Impenetrable Old Delhi??

Recently I was at a wedding where I met this lady. She was young, intelligent, opinionated, married with a kid, and was a Magistrate! We were discussing Old Delhi, and she believed that even today there are still some areas in Old Delhi in which even police does not dare to enter. She is not the first person from whom I have heard this stereotype. Shockingly, a lot of young, educated people have this opinion about Old Delhi.

Old Delhi is not one monolith place, since it was a walled city so its big and comprises of different mohallas and katras, and houses different castes and communities in them. Probably, since its streets have become narrower with growing population and time it is not open to prying eyes. It can give an impression of a closed society, with its busy, crowded bazars, and eateries, which are impossible to navigate through with cars.

 There are two ways to look at it. Having police at your back and call gives citizens a sense of security, but it also shows the penetration of the states' mechanism (Foucault). The part of Old Delhi around Jama Masjid   has had a difficult relationship with state being mostly a Muslim neighbourhood. Some right wing fundamentalists also refer to it as a 'mini-Pakistan', owing to its largely Muslim population. Even during the Emergency, when Government's bulldozers killed many innocent residents of Turkman Gate, the idea was to break this compact settlement of Muslims and disperse them in order to govern them better. The furore that followed made government give up that plan. But, it created a relationship of mistrust between the Muslims of Old Delhi and the state. Government now treads cautiously whenever there is talk of development or of any change in the structure in the city. This has also led to them turning a blind eye to rampant six storyed buildings coming up in narrow by-lanes. Police keeps an eye, but does not come unless it is a serious law and order issue. They have enough police posts in and around Old Delhi, which residents complain gives them a sense of being 'under surveillance' always! Especially in a world where terrorism is mostly attributed to just one community, they have to keep an eye on the trouble makers!

 So my dear friends, Old Delhi is no Naxal prone deep jungle where police cannot penetrate. There is far too much surveillance and too much police, just look around when you visit it the next time. Please visit without any fear and enjoy your Butter Chicken, while you are there!

A Visit to the Dargah’ of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer

 Recently I went on a trip to Rajasthan and also visited the dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer. Arguably, his dargah is the most respected, most revered and probably the most crowded dargah in the whole of the Indian sub-continent. Although, I am not much of a Dargah person myself, but I have relatives in extended family who are Dargah ‘fanatics’ (or ‘ dargah obsessed’ if any such term exists!). They kept suggesting me more such places to visit but I just stuck to one.

  India has the second highest number of Muslims in the world, after Indonesia. Islam’s spread in India was through the Sufi saints, as Sufism helped bridge the gap between the Hindu majority and Muslim minority by espousing a tolerant, flexible and peaceful religion based on love and compassion. Sufis made the maximum conversions from the lower castes of the Hindus. In dargahs, even today, people from all faiths come to pay their respects and get their prayers answered.
Dargah is an Islamic Sufi shrine built over the grave of a revered religious figure, often a Sufi saint or dervish. Muslims may visit a local shrine as a form of pilgrimage known as ziyarat. The dargah's physical space usually includes a mosque, meeting rooms, Islamic religious schools (madrassas), residences for a religious teacher or caretaker, and other buildings for community purposes like cooking or eating spaces. The term dargah is a Persian word which can mean a "portal" or  a "threshold". Some Sufi faithfuls believe that dargahs are places where  the deceased saint's intercessions and blessings can be invoked. Some others hold a less supernatural view of dargahs, and simply visit it as a means of paying their respects to deceased pious individuals (religious buzurg') or to pray at these sites for perceived benefits.

I visited Ajmer Dargah to pay my respects to the buzurg, to whom everybody goes to get their materialistic desires fulfilled. I remember reading a remark by an Islamic scholar that people (especially lower caste/class Muslims) visited these sites as they believed for their day-to-day mundane worldly desires they should not bother the All- Mighty Allah. In terms of numbers there were equal number of non- Muslims in Ajmer. His shrine has also become famous for Bollywood personalities visiting it praying for commercial success for their movies. And, since he is also referred to as 'Garib Nawaz', or to translate it crudely 'friend of the poor', you find a lot of people doing/ taking charity. But, too many people asking/ pestering you for donations can be a dampener. They have a huge cooking pot (degh) where people throw money which is later utilized for cooking food and distributing it to the poor and needy.  

The shrine had lots of women who could move around freely, could hold hands of their partners and even do weird stuff like moving their head/hair as if in a trance holding the grills of the inner shrine. Qawwalis are held too in evenings on special days.

  While, mosques serve as formal places of worship where Muslims come together for their communal prayers or namaz as well as centers for information/ education and dispute settlements, Dargahs are more vibrant and populous places where a lot more is going on all the time. Dargahs are spaces where people from different nationalities, different cultures, religions can come for their own spiritual experience.  

 I have not been to many Dargahs but there have been a couple which I found memorable. Many many years ago I had the pleasure to visit to Baba Haji Ali's dargah in Bombay situated in the sea where the way opens depending on the timing of the tides. It had a certain energy which was inexplicably very peaceful, as its location is also very beautiful. In Delhi, opposite Old Fort, there is Dargah of Mataka Peer. On fulfillment of their wishes, people give out charity in Matkas or pots. Since, it is situated at a height and they have lots of matkas on the Dargah compound, trees etc. which make it look like a south Indian movie set. But, these Dargahs all have mosques where namaz takes place throughout the day at their usual timings, apart from having musical evenings of Qawwalis on Fridays and special occasions like festivals or Urs. Music and spirituality all come together at Dargahs.