Preliminary draft paper not to be cited

Travel & the Nation: Maulana Jafer Thanesri as a mutiny convict

Seema Alavi

Professor, Dept. of History & Culture

Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi

Introduction

This paper argues that the history of the mutiny has been largely written within

the contours of the anti-colonial, secular-nation state. This has resulted in the

marginalization of the histories of people who culled their sense of proto-nationalism

from both a colonial as well as an Islamic discursive frame. Such omissions in the

historiography of the mutiny and the struggle for freedom from British rule that followed

have created the binaries of revivalist and reformist, cosmopolitan and religious,

progressive and jihadi, communal and nationalist in the historical studies of the later

period that was marked by high nationalism.

This paper focuses on a mujahid- Maulana Jafer Thanesri (1838-1905) - who

spent 18 years at the penal colony in the Andaman Island for his activities during 18571.

It discusses two texts that he wrote after his release from the Andamans- the Tawarikh-i-

Ajaib (The Histories of the Wondrous) and the Sawaneh Ahmadi (Biography of Syed

Ahmed Shahid of Rae Bareily) to understand how his sense of belonging changed as a

consequence of his movement across the country as a mutiny convict. Thanesri’s sense of

Self was transformed as a consequence of his experience of repression in the post mutiny

decade. His writings reveal that 1857 precipitated for him a specific conjuncture that

located him at the cusp of two global Empires: the Islamic imaginary and the Western

‘colonial’. The paper shows how the two apparently distinct worlds combined to

1 See the essay of Satadru Sen, ‘No Place like home:Maulana Thanesari in the Andaman Islands’. Sen

looks at the experience of Thanesri more from the sociological point of view: The impact of labour in the

penal colony on his professional career and social standing and the re-configurations of family and

domesticity.

constitute Thanesri’s sense of Self. This made him straddle both the markers of a proto-

nation and Islamic particularism with remarkable ease. Careers of mujahid convicts like

Thanesri thus offer some rethink on the binaries of ‘nationalist’, ‘communalist’ and

‘fundamentalist’ that color our understanding of nation and nationalism.

The Argument

This paper concentrates first on the idea of travel and the nation: Travel of men of

religion-defined erroneously as Wahabis by the British in the early 19th

century-across

Hindustan and to and fro from Yemen and South East Asia pre-dates colonialism2. The

British crack down on such men in the 1820s only intensified their movement across

India –especially from Bengal to the new resistance areas in the North-West regions and

Afghanistan. But the mutiny-rebellion of 1857 introduced a new element in this

movement. It created a category of a ‘mujahid wahabi convict’-a marked colonial subject

who now moved under the aegis of an administratively defined colonial ambit.

The mutiny-rebellion of 1857 is a very significant episode because it entails

unprecedented movement of people across the length and breadth of India, and also

abroad: marching brigades of Sepoys and rebel leaders that leave their parent villages and

cantonments, deportations of convicts to the penal colony of Andaman, and the flight to

Arabia and other parts of the Muslim world of those trying to escape the arm of law in the

years that followed the mutiny. I explain how this extraordinary scale of travel via the

networks laid out by the colonial state affected the sense of belonging experienced by

men like Thanesri as the mutiny years brought them at the cross-roads of two world class

Empires: the Islamic and the British. I argue that this critical juncture precipitated by the

mutiny shaped the idea of a proto nation. This articulation of nation had a hitherto

undefined wider geographical and cultural ambit, it was tied inextricably to Islamic

beliefs and practices, and it was politically drawn and racially envisaged much before the

launching of the politics of the Indian National Congress that is said to have crystallized

such contours.

The mass scale movement of people precipitated by the mutiny had been made

possible by the expanded networks of communication that colonial rule had made

possible particularly in the years immediately following the mutiny: the railways, roads,

2 Engseng Ho, The Graves of Tarim

river and sea travel, telegraph, dak system, printing press, hierarchy of legal courts to

which people leaned for help, police and military commissariat, jails, colonial daftars

between which local scribes-munshis- moved, and of course the transportation of

convicts to penal colonies in far away islands like the Andamans. The colonial

administrative infra-structure that sustained the rhetoric of ‘rule of law’ and ‘public

order’ facilitated long distance travel. This concretized and made real for many ideas of

the ‘nation’ and the ‘global’ which had so far remained narrowly defined or confined to

an imaginary.

The former was concretized in the emergence, perhaps for the first time, of the

idea of a proto ‘nation’ which meant something more than immediate locality and the

patrimonial agrarian patriotism of the early 19th

century. This idea of a sense of belonging

that spilt put of the immediate confine of locality was culled out of the British

administrative and legal framework –sarkari amaldari- and its claims to uphold a just

society where the rule of law prevailed. This pan India discursive frame and its rhetoric

of the ‘rule of law’ rubbed on the everyday lives of people even if it did not always

improve their lives. It colored transactions that ranged from employment opportunities in

the army, lower level clerical jobs in colonial offices, courts of law, payment of taxes, to

travel, law and order problems, redress of social and inheritance grievances etc. Even if

people were not transferred across the country, such jobs created an awareness that

similar offices and opportunities existed for people across the length and breadth of the

sarkari amaldari. Both the praise for the functioning of this colonial marked edifice as

well as the critique of its non- functioning served to reinforce the idea of the individual

being part of a proto-nation as carved out by the administrative frame of the colonial

state. However, this proto-nation had an Islamic moral and spiritual framing. For that

was the only way in which the atrocities that were committed under its aegis and the

hollowness of some of its claims were made comprehensible to Muslim men of religion.

