslim farmers who hold adjoining plots. All the trees except the simul were felled by the maulavi30 of a nearby madrasa (Islamic theological seminary) and the timber was used for making furniture for the resident students of the institution. Sheikh Abu Rayhan brought into focus the visible coastline of politics against which the cult of Manik Pir is engaged in a pervasive struggle. The Jamaat-e-Islami maintains a heavy presence in this district. Of the 17 seats it won in the 300-member parliament in the eighth parliamentary election held on 1 October 2001, the party secured three out of the five seats allotted for Satkhira district. Although it fared badly in the seventh parliamentary election held in 1996, where it won only 2 seats, one of these was from Satkhira. In 1991, when the party had won 18 seats, 4 came from Satkhira. In other words, Satkhira never failed Jamaat-e-Islami, even when other districts did. Indeed, Abu Rayhan said, some people jokingly assert that because of the heavy influence of the Islamists, the district is virtually a part of Pakistan. It is no wonder that

30. Maulavi is an honorific title usually given to Sunni Muslim religious scholars. In this case, it refers to the teacher

SyedJamil Ahmed of the mādrasā.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 with the Islamists, the fakirs of Manik Pir prefer to employ discreet strategies and disguised efforts. Further, as James Scott would argue, it is not impossible to link “fantasy aggression” (1990:163) against popular Hinduism, as articulated in “Kanu Ghošer Pala,” with severely putative situations as observed above: it may actually be the consequence of psychological projection and displacement of the manifest aggression of the Islamists. One encounters a different world of popular Islam when one crosses Bhomra (a land-port31 in Bangladesh located only 15 kilometers from Satkhira town) and enters West Bengal. Here Manik Pir exerts his command with a remarkable difference. The extent of his domain appears to cover North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas, and Nadiya administrative districts. It is here that performances and cult practices are widely prevalent, and the relative density of the Muslim population ranges from 33 percent to 24 percent.32 As one moves to the metropolis of Kolkata, and to the districts of Hughli, Haoda, and East Medinipur, his influence gradually decreases. But in his core domain, and even in the peripheral extension, he exhibits his potency well beyond livestock and fruit trees, and assumes the role of a divine agent capable of fulfilling any or—as some ardent devotees believe—all wishes. The most salient aspect of this world of popular Islam is its visibility, almost attempting to draw attention to itself amidst what it would consider the din and clamor of alien faiths. Compared to the two dargahs33 of Manik Pir in Bangladesh, there are numerous such sites in West Bengal. The dargah at Maniktala in Kolkata city (fig. 16) is believed to enshrine the pir’s mortal remains and exerts enough influence for the neighborhood to bear his name. According to Muhammad Jainul Abedin, one of the caretakers at the dargah, Manik Pir was a Shi’ite and a descendant in the line of the 12 Imams. His name in full was Muhammad Syed Hasanuddin (Sabu) Manik Sah. The dargah in Rautara village, beside the Amta-Jhikhida road in Haoda administrative district, was erected in 1797 CE by the local Ray (Hindu) family. People from neighboring villages, both Hindus and Muslims (but more Hindus than Muslims), gather here for offering puja to the pir (Begum 2007). At Manik-tala, a dargah situated near the Kabarasthan Maidan at Kachdapada in North 24-Parganas administrative district (fig. 17), numerous devotees, both Muslim and Hindu, gather each evening to seek cures for various ailments. As Pradyot Kumar Maity observes, a large number of devotees (98 percent of whom are Hindu) gather for puja of the pir at the dargah of Manik Pir in Tamluk (locally known as Manik Pirer Than) (1989:120–23). Although the puja can be offered on any day, the first and last Sundays of each Bengali month are particularly auspicious. On these days, a large number of devotees, mostly women, gather in the morning. But the most auspicious day is the Pauš Samkranti, when a fair is held. On this occasion, numerous devotees (mostly mothers accompanied by their children) bathe at the Pirer Pukur (lit., “the water tank of the Pir”), which adjoins the dargah. It is believed that “the water of the tank is sacred and bathing in it yields good results (i.e., the purpose of visiting the dargah is well served)” (120). The function of the fakir at this dargah is carried out by both male and female members of the family who maintain the dargah. When the devotees of the pir arrive with the sirni, the fakir enters the dargah with the offering, carries it to the asa of the pir implanted on the ground of Performing and Supplicating M a nik i r P the dargah (s/he may or may not bring the offering in contact with the asa), retains a part of the offering for personal consumption, and then returns the remaining to the devotee. When cow milk is offered, s/he pours some on the asa and retains the rest for him/herself. The entire process is not too dissimilar from the process of making offerings in Hindu temples. This is

