Nizari Ismaili Hero

finni · Post by **finni** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 1:51 pm

<DIV class=Headline>Rewriting the History of a Dalit Nizari Hero</DIV> <DIV>Friday November 17 2006 17:53:12 PM BDT</DIV> <A href="mailto:[email protected]"><DIV class=Authore>Yoginder Sikand, India</DIV></A> <DIV class=body>Rama Pir, also known as Ramdev Pir or Ram Shah Pir, is a widely revered folk hero in western India and parts of Pakistan. He is particularly popular among the Dalits, especially of the Meghwal caste. The cult of Rama Pir is shrouded in mystery. Today, popular accounts present him as a miracle-mongering Rajput, the incarnation of Krishna of the Kali Yug. Over the centuries, legends that have been woven about the Pir have effaced his role as a crusader against caste injustice and Hindu-Muslim rivalry, or so Rajasthan-based social activist Bhanwar Megwanshi argues in his recently published Hindi book ‘Ramdev Pir: Ek Purnavichar’ (‘Ramdev Pir: A Revaluation’). Megwanshi is a noted writer and edits the monthly Hindi magazine ‘Diamond India’, which deals with a range of social issues from the standpoint of the marginalized and the oppressed. He comes from a Meghwal family from Bhilwara in southern Rajasthan, which for three generations served as priests of the local Ramdev Pir shrine. As a child he was entrusted with the duty of performing rituals at the shrine, and this experience, he writes, set him questioning established myths about Ramdev Pir. His book summarises his critical revaluation of the tradition of the Pir, seeking to retrieve and highlight forgotten aspects of his image as, above all, a crusader against caste oppression. In most available hagiographical accounts, the fifteenth century Ramdev Pir is presented as an incarnation of Krishna who took birth in the house of Ajmal, a Tanwar Rajput chieftain in western India. Based on his analysis of Tanwar genealogical accounts Megwanshi writes that this claim is fallacious. It represents a denial of the possibility of a saintly figure being born in a ‘low’ caste, and reflects a broader strategy to Brahminise the Ramdev tradition and drain it of its radical social thrust. Drawing on Dalit oral accounts, Megwanshi claims that Ramdev was actually the son of a Meghwal cowherd Sayar Rikh and his wife Magande, who accompanied Ajmal’s queen when she shifted to her marital home. In other words, he argues, Ramdev was a Meghwal by birth and not a Rajput. Nor was he, as is now claimed, an incarnation of Krishna. Megwanshi also contests the manner in which the close connection between Ramdev and Ajmal is presented in popular accounts. Examining oral and written traditions related to Ramdev, he writes that Ajmal was probably a Pir of the Nizari Ismaili Shia Muslim sect, and that Ramdev was taken by him as his disciple. In placing this argument, and in claiming that Ramdev was possibly an Ismaili, he explores the fascinating but little- known Nizari Ismaili Shia traditions among the Dalits of Rajasthan. The Nizaris are a branch of the Ismaili Shias, whose present-day followers acknowledge the Aga Khan as their spiritual leader or Imam. Following the collapse of their Fatimi Caliphate in Egypt, the Nizari Imamat shifted Alamut in Iran, where the Nizaris kept their beliefs secret, fearing Sunni persecution. The first Nizari missionary to India, the eleventh century Nur Satgur, who is buried in Navsari in Gujarat, established the practice of spreading Nizari beliefs by using Hindu motifs and idioms, presenting the Nizari faith as a fulfillment of the millennial expectations of the Hindus of an Avatar. This was in line with the Shia practice of taqiyya or secret concealment of beliefs, in order to stave off Sunni persecution as well as to make the Nizari message more intelligible to a largely Hindu audience. Thus, the Nizari faith was presented as Sat Panth, Sat Dharm or Maha Marg, as well as Nizar Panth, Nizar Panth and Nij Dharm; and Imam Ali as the Nikalank Avatar, the tenth incarnation of Vishnu. The Nizari stress on social equality had a particular appeal for various Dalit communities in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Sindh, and many Dalits accepted the faith, although in a highly Hinduised form. A key Ismaili missionary, and one who plays a central role in the story of Ramdev, was the fourteenth century Pir Shams or Shamsuddin Sabzvari, whose shrine is located in Multan. Multan was for a long time a major centre of the Nizari Ismaili movement and the Ismailis actually ruled the town for a while till their kingdom was destroyed by Mahmud Ghaznavi. Pir Shams is said to have widely traveled in north India, and visited Rajasthan as well. In the Ramdev tradition he is remembered as Shamas Rishi, and it is possible that he adopted a Hindu guise in line with the Indian Nizari tradition. Megwanshi unravels the fascinating story of Pir Shams’ missionary travels in Rajasthan, relying on Dalit and other sources. Ransi Tanvar, the father of Ajmal, he writes, was a descendant of Anangpal, the last Tanwar ruler of Delhi. He had taken to robbery. once, in the village of Dudu, near Jaipur, he chanced upon Pir Shams, whom he is said to have looted, because of which the Pir is said to have cursed him with leprosy. Rinsi