Thus the idea of nation was from its very nascent stage tied inextricably to that of an

Islamic system of beliefs and practices. It was a particularistic proto-nation that blurred

the boundaries of religion and territorial belonging until the politics of the Indian

National Congress introduced the categories of the ‘nationalist’ and ‘communalist’ and

injected it with fresh inducements.

Second, travel and transportation across large areas ensured the experience of

different geographical and linguistic regions, and introduced the idea of belonging to not

just a wider territorial confine, but also to one that was culturally diverse. It burst the

bubble of the supremacy of any one language or culture that the relatively sedentary life

styles of the early colonial period had created. At the same time the anti-colonial fervor

of the mutiny years that triggered most travel, gave this more embracive concept of

belonging a distinct political hue. This political profile was defined ironically in

opposition to the very colonial state that had made its realization possible in the first

instance.

Thirdly, a racial envisaging of this geographo-politico belonging began

particularly after the mutiny when state policies discriminated against people of color.

Indians were critical that discrimination along lines of class, with which they had little

issue, was being substituted by new referents of race and color. They grudgingly, realized

that their sense of geographical and political belonging also had racial underpinnings.

They complained about discrimination on grounds of skin color that they felt represented

their way of life. Thus they defined themselves against not just the pure Englishmen, but

also vis-à-vis to those of mixed race-Eurasians -and the anglicized natives.

The physicality which colonialism provided to the Islamic global imaginary was

more complex. At one level colonialism with its print capitalism, and greater

opportunities of travel across sea and land, wider networks of communication,

facilitated travel and access to Muslim cultures and made the Islamic imaginary

physically real at least for the privileged. But this physicality also brought home the

reality that the global so far envisaged as the Empire of Islam had given way to the

Western dominated global. This invoked envy as well as the urge to access this novo

global Empire that corresponded in terms of its sheer scale and political influence to the

Islamic imaginary. The fact that this Empire was ‘colonial’ of course created its own

dynamics for the Muslims. But their take on it was derived also from the ambivalence in

their minds between an Islamic global imaginary and the reality of life within its

successor –the mid 19th

century western Empire with its control on capital and culture.

Interestingly, the colonial infra-structural and intellectual grid, along with its legal

vocabulary, English language and political rhetoric was used both to access this new

Empire as well as to contest it. Out of this ambivalence what emerged as the clear winner

was an Islamic identity that was culled from within the networks of colonial rule, rooted

in the spiritual and moral frame of Islam, and politically stoked by the rehabilitation

through the print media of early mujahids like Syed Ahmed Shahid and their tarika

Muhamadiya (Muhamedan path) that was a global phenomenon. More importantly this

identity was consolidated in opposition to the new ‘colonial’ regime, seen as the micro-

cosm of the global Western Empire. The physical engagement with the local ‘colonial’

ensured that this Islamic entity got entwined inextricably with the fight for the nation.

Jafer Thanesri: a profile (1838-1905)

Jafer Thanesri was born in 1838 in Thanesar, in Punjab. His father was kaashtkar

(farmer). He was a disciple of the famous mujahid Syed Ahmed Shahid. Even though he

remained committed to the Wahabi movement (tehreek) of Syed Ahmed, he rose to

status via service as a muharrir-clerk- and petition (arzi) writer for zamindars and others

in his locality. He was known as a qanun (legal) consultant in his area, and amassed

considerable jaidad (property) by rendering legal advice to clients3.

Thanesri, participated actively in 1857. In Delhi he headed the mujahideen who

moved to the city and actively assisted their leader, Ianyet Ali, in exhorting the Sepoys

posted on the Afghanistan border areas:-Nausherah and the Mardan regiments- to rebel.

He returned to Punjab only after the defeat of the rebel. forces in Delhi. But even on his

return he actively supported the Wahabi movement against the British in the border areas.

His home in Thanesar, in the Punjab, remained the headquarter to co-ordiante anti-British

activities of the mujahids, and a conduit to send money and men for the war in

Afghanistan4. He was arrested in 1863 for conspiring to smuggle funds to anti-British -

mujahideen in Afghanistan. He was initially sentenced to death, but his punishment was

eventually commuted to life in penal transportation, which meant deportation to the

Andaman Islands. Beginning in 1866, he spent nearly eighteen years in the penal colony

where on account of his knowledge of Urdu and Persian he was appointed as Naib Mir

3 Thanesri, Tawarikh-i-Ajaib, intro, p, 36.

4 Ibid., p. 36

Munshi, muharrir-clerk- in the office of the kutchehri superintendent and Chief

Commissioner. In 1884 he returned to Punjab with a new wife, new children, and

considerable wealth and social status.