31. A land-port is a border station that controls entry into and departure from a country, of people or goods. 32. The Muslims constitute 33.2 percent of the population in South 24 Parganās, 24.2 percent in North 24 Parganās, 25.4 percent in Nadīyā (Shourie 2004), 24 percent in Hāodā, 20.2 percent in Kolkātā, 15 percent in Hugli (All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat 2006) and 10.77 percent in Medinipur (South Asia Research Society 2008). 33. A dargāh is the same as a māzār . See note 27.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 Figure 16. Muhammad Jainul Abedin and his uncle, beside the grave of Mānik Pīr at the dargāh of Māniktalā in Kolkātā, 27 March 2008. (Photo by Syed Jamil Ahmed)

Figure 17. The dargāh of Mānik Pīr (locally known as Mānik-talā) near the Kabarasthān Maidān at Kāchd. āpād. ā in North 24-Parganās administrative district, 30 March 2008. (Photo by Syed Jamil Ahmed) SyedJamil Ahmed

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 further emphasized in the recent practice of returning the sirni with bel (marmelos) leaves and flowers that are kept inside the dargah. When Maity enquired the reason for incorporation of this practice, the religious specialists told him “that they have arranged so at the request of the Hindus who form the majority of the visitors” (122). Besides these dargahs, there are numerous thans in North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas, and Nadiya. In ad- dition to offering jal-pada (water charmed with a magical recitation) and tel-pada (oil charmed with a magical recitation), the fakirs of these dargah and thans also engage in quasi Tantric practices. One of these is “closing” (bandha) an entire village from epidemic by drawing an imaginary ritual circle around the village and planting four bamboo poles (ritually purified by chanting mantras over them) at the four cardinal points on the circle. Other practices include inscribing magic formulas in red letters on earthen pots and hanging them all over the village, especially at the intersections of three roads (Basu 1978:182–83). For the Islamists, this is precisely Figure 18. Śmaśān Kālī in a temple adjacent to the thān of Mānik where the latent fear is located: loss of Pīr in Kāt.āgañj, 30 March 2008. (Photo by Syed Jamil Ahmed) identity in the vast “sponge” of Hinduism that in the past had soaked up Buddhism and even adopted the Buddha as an incarnation of Višñu. In order to maintain a clearly articulated distance from the Hindu temples and related ritual practices, Muslim scholars declare, “[b]uilding houses or tombs upon graves is considered haram or strictly prohibited act according to Islamic Shariah” (Shafiqullah 2003:217), and hence they denounce any building on tombs such as the dargahs. Whereas the dargahs, the thans, and ritualistic practices generating from these sites may stretch the tenets of Islamic faith almost to the breaking point, image worship of Manik Pir would surely push beyond the limit: the foremost condition that a Muslim must fulfill is the declaration that there is no god to be worshipped except Allah. And this is what happens in some

places in the Sundarban Forest region in North 24 Paraganas, where Manik Pir is worshipped Performing and Supplicating M a nik i r P in the form of an icon.34 Gopendrakršña Basu describes another icon shaped in the form of a fair male figure with a mass of long curling hair and large eyes, dressed in ana lkhella (a long and loose gown) and a small turban (1978:182). In one hand, he holds the asa (which is the source of his occult power) and in the other, a tasbih (rosary) or the jambil (a cup believed to contain all the diseases of the world). At many places, Manik Pir also shares thans with other Hindu deities and is worshipped along with them. At the than in Katagañj near Gayeshpur town in Nadiya administrative district, two large banyan trees have grown over the tomb of Manik Pir. At one of its sides stands Smasan Kali in a temple (fig. 18).

