Hajj— An Indian Experience in History
The region of Hijaz is a repository of rich Islamic heritage and the site of Islam’s two holiest cities — Makkah Al-Mukarramah and Madinah Al-Munnawara. Al-Hijaz is a witness to many religious and politically significant events in the history of Islam and is, thus, an object of great fascination for Muslims all over the world, including those from India.
The prominence of the Jeddah Port, as the Gateway to Makkah and as the leading port for maritime trade through the Red Sea, attracted merchants and pilgrims in large numbers every year. The people of Hijaz were also fascinated by India’s spices, pearls, precious stones, silk, sandalwood, oud and perfumes and looked forward to the arrival of Indian ships.
The earliest visit by Indians to Makkah for Hajj pilgrimage is a matter of conjecture, but it is likely that such visits pre-date the Muslim conquests of Sindh (664-712 A.D.).
During Mughal times and until the eighteenth century, pilgrims from India had the option of travelling to Makkah either by overland caravans or by sailing ships. The Indian pilgrims travelling by land route via the northwest of India had to pass through long, difficult and hazardous terrains, which also involved crossing the hostile Shia territories controlled by the Safavids.
The Indian pilgrims, most of whom were Sunnis, preferred instead to go by the sea routes, primarily through the Red Sea and occasionally through the Persian Gulf. However, rampant piracy and the strict Portuguese control over the Indian Ocean in the sixteenth century made passage through the Red Sea an onerous task. Most ships travelling from India to the Red Sea in the sixteenth century were forced to carry a Portuguese cartaz or pass. The conditions at one point became so unconducive for Hajj that religious scholars at the Mughal court even declared the pilgrimage to Makkah as non-binding under the circumstances (Al-Badaoni, as quoted in Ain-i Akbari).
The Mughal rulers had patronised the Hajj and sent several ships to undertake the voyage, providing free passage and provisions for the pilgrims. On their part, the Ottoman Caliphs, who had assumed the title of ‘Custodians of the Holy Places’, spent large sums providing and protecting the vast caravans that visited Hijaz from countries like Syria and Egypt. The ancient port of Surat in Gujarat, described variously as Bab-ul-Mecca or the Bandar-e-Mubarak (blessed port), was one of the leading ports of embarkation for Indian pilgrims during the Mughal times. The rulers of the Bengal, Bijapur and Golconda also used various other Deccan ports on the east and the west coasts for Hajj sailings (M.N Pearson, 1994).
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India’s Hadhrami Links
Hadhramaut has a long history as an important centre of Islamic learning. There was a steady interaction between Hadhramaut and western and southern India, particularly Gujarat, Konkan Coast, Malabar Coast and the Deccan, which is well documented in history. Significant Hadhrami settlements are found in Kutch, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Bharuch, and Surat in Gujarat, Calicut and Malabar Coast in Kerala, Bijapur and Belgaum in Karnataka, Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh and Ahmadnagar and Janjira in Maharashtra, while a minor settlement existed in Delhi.
One of the earliest recorded contacts between Hadhramaut and India was in 1560 A.D. when Haji Begum, wife of Mughal emperor Humayun, went to perform Hajj and, while on her way back, invited nearly three hundred Hadhrami Sayyids and sheikhs to accompany her to Delhi. These Sayyids were settled in the ‘Arab Ki Sarai’ (Arab Lodge) near the Humayun’s Tomb in New Delhi.
Political relations between Hadhramaut and Mughal India can be traced to the visits of envoys of rulers of Hadhramaut, who used to send congratulatory messages and presents to the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. Niccolo Manucci, in his “Storia do Mogor ”, describes the visit of one Sayyid Abdullah as an envoy of Hadhramaut in 1665 A.D. Such envoys were cordially welcomed and bestowed with lavish gifts. The envoy of Hadhramaut was presented with a robe, a horse, and 3000 rupees, while 7000 rupees were sent for his ruler.
From the 17th century onwards, Hadhrami Sayyids started migrating rapidly to India and other Asian and African regions, with a peak in immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Bahmani and the Golconda rulers of the Deccan extended enormous patronage to scholars, sheikhs, Sufis, Sayyids, ulema and merchants from Hadhramaut. As a result, several prominent members of the Sayyid families of Hadhramaut, who claim descent from Ali, the Prophet’s son-in-law, immigrated to India and established hospices and institutions of Arabic learning in India during the 16th century A.D., many of which have survived till date. These Sayyids exercised considerable spiritual influence over Arab tribes in their homeland and wielded similar authority in Muslim societies in India. Such families as the Aydarus of Tibi, the Alawi of Tarim or Bafaqih of Duan and Shihr often became leaders of the local ulema in port towns of the Indian Ocean.
