A pilgrim’s progress
On what is a personal journey, a search for a tolerant India, Saba Naqvi, senior journalist, explores the nation’s composite culture that challenges pre-conceived notions of what makes a Muslim or a Hindu.
In Good Faith is a journalist’s account of discovering individuals, communities and places on the periphery of absolute identities culling out a unique space for themselves in an orthodox and exclusivist society.
Taking the readers on a pilgrimage across India, Naqvi does not impose her views like a public intellectual or invoke theories of secularism or communalism so intensely debated by academics and refers to less than half a dozen books only when needed to explain syncretic traditions that have existed for centuries.
Over 190 pages, she narrates 35 stories of shrines visited by Indians, who regardless of their religious persuasion, are in search of miracles. In Good Faith begins with an examination of Patachitra painters, found in West Bengal and Odisha, who identify as both Hindu and Muslim. Similarly the chapter titled The Cry for Hussain that focuses on Andhra Pradesh, explains how Moharram had metamorphosed into something entirely different and is ‘celebrated’ in every village and town in Telengana, Rayalaseema and coastal Andhra Pradesh. Dwelling on how a period of mourning mutated into a joyous celebration, Naqvi cites a Moharram song written by Balaiah, a Telugu folk poet: “Recite in the name of Allah/ Then the Devata will bless you”.
The book explores India’s spiritual landscape even as each chapter stands on its own and takes the reader on a voyage of inter-faith dialogue. Interestingly, though non-Hindus cannot enter the main gold-domed enclosure that houses the principal deity Lord Vishnu known as Sri Ranganathaswamy, the leading Vaishnav temple in Tiruchirapalli has housed ‘Thulukka Nachiyar’, a Muslim consort in the same enclosure. Besides this curious phenomenon, the author explores Nathar Vali, the dargah of a Sufi saint, and the legend of the Velankanni Church in Tamil Nadu, among others.
In Good Faith contains several stories of communities that professes Islam through their customs and dress but have a lifestyle remarkably similar to that of Hindus, for instance Langas and Manganiyars in Rajasthan. Similarly, Meos in Haryana and Rajasthan combine the Islamic nikaah ceremony with a number of Hindu rituals.
Naqvi also tells us about the much-known harassment and intimidation of pilgrims and how extracting donations have been honed into an art whether at Meenakshipuram temple in Madurai or Nizamuddin Auliya Dargah in the capital or elsewhere. “Otherwise non-paying devotees have to make do with a somewhat distant darshan… Big Religion is after all Big Money,” she notes.
No book on Indian culture is complete without a take on Bollywood that reflects as well as moulds Indian life in many ways. The book has a chapter Bollywood Muslims and draws a parallel to African-Americans in the United States.
In Good Faith is a product of influences on the author’s own life – the first being her father veteran journalist Saeed Naqvi who made a small series for state-run Doordarshan titled Mera Bharat, brief fillers on India’s composite culture during late 1980s. The second big influence was JNU’s late Professor Rasheeduddin Khan, an authority on cultural pluralism. Shocked and rattled by the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992 like many Indians who believed in a secular nation, Saba quit her job from a newsmagazine and set off on a journey to locate traditions that represented some sort of unity as opposed to the divisions that became strident during the 1990s.
What makes the book readable is that it is short and crisp and celebrates those for whom pluralism is an integral fact of life, not a mere fancy fad. “Hindu bigots and Muslim fanatics feed on each other,” says Shakti Nath Jha, who heads an umbrella organisation of Bauls, who sing with their ektara and are often hounded by religious puritans.
The book tells us that religious tolerance is a dialogue that has been going on, silently and inconspicuously, in front of our eyes and within our earshot for centuries and hopes that it provides a strong counter to fundamentalism.
On what is a personal journey, a search for a tolerant India, Saba Naqvi, senior journalist, explores the nation’s composite culture that challenges pre-conceived notions of what makes a Muslim or a Hindu.
In Good Faith is a journalist’s account of discovering individuals, communities and places on the periphery of absolute identities culling out a unique space for themselves in an orthodox and exclusivist society.
Taking the readers on a pilgrimage across India, Naqvi does not impose her views like a public intellectual or invoke theories of secularism or communalism so intensely debated by academics and refers to less than half a dozen books only when needed to explain syncretic traditions that have existed for centuries.
Over 190 pages, she narrates 35 stories of shrines visited by Indians, who regardless of their religious persuasion, are in search of miracles. In Good Faith begins with an examination of Patachitra painters, found in West Bengal and Odisha, who identify as both Hindu and Muslim. Similarly the chapter titled The Cry for Hussain that focuses on Andhra Pradesh, explains how Moharram had metamorphosed into something entirely different and is ‘celebrated’ in every village and town in Telengana, Rayalaseema and coastal Andhra Pradesh. Dwelling on how a period of mourning mutated into a joyous celebration, Naqvi cites a Moharram song written by Balaiah, a Telugu folk poet: “Recite in the name of Allah/ Then the Devata will bless you”.
The book explores India’s spiritual landscape even as each chapter stands on its own and takes the reader on a voyage of inter-faith dialogue. Interestingly, though non-Hindus cannot enter the main gold-domed enclosure that houses the principal deity Lord Vishnu known as Sri Ranganathaswamy, the leading Vaishnav temple in Tiruchirapalli has housed ‘Thulukka Nachiyar’, a Muslim consort in the same enclosure. Besides this curious phenomenon, the author explores Nathar Vali, the dargah of a Sufi saint, and the legend of the Velankanni Church in Tamil Nadu, among others.
In Good Faith contains several stories of communities that professes Islam through their customs and dress but have a lifestyle remarkably similar to that of Hindus, for instance Langas and Manganiyars in Rajasthan. Similarly, Meos in Haryana and Rajasthan combine the Islamic nikaah ceremony with a number of Hindu rituals.
Naqvi also tells us about the much-known harassment and intimidation of pilgrims and how extracting donations have been honed into an art whether at Meenakshipuram temple in Madurai or Nizamuddin Auliya Dargah in the capital or elsewhere. “Otherwise non-paying devotees have to make do with a somewhat distant darshan… Big Religion is after all Big Money,” she notes.
No book on Indian culture is complete without a take on Bollywood that reflects as well as moulds Indian life in many ways. The book has a chapter Bollywood Muslims and draws a parallel to African-Americans in the United States.
In Good Faith is a product of influences on the author’s own life – the first being her father veteran journalist Saeed Naqvi who made a small series for state-run Doordarshan titled Mera Bharat, brief fillers on India’s composite culture during late 1980s. The second big influence was JNU’s late Professor Rasheeduddin Khan, an authority on cultural pluralism. Shocked and rattled by the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992 like many Indians who believed in a secular nation, Saba quit her job from a newsmagazine and set off on a journey to locate traditions that represented some sort of unity as opposed to the divisions that became strident during the 1990s.
What makes the book readable is that it is short and crisp and celebrates those for whom pluralism is an integral fact of life, not a mere fancy fad. “Hindu bigots and Muslim fanatics feed on each other,” says Shakti Nath Jha, who heads an umbrella organisation of Bauls, who sing with their ektara and are often hounded by religious puritans.
The book tells us that religious tolerance is a dialogue that has been going on, silently and inconspicuously, in front of our eyes and within our earshot for centuries and hopes that it provides a strong counter to fundamentalism.
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
| ExecutiveMBA |