Thanesri was always keen on penning down his experiences and has several

publications to his credit. In 1862 on being harassed by the British in the decade

following the mutiny he began to write his experiences. However, this fell into the hands

of the government during his court trial in Ambalah. William Hunter incorporated this in

his book the Indian Musalman. He started writing afresh only on his return to Punjab in

the mid 1880s on his life and times in the Andamans. This memoir was first published in

the late 19th

century as the Tawarikh-i-Ajaib5. Later in 1895 incensed by Hunter’s

damaging portrayal of his and other wahabis’ role in the mutiny he wrote the first

comprehensive biography of the founder of the wahabi movement (tehreek ) Syed Ahmed

Shahid of Rae Bareily. This was published in the name of Sawaneh Ahmadi.6 And while

at the Andaman penal colony he wrote at the request of Sardar Ghail Singh, circuit

supdtt. Port Blair and his son a book called Tarikh Ajaib. This book has one part

confined to incidents in the Andaman, the customs, habits and religions and languages of

the people. The other part is more about the Urdu equivalents of the popularly used words

and phrases in the island. This was written with the intention that the British officers and

others in the Andaman should learn and get familiar with Urdu, and the people of Hind

be introduced to the life and customs of the island society. The writing of this book

started in the form of a title called Tarikh-i-Port Blair, by major Paratharo-the deputy

commissioner of the island. Thanesri helped him in compiling the information, and later

did an Urdu translation. This was published in 1880 by munshi Newal Kishore, from

Lucknow as Tarikh Ajaib. Its forward is in English.7

I

British ‘rule of law’ & the moral and spiritual framing of the proto-nation

Thanesri’s critique of his own arrest from Aligarh, his travel to Delhi and

Ambalah as a convict, the descriptions of the atrocities on his brothers, children and wife

5 Maulana Jafer Thanesri, Tawarikh-i-Ajaib, reprint, 1962, Karachi. Copies 11,000, price Rs. 4 and 50

paise. 6 Jafar Thanesri, Sawaneh Ahmadi, matba-i-faruqi, Delhi, 1309 hijri, 1895.

7 Second edition of 1892 is from kaarchi.The sixth part of the book is deleted from here.

that pre-ceded it, and the subsequent hounding of Wahabis reflects how he had

internalized the state’s vocabulary of the rule of law and lamented its violation. The

critique of the British legal and administrative framework, operational as it was across a

wide stretch of the country, at one level served to define his own sense of belonging that

was seen to be located now in a system that had a wider geographical reach. The new

self-definition continued to be stoked by the hope that the new location meant that the

battery of colonial offices offered him a wider network across which he could move to

access the relatively expansive territory he identified with. Thanesri was sure that being a

literate experienced scribe of a Persian daftar would get him an employment in any other

such dafter that dotted British territory8.

The freshly construed sense of being part of a proto-nation was riveted with

setbacks and apprehensions. Thus on arrival in Bombay, Karachi and Sindh the

limitations of his new sense of connectedness became evident. As he says of Karachi, ‘In

this mulk munshis and clerks wear very high topis (caps)…we had always thought that in

angrez amaldari there would always be an Urdu and Pharsi daftar. And because of our

expertise in munshigiri we would get the job of writer anywhere and spend our jail years

peacefully. But we were mistaken. In Multan the Urdu and Pharsi daftar had finished. In

mulk Sindh we saw only daftar of Sindhi zabaan. Even though the Sindhi alphabets are

similar to Pharsi, but we could not understand the language’. A disappointed Thanesri

concludes that soon his ghoroor (pride) of munshigiri disappeared9.

At one level the administrative and legal structure of the state became the

reference against which Thanesri defined his own sense of belonging. This was most

evident at the time of his trial when the battery of vakils for the wahabis asked for the

trial to be abandoned on grounds that the it was illegal as the so called criminals had

operated not from their home territory whose contours they identified clearly as the

‘sarkari amaldari’ (governments administrative and legal ambit) but from outside its

purview. The vakils for the Muslim convicts argued that section (dafa) 121 therefore does

not apply to them as it is not applicable for jang (battles) fought from outside sarkari

8 Thanesri, Tawarikh, p.130. 127-28. On arrival at Andaman island he was relieved to know that here as

well his services as a munshi would be needed in the sarkari daftars. But earlier on arrival at Bombay, in

Thane he was surprised that the colonial daftars there used no Persian or urdu, but only Marathi.Thus

despite his training in one dafter there were limitations to his appointment. 9 Ibid., p.123.

amaldari10

. The turning down of their plea was seen by him as yet another case of the

hollowness of the British rule of law. Its gross violation and Thanesri’s sense of outrage

was again illustrated when at the time of his trial at the sessions court in Ambala, the

judge asked him to just ask for forgiveness and the matter would end there. Upon which

an outraged Thanesri retorted, ‘that he wanted insaaf (justice), that does not appear to be

flowing from you’.11

The violation of the rule of law continued to agitate Thanesri both before and after

his trial. He was convinced that within the ambit of the colonial administrative territory

with which he identified, the rule of law was hollow and the system riveted with coercion

and corruption. His descriptions of corruption and his passionate plea to do something

conveyed his sense of sorrow at the violation of his fresh sense of self, and that too by the

very system that defined his sense of belonging to a proto-nation : His mother, brother

Mohammad Sayed were arrested and tortured. His younger brother, on being tortured and

threatened with death by hanging, revealed his hideouts. This triggered wide scale

harassment of his friends and relatives in Ambalah: Muhammad Shafiq, his close

associate’s, was house searched. He reveals how the criminal justice system was abused

by arm twisting innocent people with dire threats until they complied with dictates and

agreed to give false evidence. His relatives maulvi Muhammad Taqi and Muhammad

Rafi were arrested and threatened with hanging if they did not reveal all. Later when they

agreed to become mukhbirs (informers) they were freed. They became the sarkari gawah