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Mahatma Gandhi’s Historic Sojourn in Aden
India has a long association with Aden going back to the historic times. Aden was a flourishing port, trading centre and an important gateway for India at that time. It attracted a large number of Indians, mainly from Gujarat and Maharashtra, who were engaged in wholesale and retail trading in India. After Aden became part of the British Empire in 1839 and began to be administered by the Bombay Presidency, the population of the city, as well as that of the expatriates, began to increase. It was estimated that the Indian Diaspora in Aden numbered 8,563 in 1856 and increased to around 15,000 by the mid-1950s. The Hassan Ali Street in the Crater region of Aden still shows traces of the old glory of the ‘Cloth Market’, which was primarily managed by the Indian merchants.
Apart from their astute business acumen, the Indians living in Aden displayed a high degree of political consciousness and took a keen interest in the events relating to the freedom struggle back home. The Indian community in Aden was staunchly opposed to the proposal mooted at that time by the British government to separate Aden from India with a view to continuing their governance of Aden as a protectorate even if India eventually gained independence.
The British government in India considered Aden as a safe haven to incarcerate Indian freedom fighters, on the same lines as they used the Andaman & Nicobar Islands as the infamous “Kala Pani”, far away from the sight and minds of people.
One of the earliest and well-known cases of confinement of Indian revolutionaries in Aden pertains to that of Vasudeo Balwant Phadke, who was the first freedom fighter to conceive ‘swaraj’ or the Indian Republic, as the only answer to rid India of its foreign occupation. He gathered several tribes comprising Ramoshis, Bhils, and others, launched an armed struggle against the British, and even managed to briefly take control over the city of Pune. He was, however, captured in July 1879, sentenced to life imprisonment, and transported to Aden in January 1880. Phade managed a daring escape from the Aden jail in October 1880 but was re-arrested soon after. He died in Aden on February 17, 1883, after a hunger strike.
Aden’s location as the first port of call from India on the international sailing route made it a favourite destination for many Indian national leaders and revolutionaries who stopped by on their way to or from Europe and other destinations.
One of the earliest Indian leaders to visit Aden was Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, first in 1919 and later on 13 January 1935. Netaji wrote extensively about his second visit to Aden, which was on his way to Europe from Bombay on board the ship ‘MN Victoria’ on the Italian Lloyd Triestino Line. He mentioned in his account that the Indian settlers in Aden were primarily from Kathiawar and were engaged in businesses. He referred to the strong presence of the Royal Air Force and a contingent of British troops numbering about 2000 stationed at Aden. He was impressed by the city’s picturesque location, nice buildings, roads, tunnels built through some of the hills, and the stony water reservoirs. Netaji addressed the Indian community in Aden and talked about the constructive programme adopted at the Bombay Congress and the Khadi movement in India.
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The Story of the Parsis in Aden
After the British conquest of Aden in 1839 A.D. and its declaration as a free port, several Indian traders, including Hindus, Muslims and Parsis, started settling down in this thriving city. According to the 1872 census, there were only 121 Parsis out of the total population of 19,289 in Aden, but by the 1911 census, the number of Parsis living in Aden increased to 384, of which 268 were men and 116 were women.
In 1840, Eduljee Muncherjee Colabawalla became Aden’s oldest shipping chandler when he started his business as a shore and shipping requirements supplier. Another illustrious Parsi merchant, Cowasjee Dinshaw Adenwala (1827-1900), arrived in Aden in 1845 and soon transformed the port of Aden into a facility capable of accommodating the streamer traffic between the Indian Ocean and Europe. By 1846, the Parsis began to move into the gum, hides and coffee trade, and they seemed to be the only members of the commercial community with large enough capital to buy the cargoes of American ships.
In 1856, Cowasjee partnered with Captain Luke Thomas in his banking business, which became a limited liability company in 1857, known as Luke Thomas & Co. In June 1863, Cowasjee signed a 10-year contract for the restoration of the ‘Playfair’ Tank and six other hill tanks at Tawila, along with two other merchants: a Persian, Hasan Ali, and a Parsi, Eduljee Manekji. This contract was renewed in 1873 for a further 30 years, and the tank water began to be sold commercially.
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Kamaran Island — Transit for Indian Hajj Pilgrims in the past
Kamaran, or the ‘Island of two Moons’, is considered the largest shelf island in the Red Sea. It was first mentioned in the “History of World Ports” in 525 A.D. Kamaran was occupied by various foreign powers during its history, including Ethiopians, Mamaluks, Persians, Portuguese, Turks, and the British. From 1882 onwards, Kamaran Island became a central quarantine station for the Hajj pilgrimage to Makkah, accommodating up to 44,000 pilgrims per season.
