Notes 1 Introduction 1. Ger Duijzings, ‘The End of a “Mixed” Pilgrimage’, in the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World Newsletter, Vol. 3 (July 1999), p. 1. 2. Key Robinson essays on this theme can be read in his Islam and Muslim History in South Asia (New Delhi: OUP, 2000). 3. The progenitor of the thesis was Karl Deutsch. See his Nationalism and Social Communication: An Inquiry into the Formation of Nations (Cambridge, Mass., 2nd edn, 1966). Its leading exponent in the South Asian context has been Paul Brass. See his Language, Religion and Politics in North India (Cambridge, 1974), Ch. 1; and ‘A Reply to Francis Robinson’, in the Journal of Common- wealth and Comparative Politics, 15 (1977), pp. 231–4. 4. For a brief history of the term, see Gyan Pandey, The Construction of Commu- nalism in Colonial North India (Delhi, 1992), Ch. 1. 5. Presidential address by Sir Muhammad Iqbal to the annual session of the All-India Muslim League, December 1930, in Sir Maurice Gwyer and A. Appadorai (eds), Speeches and Documents on the Indian Constitution 1921–47 (Bombay, 1957), Vol. 2, p. 439. 6. B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, 1983). 7. Paul R. Brass, The Production of Hindu–Muslim Violence in Contemporary India (Seattle, 2003), p. 70. 8. The propaganda of the BJP avows a brand of Hinduism that gives prominence to Rama and deities associated with him such as Hanuman. Ironically, Advani’s rath was more evocative of the image of Krishna than of Rama, since in both major versions of the Ramayana Rama fights on foot. It is the demon-king, Ravana, who, in the epics, fights from a chariot. See Shail Mayaram, ‘Communal Violence in Jaipur’, in Economic and Political Weekly, 13–20 November 1993, pp. 2529–30. 9. Ibid., p. 2529. 10. Susan B. Devalle, ‘Social Identities, Fundamentalism and Politics in India’, in David N. Lorenzen (ed.), Bhakti Religion in North India: Community, Identity and Political Action (Albany, 1995), pp. 315–16. 11. Hafiz Nomani, quoted in The Times of India, 12 January 1998. For another defence of the BJP’s record on the score of riots, see Prakash Nanda, ‘Trial by Secularists: BJP Perpetually in the Dock’, in The Times of India, 22 January 1998. 12. Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (2nd edn, New Haven, 2002), p. 98. 13. This is one of several issues in respect of communalism about which Brass and Varshney fundamentally disagree. Brass, Production of Hindu–Muslim Violence, p. 377. 215 216 Notes 14. Dick Kooiman, Communalism and Indian Princely States: Travancore, Baroda and Hyderabad in the 1930s (New Delhi, 2002). 15. Bipan Chandra, Communalism in Modern India (Delhi, 1984), p. 292. 16. C.A. Bayly, ‘The Pre-History of “Communalism”?: Religious Conflict in India, 1700–1860’, in Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 19 (1985), p. 201. 17. Ibid., p. 180. 18. Cynthia Keppley-Mahmood, ‘Rethinking Indian Communalism: Culture and Counter-Culture’, in Asian Survey, Vol. 33, No. 7 (1993), p. 726. 19. Achin Vanaik, The Furies of Indian Communalism: Religion, Modernity and Secularization (London, 1997), pp. 145–9. 20. Peter van der Veer, Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India (Delhi, 1996), pp. 36, 52. 21. Chandra, Communalism, p. 4. 22. Roger Jeffrey and Patricia M. Jeffrey, ‘The Bijnor Riots, October 1990: Collapse of a Mythical Special Relationship?’, in Economic and Political Weekly, 5 March 1994, p. 551. 23. Rajendra Prasad, Autobiography (Bombay, 1957), pp. 13–14. 24. Bipan Chandra, Communalism, p. 199. 25. See also Dick Kooiman, ‘Communalism and Indian Princely States: A Comparison with British India’, in Economic and Political Weekly, 26 August 1995, pp. 2123–33. 26. Interview with Brigadier Bag Singh, Bikaner, 12 March 1998. 27. Hindustan Times, 18 February 1998. 28. Roger Jeffrey and Patricia M. Jeffrey, ‘The Bijnor Riots, October 1990’, p. 551. 29. Brass, Production of Hindu–Muslim Violence, p. 9. 30. Speech at Lallgarh Palace, 1 January 1932 [British Library] I[ndia] O[ffice] R[ecords], L/P&S/13/603. 31. Minutes of the RTC Consultative Committee, dated 3 March 1932 N[ehru] M[emorial] M[useum and] L[ibrary], Moonje Papers, Subject file 21. Mehta was responding to a Muslim League demand that a fixed quota of states’ seats in the proposed federal legislature should be set aside for Muslims. 32. Announcement on behalf of the Maharaja by the Maharajkumar of Karauli, issued on 4 November 1946, IOR L/P&S/13/1422. 33. Mustansir Naqui to Gandhi, 31 October 1947, AISPC, Pt I, file 11 of 1947–48. 