(witness ) for the trial of Muhammad Shafi who was falsely implicated and arrested from

Lahore12

. Their help proved useful also in arresting maulvi Yahya Ali, maulvi Abdul

Rahim, Ilahi Baksh, Miyan Abdul Ghaffar and other wahabis.13

At Ambalah, even he was

given the choice to be set free and bestowed with favored position and status if he

became a government witness (sarkari gawah). His non-compliance resulted in physical

torture and threats of death by hanging14

. His own younger brother Muhammad Syed was

coerced into becoming the sarkari gawah for his trial. He was given money and

10

Thanesri, Tawarikh, p. 95. Ofcourse the Governor General rejected this plea on grounds that even if this

was true the trial had to proceed as the convicts were a threat to the sarkari amaldari. 11

Ibid., p. 95. 12

Thanesri, Tawarikh, p.72, 78. 13

Ibid., p. 79. 14

Ibid., p. 77

threatened with death by hanging if he did not comply. But at the time of trial he

emotionally broke down and resigned form his position15

. Thanesri describes how

thousands were arrested from Bengal for being involved with wahabis and more

importantly how many of them bought their release by bribes paid in cash or succumbing

to becoming sarkari informers and witnesses16

. The best case in point was that of Ishwari

Prasad-the police inspector of Patna-who throughout the trials of the wahabis( 1863-

1873) remained loyal to the British. As a return favor he was made the Deputy Collector.

Many like him amassed favors, jagirs, zamidaris and amassed fortunes by being co-opted

in the abuse of the rule of law.17

The state’s corruption was commercialized. It was up for

sale in the market. Thus for instance, one hakam (arbitrator) along with gawah (witness)

was always ready for service. He would sell his services to the best bidder who would

pay him maximum bribe. And would get the evidence (gawahi) of his witnesses tailored

to the best interest of his clients18

.

For Thanesri the violations of the British rule of law and the indignities on his

companions across the wide geographical span, where British dictum prevailed and

which had become critical to his self definition, could be understood and withstood only

through the moral and spiritual succor of Islam. Indeed, the dashing of his hopes and the

violations in this more expansive belonging were courageously borne and understood

only in terms of the moral and spiritual anchorings offered by Islam. Thus the sense of a

territorially defined belonging-proto nation- was morally and spiritually framed from the

very start.

Commenting on his arrest he says, ‘the 4 months in jail helped me ruhaani taur

par (spiritually)’. He adds that he ‘was grateful to Allah for putting me through this test

of sabr (patience),’ The unfairness of the corrupt system was comprehensible to him

only as a fight for Allah kee raah (right path)’. He could withstand its trauma only

thorough his belief that it was his test of patience, and perseverance that God had

subjected him to so as to test his commitment to Islam19

. On May 1864 when the court

announced his punishment as death by hanging (phaansi) he was happy at the thought

15

Ibid., pp. 90-91. 16

Ibid., 79. 17

Ibid., pp. 80-81. 18

Ibid., pp 82-83. 19

Ibid., p91.

that he would be a shaheed (martyr) and thus acquire the highest possible status in the

eyes of God. He told the Europeans who enquired how he and his colleagues were

looking happy even after hearing their death sentence that, ‘In in our religion being

tortured in the service of Allah and killed gets us the status of martyr (shaheed). And that

makes us elated’20

. Similarly, when the judge announced his death sentence he retorted

by defining his sense of Self not just as a member of the sarkari amaldari, that for him

was his nation, but also of another administration that of Allah. The two for him were

inextricably connected. He said, ‘ Jaan dena aur lenaa khudaa ka kaam hai, aapkei

ikhtiyaar mein naheen. Woh Rab al izzat qadir hai kee merei marrnei ke pehle tumko

hallak karei’ (The work of giving and taking life is God’s, and not in your hands. He is

the Almighty who has the power to kill you before my death)’21

. His entire text is dotted

with descriptions of the miracles and barakat that happened in the prison as a result of the

confinement there of so many learned scholars of Islam with spiritual powers22

.This

divine administration ran parallel to that of the British legal and administrative frame-

getting more pronounced each time the latter was perceived to be unfairly violated.

Travel and the proto-nation

Thanesri is always impressed at the extraordinary amount of travel he did as a

British convict. He was excited at the new experiences he collected moving as a convict

over a huge number of miles. In 1886, on his return to Ambalah after 18 years of

imprisonment in the Andamans he says, ‘I realized that from here via Bombay to Kaala

Paani, and then back via Calcutta to Ambalah, I had covered 2000 miles23

’. This for him

constituted the first time round tour of what he had begun to define as his country and

that he refers to as Hind: ‘ Kul Hind a tawaaf ho gaya thaa24

’. (I had circumambulated

the entire Hind). Indeed, his new job in the Ambalah magistrates office after his release

and return to the city enabled him to continue with his travels as far east as Calcutta, and

20

Ibid., p. 103.Finally, his sentence was converted from death sentence by hanging to life imprisonment

because the English did not want him to achieve the status of a martyr. 21

Ibid., p. 97. 22

Ibid., p. 109 23

Ibid., p. 211 24

Ibid., 211.

as far west as Lahore. In 1886 he was also contemplating traveling to London in

pursuance of a case25

.