is said to have been cured by drinking water given to him by a Meghwal woman, the wife of a certain Khivan, a Meghwal disciple of Pir Shams. On being thus miraculously cured, Rinsi is said to have become a disciple of Pir Shams and accepted the Ismaili faith. Later, the story goes, both Rinsi and Khivan were ordered to be killed by the Sunni Sultan of Delhi. If true, this reflected the fierce hostility of the Sunni rulers and ulama to the Ismaili Shias, whom they considered as heretics. Following his father, Ajmal, too, Megwanshi writes, became an Ismaili Pir, and so did Ramdev, whom Ajmal considered as his own son. Following the established Nizari practice, they kept their faith concealed, being what is termed in Indian Nizari parlance as gupti momins (‘secret believers’). In this regard, Megwanshi argues that the claim that Ramdev was a disciple of the Nath yogi Balinath of Pokhran is incorrect. The fact that terms such as Nizar, Nijar, Shams, Multan, Makka, Nur Satgur, Alamut and so on are found in the verses attributed to Ramdev is ample proof, Megwanishi writes, that Ramdev was possibly a secret Ismaili missionary or at least highly influenced by the Ismailis. So, too, is the fact that Ramdev refers to himself as ‘Nijari’ and that the mantra recited by Ramdev’s followers contains the word ‘Nizar’ (Om Som Nikalank Dev Nizar’). Further evidence is the fact that the grave Ramdev in Ramdevra, Jaisalmer, is fashioned in traditional Muslim style and has Arabic inscriptions on it. However, Megwanshi notes, the grave is kept carefully covered up by the Tanwar custodians of the shrine. Although Megwanshi does not state this, this might possibly be to conceal the Ismaili Muslim connections of Ramdev Pir. In recent writings about Ramdev, particularly by those who seek to present him in a Brahminical mould, Ramdev is presented as an orthodox Hindu. This, Megwanshi writes, reflects a recent re-writing of the Ramdev tradition. In this rendition, Ramdev is shown as having defeated five Pirs from Mecca in a miraculous contest, after which the Pirs accepted his superiority and then granted him the title of Pir. Megwanshi argues that the five Pirs were probably Ismailis who came from Multan to meet Ramdev after news of his being an Ismaili missionary reached them. There was probably no miraculous contest between them. After the Multani missionaries were satisfied that Ramdev had indeed reached a high spiritual stature in the Ismaili tradition they granted him the exalted title of Pir. This was possibly a confirmation of Ramdev’s commitment to the Ismaili faith. This is why, Megwanshi writes, Ramdev is still regarded as a saintly figure by many Muslims in Rajasthan and Gujarat. Seeking to retrieve the memory of Ramdev as a Dalit crusader against caste oppression, Megwanshi refers to his being treated as a Kamadiya, a member of a ‘low’ caste that acts as religious specialists for the Meghwals, by some of Ajmal’s relatives. He was taunted for being the Pir of the Dheds or Meghwals, for eating with the ‘low’ castes and for joining them in religious ceremonies (jama jagran) that were held secretly at night, possibly in order to escape persecution. The message of ethical monotheism and social equality that informs Ramdev’s verses also reflects his opposition to caste and other forms of oppression sanctioned by the Brahminical religion, although Megwanshi writes of how the miracles (parchas) that have been woven around him and the effort to transform him into an incarnation of Vishnu have effectively undermined this. In this regard, Megwanshi attempts to offer a rationalist explanation of the more popularly recounted miracles associated with Ramdev in order to rescue him from being projected as a miracle-worker or the superhuman figure that he is for many of his followers. Most of Ramdev’s followers were Meghwals, and this further strengthens the claim, Megwanshi argues, of Ramdev having been born in a Meghwal family, although he was later adopted by a Tanwar Rajput, whose flouting of caste restrictions may have been enabled by his possibly having actually been a crypto-Ismaili Shia. Further developing the argument of Ramdev being a social revolutionary, Megwanshi refers to his sister Dali Bai as joining him in the jama jagrans, a revolutionary step considering the restrictions that operated at that time on women seeking to travel on the spiritual path. A key aspect of Ramdev Pir’s teachings was his critique of conventional communal divisions and rivalries. This possibly reflects his association with the Indian Nizari Ismaili tradition, many of whose sacred texts repeatedly draw similarities between Islamic and Hindu motifs and beliefs and represent a unique cultural synthesis. In this regard Megwanshi refers to a verse often recited by Ramdev’s followers that refers to the hope for the dawning of the day when ‘Brahmins, Banias, Kshatriyas and Muslims shall eat from the same plate’, when the ‘gathering shall be held in the house of the Meghwal Rishi’—a powerful dream that Megwanshi seeks to retrieve from the layers of myth that have been woven around the figure of the Dalit Ismaili social revolutionary that he sees Ramdev Pir as having been. Bhanwar Megwanshi can be contacted on [email protected] </DIV>