In 1915, British troops from Aden captured Kamaran from Turkey. The Government of India administered the island through the Resident of Aden, who appointed a resident Civil Commissioner for the Island. D.G. Shaw was the first Commissioner of the Kamaran Island. The Commissioner also served as director of the quarantine station and was assisted by two medical officers appointed by the Government of India and the Government of the Dutch East Indies, according to a 1926 Anglo-Dutch Agreement. At Kamaran Island, the Hajj pilgrims were quarantined and received a bill of health before entering the Hejaz region.
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History of Urdu Literature
Urdu writing in its various primitive forms can be traced to Muhammad Urfi, Amir Khusro, and Kwaja Muhammad Husaini. The earliest writings in Urdu were in the Dakhni (Deccani) dialect. The Sufi-saint Hazrat Khwaja Banda Nawaz Gesudaraz is considered the first prose writer of Dakhni Urdu.
The first literary work in Urdu is that of Fakhruddin Nizami’s ‘mathnavi’ ‘Kadam Rao Padam Rao,’ written during 1421 and 1434 A.D. Muhammed Quli Qutb Shah, the greatest of the Golconda rulers and a distinguished poet, is credited with introducing a secular content to the otherwise predominantly religious Urdu poetry.
Vali Dakhni was one of the most prolific Dakhni poets of the medieval period who developed the literary form of ‘ghazal’. Inspired by Dakhni’s ‘Diwan’ (collection of ghazals), the poets of northern India began to switch from Persian to Urdu, which they named ‘Rekhta’. Sirajuddin Ali Khan Arzu and Shaikh Sadullah Gulshan were the earliest promoters of Urdu in North India. By the beginning of the 18th century, a more sophisticated variant of Urdu evolved in northern India through the writings of Shaikh Zahooruddin Hatim, Mirza Mazhar Jan-e-Janan, Khwaja Mir Dard, Mir Taqi Mir, Mir Hasan, and Mohammed Rafi Sauda. Sauda’s ‘Shahr Ashob’ and ‘Qasida Tazheek-e-Rozgar’ are masterpieces of Urdu literature.
The last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was a poet with a unique style typified by complex rhymes, excessive word plays, and the use of idiomatic language. He authored four voluminous Diwans. Shaik Ibrahim Zauq and Momin Khan Momin were leading Urdu poets of this period. Any description of Urdu literature cannot be complete without mentioning Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1797-1869), considered the greatest of all the Urdu poets.
In the post-Ghalib period, Daagh Dehlvi (1831-1905) emerged as a distinct poet whose poetry was distinguished by its purity of idiom and simplicity of language and thought.
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Jarawa Tribes – Confluence of the Present with the Past
When I was in India in August 2000 for my annual leave, I took a holiday to the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, popularly known as the Emerald Islands, rated as one of the world’s most beautiful, virgin and eco-friendly islands. Some things that fascinated me most about the Andaman and Nicobar Islands were its lush-green Mangrove forests, deep blue water and the existence of several primitive tribes; many represent the earliest inhabitants of India.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India are the treasure houses of several primitive tribes, many of which are facing extinction. The tribes are primarily of two stocks: Mongoloid and the Negroid. The Great Andamanese, Onges, Jarawas and Sentinelese are dominant among the Negroid tribes and are concentrated in the Andaman District. Their background and origin is unclear and continues to be a subject of speculation among scholars and anthropologists. Studies have indicated that the Onges tribes have been living in the Andamans for the last 60,000 years. The Andaman communities, divided into ‘eramtaga’ (jungle-dwellers), and ‘ar-yuato’ (coast dwellers), subsist on fish, turtles, turtle eggs, pigs, fruits, honey and roots. The Nicobarese and Shompens are the Mongoloid tribes concentrated in the Nicobar District. The Nicobarese, who claim descent from a Burmese prince, were identified as ‘lokenje’ (naked people) by the renowned Chinese traveller I-Tsing.
The forest-dwelling Jarawas are perhaps the most easily accessible among the Negritoid tribes of Andaman. The Jarawas have remained isolated for aeons, living in the rain forests at peace with nature for centuries. They have traditionally greeted outsiders aggressively, firing arrows at settlers whose cattle and fields encroach upon the vital resources and occasionally robbing the passengers of their food. No wonder these tribes were classified as “hostile” by the District Administration.