Travel and transportation along the networks of rivers, roads and railways lay out

by the colonial state, and his movement from one jail and kutchery (court )and its

associated daftars (offices), ensured the experience of different geographical and

linguistic regions. It introduced the idea of belonging to a wider culturally diverse

territorial confine. However, as we saw above, Thanesri’s realization that his expertise as

a Persian munshi would not enable him to connect with colonial daftars in far away

Karachi, Bombay and Sindh, also revealed the limitations of the newly founded sense of

connectedness forged with the help of colonial networks. But, travel across British India

consolidated Thanesri’s sense of proto-nationalism in other ways as well. The anti-

colonial fervor of the mutiny years that triggered most travel, gave this more embracive

concept of belonging a distinct political hue. This political profile was defined ironically

in opposition to the very colonial state that had made its realization possible in the first

instance. And this political connectedness was far more durable and enduring than the

infra-structural linkages offered by the state.

Thanesri’s text is like a travelogue that details his journey from the prison in

Ambalah where he was locked on being convicted in 1862, to the penal colony in the

Andaman island, moving across Lahore, Sindh, Bombay, Karachi. At one level the

journey by road, rail, boat and ship across the networks laid out by the colonial state

offered Thanesri the first ever geographical tour of the country and its diverse people, and

helped re-configurate in his mind the contours of his belonging. But at another level the

indignities that he faced as a convict, the injustice and unfairness that he observed on

account of race and colour, also lent a distinct anti-colonial political profile to his proto-

nationalism.

Travel as a convict across the country introduced him to a range of people with

whom he felt connected through their shared sense of engagement, albeit in different

ways, with the colonial state. This experience of the crowd slowly began to lend his

sense of belonging, freshly culled from the colonial frame, an anti-colonial proto-

nationalism. Each time Thanesri and his colleagues were shifted from one jail to another

25

Ibid., p. 215-6. In London he hoped to meet W.W.Hunter to apprise him of the situation in India.

there were crowds of sympathetic people of all religions who cheered and came out in his

solidarity. As he says describing his first entry into jail in Ambalah on being convicted by

the session’s court of the city in 1864, ‘Thousands of people men and women had

collected in kutcheri to hear verdict. They were shocked and crying, and many

accompanied us to jail’26

. Again, his journey by road from Amabala to Lahore in 1865,

on his death punishment being commuted to life imprisonment, was memorable as he

breathed the fresh air and watched the flora and fauna of the country, and purchased on

the way favored edibles from the street where people gathered to greet and watch the

marching convicts. As he says describing his sense of enjoyment, ‘ harr din Eid aur harr

raat shabe barat ho gayee27

’( every day was as joyful as the festival of Eid, and every

night as colorful and bright as the festival of the night of the dead’. ) . Thanesri and his

companions popular appeal because of being qaidis (convicts) were most apparent in the

bazaars of Thane city near Bombay. Here during their march through the bazaar to the

jail the convicts looted some sweet (mithai) shops. But far from being incensed the shop

keepers themselves handed over sweets to the qaidis (convicts) and sympathized with

them even though they were by no means their co-religionists28

. If on the roads and cities

through which he passed he felt connected to the crowds that greeted him, the more

personal individual encounters he had with staffers of the jails and kutcheris he visited

and fellow convicts gave him an occasion to feel bonded with people of regions and

religions he had rarely encountered prior to his arrest and movement across the country.

Thus in Lahore central jail he was touched by the sympathetic welcome and care he

received from a Hindu Kashmiri daroga of the jail29

.In Karachi he describes with a sense

of bewilderment the new styles of head gear of Hindu and Muslim munshis that he had

never see before, ‘ iss mulk mein barri barri unchee topiyaan munsho aur clerk, aur barri

barri unchee pagriyaan Hindu mahajan pahantei hain30

’.He engaged with these people

who spoke different languages and had different cultural overtones to what he associated

munshis with. And on the ship that brought him to Bombay he reserved special praise for

26

Ibid., p.97. 27

Ibid., p. 117. 28

Ibid., p. 127. 29

Ibid., p. 119. 30

Ibid., p. 123.

a Muslim khalaasi ( orderly) who served him well, ‘because I was a maulvi’.31

He

reserves special praise also for a Muslim naib darogha at the Thane jail who looked after

him very well. And for the marine Sepoys who escorted him with respect in the ship that

took him to the Andamans32

.

Individuals of different religions and regions that he met during his travels

brought him close to the multifacted nature of his proto-nation. And the crowds on the

streets irrespective of religion reminded him of the common thread that at least politically

knitted him to this diversity. At the same time the observations of the variety of flora,

fauna, languages, cultures that he observed using the newly laid out networks or roads,

railways and sea travel brought home the fact that this variety had a throbbing pulse that

connected it into a whole in ways that surpassed the sheer physical connections

established by the colonial roads, telegraph and railways. His enthusiastic reporting of

this diversity, peppered often by a critique of the colonial infra-structure, reflects this

sentiment the best: He describes the pleasures of being in fresh air as he does a boat ride

to Karachi on Darya-i-Sindh. and observes with excitement the hitherto unknown plants

and vegetables that he sees on the banks. His use of the new networks of communication

that enable him to experience his mulk first hand does not stop him from being critical of

the colonial infra-structure. Thus his descriptions of the train journeys are always

distasteful as he complains of the sheer number of people that are stuffed in one

compartment like ‘jaanwar33

’ (animals). The journey by ship from Karachi to the

Andamans also is unpleasant for him as he always complains of overcrowding and sea

sickness of fellow passengers34

.But despite these complaints he reports excitedly of what

he observes from the deck. Of course, Bombay with its novel fruits and vegetables, styles

of buildings, dresses, languages and people never ceases to surprise and excite Thanesri.