34. The image of Mānik Pīr at Dobanki in the Sundarbans of West Bengal may be seen at the following site: www.grandpoohbah.net/Grandpoohbah/images/India2005/sunderbans/slides/Manik%20Pir.html.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 The fear and the fury of the Islamists may not be entirely fictive because Brahmañism may actually be at work in assimilating popular Islam, as in the case of another popular divinity named Satya Pir.35 As Asim Roy argues, “[o]n close scrutiny the Satya-pir myth and cult emerges as a brahmanical device to absorb the increasingly popular pir cult” (1983:214). At the rate Manik Pir is being acculturated into the Hindu religious system, it appears imminent that he will be transmuted into Manik Ray. This may not be idle speculation. As observed above, Sona Pir is unknown in northern parts of West Bengal. Sona Ray has taken his place. In Katagañj, new claimants have emerged for “the monopoly of the legitimate exercise of the power” and the “administration of the goods of salvation.” They are Radha and Kršña. A temple is now under construction in the compound of the than of Manik Pir. Although a large sign- board declares it to be the than of the pir, people of the neighborhood stare blankly when asked about its location. The priest of the temple has lodged himself in the compound, expelling two elderly female caretakers of the pir. He refused, politely enough, to let me take a photograph of the temple. At one point in my interview, when the caretakers invited me to their rundown home a short distance away, I could sense they wanted to say more. But the priest moved in firmly, and asked further details of my identity. When it was clear that I was an alien “Muslim” from Bangladesh, he asked if I had a visa. Obviously I had asked too many questions of the wrong type. It was afternoon and the compound was quite desolate. I remembered Ashfaqur Rahman Dipu, the Islamist in Kalalroya town. Nevertheless, arguing against the fear and fury of the Islamists, it is also possible to posit that Manik Pir is on the sly in West Bengal. How is it viable, if one pauses to ask, that in competing with Brahmañical as well as popular (“folk”) Hindu deities for the monopoly over administration of the goods of salvation, the pir has succeeded in imposing on and inculcating in the Hindus the habitus of his cult with such great success? The very fact that Radha and Kršña have to stake a claim implies that there is a powerful claimant and that the stake to be claimed is substantial. In staking a claim for the monopoly of the legitimate exercise of the power over the rural agricultural Hindus in Bangladesh, he may be accessing a relatively easy “market” with Bhagabati as the sole competitor. His role in Bangladesh as a protective divinity of cows—the most venerated animal of the rural agriculturalist Hindus—may thus be explained. However, one is hard-pressed to find an equivalent Hindu divinity even in West Bengal. In isolated pockets of South 24 Parganas, Hadijhi exerts her control as a guardian deity and indispensable protector in times of epidemic among cattle (Basu 1978:92), but her domain is extremely limited, as in Damdama-Kaoyakhali in Sundarban region. Does this not signify that Manik Pir has successfully displaced most—if not all—Brahmañical as well as popular Hindu deities who could have claimed the power as the protective divinity of cows? If Hindu devotees are ready to install Manik Pir’s distinct image beside their venerated deities, has not the Muslim pir gone where Islamist “angels” fear to tread? If, in Kolkata metropolis, faced with competition from powerful Brahmañical deities such as Durga, Kali, Kršña, and Hanumana, a Muslim icon of veneration can fetch a large-scale following from the Hindus, may it not signify a crafty Islamic device of a wily Manik Pir mobilized to encroach on the domain of popular Hinduism and Brahmañism? After all, Manik Pir has been at work for centuries now and is yet to be assimilated as a Hindu divinity. Manik Pir is on the sly across the border in Bangladesh as well. A few months before the than at Bhayöda village in Tala subdistrict was established, an influential man of the village is said to have been infuriated by the “un-Islamic” practices of the cult in the neighborhood. His fury was