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The Nizam of Hyderabad’s Munificence
The Seventh Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali Khan, was acknowledged as the world’s richest man, whose estimated fortune was more than US$ 2 billion. In addition, he was said to have US$ 5 billion worth of gold in bricks and coins in his Treasury and an unspecified number of gems. The Wall Street Journal had reported in March 1931 that two Englishmen spent more than two years just to classify their family jewellery. The Nizam was one of the five rulers from amongst the 565 Princely States in British India who was given the rank of 21-gun salute apart from the Maharajas of Gwalior, Kashmir and Mysore and the Gaekwad of Baroda.
The initial decade of Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan’s reign was memorable for rallying Hyderabad’s resources to the Empire’s services during the World War when he made generous contributions to Great Britain’s War Fund. During World War I, the Nizam donated Rs 4 crores (US$ 15 million) to the Fund, including a US$ 400,000 grant for anti-submarine warfare. He repeated his largesse during World War II by contributing US$ 400,000 to the British Air Ministry and another US$45,000 towards supporting the Hyderabad cavalry kept as a standby at the disposal of the Imperial forces, besides his donation of Rs. 5 lakhs to the French Government from his personal funds or “Sarf-e-Khas”.
Justifying the title of “Faithful Ally of the British Government,” as the British often used to refer to Nizam, his overzealous donations could be interpreted as a demonstration of his faithfulness to the Imperial Crown or political expediency, as he was ruling the Deccan under the guaranteed protection of the British Residency.
However, the Nizam of Hyderabad was known for his philanthropy and support of several charitable causes. There were numerous instances when the Nizam not only supported social and educational causes within and outside his Kingdom but also encouraged his Nobles to do so.
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Hyderabad — A rich history of medical education, treatment and research
Hyderabad has long been a pioneer in medical education, treatment, and research. It was far ahead of other princely states and British-administered territories at the time, particularly in Medicine.
The Hyderabad Medical School, which eventually became Osmania Medical College, was established in 1846 by the 5th Nizam of Hyderabad, Afzal-ud-Dowlah. It was the third oldest medical college in British India, next only to the Calcutta Medical College and Madras Medical College, established in 1835. But certainly, preceding other leading medical institutions of that time like the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), which was established in 1875, Jamia Hamdard, which was founded in 1906 and the Lady Hardinge Medical College in Delhi, which was founded in 1916. The foundation of medical education in Hyderabad dates back to 1595, when Mohammad Quli Qutb Shah, the 5th King of Golconda, established Darush-Shifa, where Unani medicine was taught and practised.
As early as the 1940s, Hyderabad had a proliferation of Hospitals and Dispensaries, including separate and specialised hospitals for General Medicine, Chest, Orthopaedics, Fever, ENT, Mental Health, a TB Sanatorium, and a Quarantine Facility. Research and Development (R&D) was actively encouraged, including research in tropical diseases, public health, and medical treatments.
Anaesthesiologists worldwide may be aware of the two Hyderabad Chloroform Commissions established by the Nizam in 1888. These commissions involved leading British doctors and the renowned medical journal Lancet to investigate the safety and efficacy of chloroform as an anaesthetic, as there were concerns about its potential toxicity. Another interesting aspect is that Sir Ronald Ross, a British medical doctor who was born in Almora, was the first person born in India to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1902 for his pioneering research on malaria, which he conducted at the old Begumpet military hospital in 1897 — again a Hyderabad connection! Sir Ronald Ross Institute of Tropical and Communicable Diseases (popularly known as the Fever Hospital) in Nallakunta has been named after him.
Hyderabad has now become a leading hub for Medicine and Pharmaceuticals, with the development of Genome Valley, Pharma City, numerous prestigious medical colleges and research institutions, including DCMS, which produces a large pool of skilled doctors, scientists, and researchers, numerous World-Class Hospitals, and well-developed research infrastructure, including laboratories, clinical trial centres, and research parks.
The Rich History and Tradition of Vegetarianism in India
Many of us know that ‘Vegetarianism’ has been gaining momentum in Europe since the middle of the 19th Century. It is believed that the word ‘vegetarian’ was coined in 1842 by the founders of the British Vegetarian Society, of which Mahatma Gandhi was an active member during his student days in London. In his book ‘My Experiments with Truth’, Mahatma Gandhi cites many references pointing towards the benefits of vegetarian food from different points of view. It is not surprising that we have all gathered here today to take the cause ahead.
India, the world’s second most populous country, with a population of over 1.2 billion, has around 500 million vegetarians. Vegetarianism is much a mainstream way of life with 42% of Indian households eschewing meat, fish and eggs. This constitutes 70% of the world’s vegetarians. India has more vegetarians than all the world’s vegetarians put together.