He appreciates the beauty and the wealth of the Parsi men and women he first had the

chance to meet in the city. He says, ‘Iss qaum kei loag bahut khoobsurat-gorra rang kei

hotei hain.Aur maaldar bhee.Yeah log aatish parast kee ummat sei hain’35

. He notes that

the high rise buildings, the mounds of salt around as that is a major industry, and the

31

Ibid., p. 125. 32

Ibid., 129. 33

Ibid., p.122. 34

Ibid.,p 125. 35

Ibid., p. 126.

coconut trees and their fresh fruit, all of which he had seen for the first ever time. He

describes with excitement the saree styles he saw in the city and the head gear of the

Hindus that he had never seen before36

.

Once in the Andaman island, its flora and fauna, climate, seasons, people,

religions, and lifestyles all serve as reference points against which he articulates more

sharply than ever before the territorial and cultural contours of his proto-nation. Not only

does this proto-nation begin to be referred as ‘Hind’ by Thanesri, but it is given a specific

location in the territorially vast and culturally diverse mainland that he has left behind.

And this process of profiling the proto-nation happens by way of its contrasts with the

island. Thus the home he has left behind, referred always as ‘Hind’ from the time he

arrives in the Andamans, is contrasted to his penal colony in terms of its topography and

seasons that are different from those in the island. Describing the hardships unknown in

the mainland he says, ‘ people of Hind often do not realize the hardships that island

people face..’37

. He illustrates this by his own experiences of commuting between islands

where only the power of prayers (dua) saved him from the bad weather conditions.

Again, Hind is defined in terms of its flora, agricultural products and vegetation that is

different from that of the islands: ‘In the jungles here you get a variety of wood that is

different from the wood (lakrri) of our mulk’.38

The island is also different from his mulk

because it has a different ‘aab-o-hawa’. And that makes it ‘sahat baksh’ (healthy) and

less prone to fevers and diseases that ravage his mulk39

. Indeed for Thanesri his mulk has

different seasons whereas the island’s weather is constantly like the chait and baisakh

season of his mulk40

. The tribals of the island, described in derogative ways as the forest

dwellers (jangli), naked and wild community (dahshi nangi madar zaat qaum), are

contrasted to the relatively civil and cultured people of Hind41

. And thus despite the

better lifestyle and status that Thanesri amasses for himself as a munshi in the penal

colony, his mulk-Hind- is always projected as a distinct geographical entity that is

36

Ibid., p. 126. 37

Ibid., p. 151. 38

Ibid., p. 133. 39

Ibid., 134. 40

Ibid., p. 135. 41

Ibid., p. 136.

culturally not just different but superior to the island against which its profile is carved

out.

Race & the proto-nation: the weak link?

Thanesri’s nascent concept of nation was racially envisaged as well. He loathed

the preferential treatment given to Europeans and Eurasians on account of their skin color

or westernized lifestyles. And this critical point of distinction marked his difference from

the colonial masters. Yet, his take on race was not simple and his self definition not

entirely straight jacketed in the black vs the white frame. He like Fazl-i-Haq, Ghalib,

Azurdah and most of his contemporaries was critical that discrimination along lines of

class, with which they had little issue, was being substituted by new referents of race and

color. If colonial notion of race took account of class then it may have posed no problem

to Thanesri. But that was not to be. And thus Thanesri’s sense of geographical and

political belonging only grudgingly developed racial underpinnings. This process

however was slow and had a reluctant kick start and he would have rather not engaged

with it. Significantly, his own views on people of color (siyapoost), who he defined as

distinctly low class and thus different from him, were no better than that of his colonial

masters. And he would have not hesitated to endorse any iniquitous regulations on them

but for his own slotting in that category by the colonial definition of race that transcended

class.

Thus Thanesri was critical of race discrimination only because it overlooked

class. He lamented that colonial jails for instance clubbed together people of color,

irrespective of class. He did not like the idea of being locked up with Hindustanis of

lower class and caste to him. He says, ‘Hind kei jail khaano mein sharifon kee barri

pareshaniyan hain…hamarei desiyon kei madarij (classification) kaa koi lihaaz naheen

hai. Kaalei kaalei sab ek samajh kar Raja, nawab, mahtar, chamar sabb ko ek hee laathi

sei haanktei hain.’42

He envied the Europeans and Eurasians who even in jail were

treated like sahibs and not made to co-mingle with the lowly: ‘ Magar kot patloon walon

kee kahin bhe izzat hai. European aur doghlei donou mashal sahib logon kei wahan bhee

chain karr tei hain’43

. Even in the Andaman island penal colony he regrets that, ‘

42

Ibid., p. 128 43

Ibid., p. 128.

muazas (respectable) Hindustanis who had hundreds and thousands of servants in their

good days , for no reason were clubbed together with siyaah post (black).And like the

choore chamar (low castes) of Hind they too were made to eat left over bad food, and

labour with ordinary people.44

’ He contrasted them to the Europeans and Eurasians

(doghle kale kalootei) who were treated akin to those in coat patloon or like the gorre

who headed the regiments of the black (kaaliya) Christians. He was envious that such fair

skinned convicts got bungalows, servants and on getting a license they even got a salary

of Rs. 50/month. He said he often felt like crying when he noticed that men like Mr

Lamteer, who was black in face, but had an European name and dressed in coat and pants

(patloon) began to be treated lavishly in the island with bungalow, a clerical job in the

deputy commissioner kutcheri etc., and in contrast a raja of Jagannathpri because of his

kaala chehra (black face) had to labour and live with the ordinary choore chamar (low

people)45

. The racial undercurrents of Thanesri’s proto-nationalism thus remained weak

until as late as the end of the 19th

century.

