Its a fair question Surinder, and I think it is relevant to the Pakistan story.surinder wrote:I am not sure how deep their faith in Babas/Pirs/Sufis really is if that is what their actions. But I must stop, this is stuff for Islamism kind of threads.
I think one clue to the answer lies among the Punjabi Muslims left for Africa, Fiji, Malaya/Singapore and the Caribbean first as bonded farm labour and then as workers before the emergence of the Pakistan movement in the 1930s.
The vast majority of these PMs do not see themselves as Pakistanis today, but rather as Punjabis and Muslims, or even in many cases as Indians and Muslims.
Someone like Sanjay Badri Maharaj, or those from Malaysia, Singapore, Kenya or South Africa, etc might be able to speak in more detail, but they really dont seem to have absorbed the same kind of anti-Hindu, anti-Indian, anti-Semitic, anti-Western hatred that has become synonymous with Pakistani emmigrant communities.
I think much of that has to do with the fact that these were rural Punjabis who only knew their folk Islam, and have remained insulated from the changes that subsequently swept through much of northern India.
Much before 1947 (my Grandmother tells) there Muslim gangs who would go chanting in Pakjabi cities "Pakistan Banawange, Khoon diyan nadiyan bahawangey" (We will make Pakistan, we will make rivers of blood flow). This same so-called followers of Sufis/Pirs/Babas had no problem initiating the rioting, killing, burning to ethnically cleanse their lands of Kaafirs. Then the same followers of Sufis/Pirs/Babas foisted Talibums on Afghanistan, Jihadis in J&K, Jihadis practically everwhere else, killing Bengalis & Baloochs & Ahmadiyas.
Something did happen in 1930s, particularly in urban Punjab.
In the first couple of decades of the 20th century Ahmadis were amongst many of the most prominent Muslim Punjabi families despite the condemnation of Deobandis and Barelwis in the Doab. Despite this you had Iqbal praising Ahmadis as the best kind of Sunnis to be found - perhaps since two of his uncles had joined, and one of his sons was educated by Ahmadis by them. Yet by the mid 1930s Iqbal was using some pretty harsh language and endorsing demands that they should be legally stripped of their claims to be Muslims. Everything I've seen and heard suggests that the younger generation of urban, privileged Muslim Punjabis educated in Urdu in places like Lahore rejected their fathers politics, and their approach religion in favour of imported ideas.
This process of increasingly communal identities wasnt limited to urban Muslims either. I dont know why, but the Akali Dal and other Sikh-only parties grew fast in the 1930s among Sikhs in the Punjab, much faster than all-India parties like the INC.
Cultures can change for the better or worse, but if Punjab's Sufi Islam wasnt relatively mellow for much of its history, why did tough tribes like the Rajputs and Jats become less threatening, and more easily dominated, instead of more aggressive? Where was the zeal of the convert?There is a view that Pakjabi version of Islaam is Sufi or Pir Baba based. This is often advertised as the inherent softness of Pukjabi Islaam.