34. R.S. Azad to Gandhi, 25 September 1938, AICC, file G-35 (3) of 1938. 35. I have tried to compensate for this by supplementing the information on communal violence gained from newspapers with information from police reports and other sources. In so doing I may have overcompensated, but if that is true it merely reinforces the point made below. 36. S.N. Roy, Dep. Sec., Govt. of Bengal to Home Sec., GOI, 7 September 1926, N[ational] A[rchives of] I[ndia], Home (Pol.) file 219 of 1926. For a typical example of a minor encounter which stopped short of developing into a riot, see R[ajasthan] S[tate] A[rchives] B[ikaner branch], Jodhpur, Social C 1/5 of 1936–47 on the Holi festival at Riyan village in March 1938. 37. IG Police, Jodhpur, to Chief Minister, Jodhpur, 26 May 1937, RSAB, Jodhpur, Social, C 2/21 of 1928–46. 38. Kooiman posits a similar trajectory for the Southern states. After 1924, he writes, ‘there was a gradual increase communal riots’ in Hyderabad, but these Notes 217 continued to be ‘local and fewer than in contemporary British India’. Kooiman, Communalism and Indian Princely States, p. 220. 39. Kalsia Administration Report for 1925–26, p. 8. 40. Fort. report on Rajputana for period ending 15 June 1933, IOR L/P&S/13/1404. 41. H. Wilberforce-Bell, AGG, Punjab States, to Pol. Sec., GOI, 20 May 1935, and report by J.C. Donaldson, ICS, dated 21 September 1935, IOR R/1/1/2687. 42. Resdt, Jaipur to AGG, Rajputana, 30 January 1926, IOR L/P&S/10/947. 43. The presence of a small mosque on the third side of the compound added weight to the Muslim claim, but it was the Dargah that drew the crowds, particularly at the time of the annual fair held to mark the ‘urs of the Sufi saint. The parties being unable to agree on a compromise, the state eventually intervened and built a wall, at its own expense, across the middle of the compound. The wall left the disputed well in the possession of the Muslims, but the darbar compensated the Hindus by digging a new well for their exclusive use. Chief Minister Kishengarh to Administrator Kishengarh, 23 November 1940, and Resdt, Jaipur to Resdt, Rajputana, 20 August 1940, IOR L/P&S/13/1423. 44. The Times, 2 September 1924. The Times’ observation was occasioned by a serious Hindu–Muslim clash in Gulbarga, Hyderabad which left 4 persons killed and 12 badly injured. Although the Gulbarga riot falls outside the geo- graphical scope of this inquiry, it was in its own way a landmark event—it was the first serious Hindu–Muslim disturbance in the premier state in the twentieth century. 45. Interview with R.G. Verma, Patiala, 1 February 1998. 46. Interview with Jaswant Singh, Kota, 17 February 1998, and interview with Dr Jagat Narayan Srivastava, Kota, 18 February 1998. According to a Muslim builder interviewed by Ashis Nandy in Ayodhya, the practice was common there too. Nandy, Creating a Nationality, p. 172. 47. Teja Singh never went inside the mosque, but that was not for lack of respect for Islam. Islam too was a force for good and a path to salvation. ‘What he wanted was that I should be a better Sikh; what I wanted for him was to be a better Muslim.’ Interview with Teja Singh Tiwana, Patiala, 30 January 1998. 48. Chaudhury Abdul Aziz to Sardar Bishen Singh, 3 July 1936, PSA, Kapurthala, Sadar Office, M/3–38–36. See also interview between G. Wingate, Dep. Pol. Sec., GOI, and Subedar Major Sardar Mohammad Khan, Presdt of the Meo Indian Officers Conf., Nuh, 12 January 1933, on the communal situation in Alwar. IOR R/1/1/2325. 49. Report from Dist. SP, Sujat, to Mekhma Khas, 19 March 1935, RSAB, Jodhpur, Social, C 2/21 of 1928–46. 50. Office note on telegram from ‘the Muslims of Mekrana’ to the Chief Minister, Jodhpur, dated 14 April 1937, RSAB, Jodhpur, Social, C 2/21 of 1928–46. 51. Petition from the Beldars of Jodhpur, dated 7 November 1938, RSAB, Jodhpur, Social, C 2/21 of 1939–45. 52. Gurdial Singh to J.W. Johnston, Administrator Nabha, 17 July 1928, P[unjab] S[tate] A[rchives Patiala], Nabha, P[rime] M[inister]’s Office, 2349/2503E. 53. Toleration in this instance was doubtless made easier by the fact that, on average, only one or two cows a day were killed, and those too in secluded locations well away from Hindu residential areas. Mangrol’s Muslims were also able to access supplies of beef through neighbouring Junagadh. Ishaq 218 Notes Mahomed Chhapra, Sec., Mangrol Muslim Seva Mandal, to Sir Fazli Husain 18 September 1934, IOR R/1/1/2595. 54. The custom was for the Malerkotla Jains to compensate the butchers for their loss of trade, but in some years the butchers gallantly refused to take the money.