II

The Islamic & the Western global

In the years that followed the mutiny the expanded colonial networks of

communication made the Islamic imaginary relatively more accessible and real for

Muslims. Indeed, many Muslims migrated to Arabia so as to escape the government’s

legal arm46

. Not only travel to Arabia, South East Asia and other Islamic lands

intensified, but the growth of print capitalism concretized this imaginary through the

emergence of a rich print culture that brought the Islamic world closer.47

. However, even

as the Islamic global was concretized, the reality of the Western dominated global world,

that had contributed to bringing the Islamic world closer home, also stared hard in the

face. In India the problem was further complicated because this novo global Empire was

also colonial. This paradox is reflected in the ambivalences in Thanesri’s mind about the

extent to which he should appropriate the linguistic and legal vocabulary of colonialism

and rise via the colonial service , and where he should draw the line. Out of this

44

Ibid., p. 147. 45

Ibid., p. 147. 46

Thanesri, P? 47

B. Metcalf, Haj travel literature, Prophets tradition inspired religious and medical literature; also wahabi

literature-Marc Goboriou.

ambivalence what emerged as the clear winner was an Islamic identity that was culled

from using the networks of colonial rule, rooted in the spiritual and moral frame of Islam,

politically stoked by the memory of the lost Empire, and consolidated in opposition to

the new ‘colonial’ regime.

Thus the anti-colonial nationalism of men like Thanesri was a by product of their

efforts to seek in the Western global what they had always thought was theirs in the

Islamic imaginary. Yet, as colonial subjects undertaking this exercise they also ended up

in articulating the idea of a proto-nation that was politically anti-colonial, racially

underpinned, and spiritually and morally framed from the very start. Thus Islam and

anti-colonial proto-nationalism were inextricable from the mid 19th

century itself.

Thanesri and the British administration:

Thanesri was a literate munshi before his arrest and deportation to the Andaman

island. He worked as a lower functionary in the administration of several zamindars and

local courts and helped people write their arzis-petitions. In the Andamans, as a colonial

convict, he learnt how to speak, read and write the English language as well. In 1872 his

teacher we one Ram Swarup, an English knowing person (angrezi khawan). His

linguistic skills were perfected in the company of the English officers whom he taught

Persian, Urdu and Nagari language. Knowledge of English not only improved his status

in the colonial administration, but also improved his financial status. He was the only

Muslim who knew English and thus he began to write arzi (petitions) and appeals of

Muslims in the English language. He earned thousands of rupees through this service.

According to him he had a monthly income of at least Rs. 100/- performing this job48

.

Apart from monetary benefits this linguistic skill also enabled him to help Muslims

represent their cases adequately and in proper formats in the form of petitions that went

into their various court trials (muqadama). As a result of his valuable assistance many

Muslims were acquitted on proper representations being made, and many had their death

punishments annulled49

. This made him very popular and sought after on the island. It

also imbued him with the spirit of fighting for the rights and privileges of his people from

within the colonial apparatus whose official he was. So much was he successful in this

48

Ibid., p. 175 49

Ibid., p. 175

task that on the day of his own release the colonial administration issued an order

forbidding any government functionary (sarkari mulazim) to draft petitions and help the

natives in their paper work50

.

Learning English also triggered in Thanesri the inherent paradox that had been

introduced in his mind from the day he took service in the colonial administration , and

sought to rise in it to seek the status that he was convinced he deserved as a member of

the erstwhile global power –Islam. Thus Thanesri writes that English was attractive to

him and made him rise in administration and in the collection of world knowledge. It

introduced him to a range of literature and filled him with the knowledge of the world

that was hitherto unknown to him. Indeed it woke him up to the realities of world power

and dominance. Underlining the benefits of the English language, which he saw as the

window to world civilization and history, and the instrument of power and control, he

says, Angrezi zaban ilm aur fanon kaa ghar hai. Jo angrezi naheen jaanta who bilaa

shubha duniya kei halaat sei bakhubi mahir naheen hai. Aur bina angrezi seekhie pakka

duniya dar naheen ho sakta.’.51

However, the realization of the power that English language wielded and the

new world order that it upheld also triggered in Thanesri the fears of the detrimental

effect it had on the Islamic world order, its cultural etiquette and moral underpinnings. He

saw literature in English questioning the Islamic ally framed way of life that he identified

with and defended, as much as he zealously protected his status and position in the

colonial administration. He writes of English as the language that is muzir (harmful) and

ham qatil (murderous) for deen (religion). According to him any individual who learnt

English, would definitely like in his case read all the available literature in it. And if he

has not read his own Koran, Hadith and texts on the Prophet, he will definitely go astray.