Vegetarianism is ingrained in Indian society, and there are laws requiring all packaged products to be labelled with a mandatory mark showing if the product is vegetarian or non-vegetarian.
You are all familiar with the US multi-national food giants McDonald’s, KFC, and Pizza Hut. But I doubt whether you have ever heard of McDonald’s McAloo Tikki, which is a burger made from spiced potatoes or the McVeggie, a patty of carrots, peas and potatoes or the McSpicy Paneer, which is a burger filled with Indian cottage cheese. Similarly, KFC’s India menu is dominated by vegetarian items like the ‘Veg Zinger’, the ‘Veg Snacker’ and the ‘Veg ZingKong’. Pizza Hut serves amazing pizzas in India, such as Tandoori Paneer, Paneer Makhani, Veggie Lovers, Simply Veg, and Paneer Vegorama. Domino’s Pizza has opened exclusive vegetarian outlets in Mumbai and Gujarat, as did McDonald’s earlier near a pilgrimage site sacred to Sikhs in the city of Amritsar in northern India.
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Fighting Hunger – Building Hope
We relished a delicious and sumptuous dinner and satiated ourselves with a fine dessert. Now, if we pause for a moment and ponder, how many people in the world are as lucky as we are to have a satisfactory dinner that can give them peaceful sleep at night?
Almost 870 million people worldwide may go to bed hungry tonight, 200 million of them children! That means that one in eight people on Earth goes to bed hungry each night!
Hunger is number one on the world’s top 10 health risks. It kills more people every year than AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis combined.
We may imagine that poverty, chronic hunger, and starvation are problems restricted to the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) or the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, or Asia.
No! Hunger transcends geographic boundaries and economic divides. It does not see colour, race, religion, sect, caste, or gender.
Hunger is as much a global problem as it is local. Poverty is an everyday harsh reality from the streets of Washington & Ottawa — capitals of one of the world’s most affluent and stable nations — to the farthest corners of Africa.
Around 17.6 million households (about 1 in 7) were ‘food insecure’ in the United States (Coleman-Jensen 2013 p.v). 1 in 6 Americans and 1 in 4 children wake up not knowing if they will have the food they need!!
There are about 35 Million Americans who go to bed hungry each night. 1/10th of these hungry people, or 3.5 million, are homeless, but the rest of them have homes but no proper food.
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Towards Becoming A Diplomat
It was the rainy season in September 1963, and a newborn baby was the centre of attention in a hospital in Hyderabad. The parents were full of ecstasy for their first child was born … That was me!
My father, Late Awaz Sayeed, worked for a public sector undertaking, the Food Corporation of India, as an administrative assistant till he retired in 1982 as a gazetted officer. His life was a transition from great opulence to wanton struggle. Son of a Yemeni-born father who served as the State Financer of the Sultan of a tiny principality called Mukkalah in Yemen, my father was the youngest of five brothers and four sisters. A reckless wastage of wealth by some of his elder brothers forced him to join government service at an early age.
He had a passion for literature and took up short-story writing in Urdu at a young age, earning great fame in life. Being scholarly and intellectual, he involved his two children — my younger sister and me- in his literary activities. Any new story written is first narrated to us before it is finalised for publishing or narration on All India Radio. He was so passionately committed to story writing that other aspects of life, like monitoring the children and disciplining them when needed, were less important to him. That is where our mother filled the gap and took exceptional pains for our education and upbringing. Being the daughter of a District Judge, she realised the importance of adequately educating her children and convinced my father to admit us to a good missionary school, the St. George’s Grammar School in Hyderabad.
I had studied up to the fifth standard in an obscure school, the Jawahar Upper Primary School in the Vijayanagar Colony in Hyderabad, which hardly contributed to grooming my personality in those formative years. The influence of peers in our locality, Mallepally, also had a negative impact on my academics. The transition from a purely ordinary school to a missionary school was not smooth for me, and soon, I became one of the most prominent back-benchers in my class. My favourite avocation was to bunk classes and go to theatres on the Abid Road and watch movies while still in 6th or 7th class with a blithe lack of concern for academics. I had to ingenuously tamper with my scorecards every semester to save myself from the wrath of my parents for scoring outrageously low marks. I remember the incident when, after scoring 2 out of 200 marks in mathematics, I took the courage to ask my math teacher why he had given no marks for practical geometry, in which I claimed I had constructed circles and triangles. He looked at my shabby work and asked, “Is this construction or destruction?”
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