35. Satya Pīr is another cult figure popular in the north and western parts of Bengal. Many Hindus venerate Satya Nārāyaña, although he is hardly different from Satya Pīr. “Over a hundred manuscript works concerning this cult have been identified, most of them dating from the eighteenth century, with the earliest of them dating to the sixteenth century” (Eaton 1974:279–80). SyedJamil Ahmed

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram.2009.53.2.51 by guest on 24 September 2021 doubly charged when he found that his daughter was an ardent devotee of the pir. So he had the jibil tree—under which the local than had existed for countless years—felled. Soon, it is said, this man’s young son died. Then the daughter went insane. Then another amazing incident occurred: the man’s young nephew began to rave that Manik Pir had visited him in his dream. Now, the inevitable followed: the young nephew had another than erected inside the village, very close to the man’s homestead. Consider this village gossip if you wish, but the fact remains that Manik Pir has proved to be ineradicable. And the piece of gossip is an example how the cult mobilizes infrapolitical tools that insinuate disguised forms of resistance into the public transcript. Although the Islamists in Bangladesh seek relentlessly to erase the cult of Manik Pir, it proves ineradicable—disappearing from one location only to reemerge at another. In West Bengal, where popular Hinduism and Brahmañism appear to assimilate the cult, it silently encroaches on the domain of its adversary and proves inassimilable. It is thus not only that the dominant groups (be they Hindus or Muslims), in their exercise of domination do not consume and destroy the subaltern—if one may extend Partha Chatterjee’s (1983:59) observation—but that they simply fail to achieve that end because of the infrapolitical strategies of the subaltern classes. Conclusion As Antonio Gramsci observes, “[a] given socio-historical moment is never homogeneous; on the contrary, it is rich in contradictions” (1991:93). The domain that Manik Pir commands is so obscure, heterogeneous, and complex, and the fringe phenomena of the unpermitted and the unsanctioned are so diverse that the bits and pieces of existing practices do not neatly fit into a harmonic and sequential construction of theological and liturgical norms. Generating from multiple streams, disparate voices, and overlapping textures, the domain that Manik Pir commands breeds contradictory vectors and refuses to accommodate itself in an orderly construction. These vectors labor against the threat of extinction in Bangladesh and assimilation in West Bengal, and yet seek to impose a particular religious habitus on popular Hinduism and challenge Christian evangelism (as in manik jatra). Like a divine trickster, Manik Pir plays a perpetual game of hide-and-seek with the Islamists by shape-shifting and evading, slipping out of one frame and appearing in another. One hardly hears of him at urban centers. Residing in the periphery, he never proselytizes and yet he refuses to be appropriated by popular Hinduism and Brahmañism. The ambivalent and contradictory vectors generating out of the cult of Manik Pir, demonstrated in the deliberations presented above, lead to an important inference: that subaltern religious consciousness is not necessarily “self-deception” (Gramsci 1971:326–27) or “an inverted consciousness of the world” (Marx [1844] 2005:244) of “potatoes in a sack” (Marx 1977:317). Rather, it can generate “the general framework for real political activity” (Gramsci 1971:337). Under the circumstances of “the dull compulsion of economic relation” (Marx 1965:737) that enforce subjection, the infrapolitics of the subaltern classes enact discreet strategies and disguised efforts, which are all aimed at minimizing or thwarting attempts at

material appropriation of labor, production, and property by the dominant classes. “This is a Performing and Supplicating M a nik i r P politics of disguise and anonymity that takes place in public view but is designed to have a double meaning or to shield the identity of the actors” (Scott 1990:19). If there is, as Frantz Fanon passionately claims, a “zone of occult instability where the people dwell” with its “hidden life, teeming and perpetually in motion” (1968:227, 224), then surely its “fluctuating movement” (227) is generated out of infrapolitical actions such as those generated by the cult of Manik Pir. It may not be too far-fetched to claim that in the just-concluded general election of Bangladesh held on 29 December 2008, in which Satkhira failed Jamaat-e-Islami for the first time by refusing to return even a single member of Parliament, the infrapolitical action of the cult of Manik Pir may have had some role to play.

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