As he says he will go behad azaad, bad-deen and be-adab52

. Thanesri cites his own

distractions from prescriptive Islam and spirituality (ibadat) on getting influenced by

English literature. He says he began to miss his early morning (tahujat) prayers that he

had always offered with dedication all his life. And even foregoes his Friday prayers. He

lost interest also in the reading of Koran and Hadith, and forgot the verses and chapters

50

Ibid. 51

Ibid., p. 176. 52

Ibid., p. 176.

that he had memorised earlier. According to him the only thing he passionately wanted to

keep doing was reading English books. Satan he says had overpowered him, and he was

just a small distance away from kufr (infidelity).

Expressing his extreme tension on being conflicted between two great

civilisations he once again resorted to the spiritual self within him to pray to God to make

him see light: dua maangta kee aye aankh waalei mujh andhei kaa haath pakar53

. This

worked and finally the spiritual and moral frame of Islam rescued him and brought him to

the Right path. On falling sick with a painful boil on his leg he attributed his bad luck to

his going astray from prescriptive Islam. He prayed for his recovery and promised to get

to the right path on being cured. And as he got healthy he resumed his prayers and

readings as per the Islamic dictates for all believers. From now on he strived to maintain

the delicate balance between the colonial knowledge paradigm represented through

English and that of his tradition and moral reckoning.

Challenging colonial knowledge: Sawaneh Ahmadi & the re-establishment

of the global phenomenon-the Tarika-i- Muhammadiya

Thanesri’s politics was entrenched in the interstice between the

colonial discursive frame and that of global Islam. His proto-nationalism remained

embedded both in the colonial and Islamic frame. Through this brand of politics Thanesri

hoped to offer best service to the cause of Muslims. The latter he thought had been

harshly treated by the state especially after the publication of William Hunter’s damaging

treatise The Indian Musalman in ?54

. Thanesri was always perturbed by Hunter’s negative

portrayal of the Muslims during the mutiny, and in particular with his remarks on the men

of religion who he derogatorily labelled as the wahabis. He lamented that even though Sir

Syed Ahmed Khan (of Aligarh) had also refuted the claims of Hunter; the latter’s text

continued to be influential and defined the English mindset on the Muslims55

. It is no

surprise that one of the first books in English that he began to read once he had mastered

the English language was Hunter’s Indian Musalman. He got with great difficulty the

second edition of the volume from Calcutta for Rs. 7/-. He says that a reading of Hunter

53

Ibid., pp. 178-9. 54

This book had proviked reaction from Sir Syed as well.. 55

Thanesri, pp. 82-3. He laments that the British hate wahabis more than they do the Afghan maulvis who

have assassinated many of their officers. And all that is because of the influence of Hunter’s text.

convinced him that the British would never release them form this penal colony. This was

because Hunter had underlined the fact that on release the wahabis would return to Hind,

and destroy the sultanate angrezi. He was even more disturbed when he gathered that

Hunter had been made the musahib (close associate) of the Governor General. He was

thus now in a position to influence policy decisions56

. Thanesri after reading Hunter,

began to refute comments on Wahabis’ killing the British during the mutiny. He cited

cases of people like Nazir Hasan who saved the life of one Mrs Leeson in 185757.

However, in 1309 hijri (1880?) he countered the Indian Musalman by his

publication of the first elaborate Urdu biography of the mujahid Syed Ahmed Shahid –the

Sawaneh Ahmadi-whom the British regarded as the founder of the anti-colonial Wahabi

movement58

. The biography set to ‘correct’ British apprehensions about mujahids created

by officials like Hunter. This comprehensive masterpiece is divided into 5 parts, and

details the life and politics of the foremost mujahid of the early 19th

century.

The Sawaneh Ahmadi was written in direct response to Hunter, and with the

express purpose to convince the government and the public that far from declaring a war

against the British, Syed Ahmed Shahid, on at least 20 occasions exhorted his disciples

and people not to oppose the English59

. Thanesri, through a reconstruction of the life and

politics of Syed Ahmed Shahid attempted to convey to the British both the innocence of

the men of religion that Hunter had derided, as well as indicate the immense potential

they wielded in society on account of their spiritual powers that had both territorial and

extra-territorial dimensions. Indeed the biography of Syed Ahmed Shahid sought to re-

habilitate him and his puritanical tradition-the Muhammedan Path (Tarika –i-

Muhammadiya) firmly in the anti-colonial Muslim discourse of the period. This

carefully chosen re-establishment of the global phenomenon that Syed Ahmed

represented because of his exclusive exhortation to Prophetic piety was significant as it

challenged both the traditional setup (bidat) and the colonial state. Indeed, the text went

ahead and added fresh points of emphasis on the global appeal of Syed Ahmed that

focussed less on his Tarika and more on his own individual spiritual and supernatural

56

Ibid., p. 186. 57

Ibid., pp.82-3. 58

Jafer Thanesri, Sawaneh Ahmadi, matba faruqi, Delhi, 1309 hijri., pp 335-7. 59

Sawaneh, pp. 335-7.

powers. According to Thanesri these individual acts of miraculous powers underlined his

extra-territorial appeal in ways that went beyond the ambit of the Tarika that itself was a

global phenomenon. Thus Thanesri rewrote the history of the foremost mujahid in India

in a way that both allayed British fears about the Muslims as well challenged colonial

power by countering their construction of what was widely believed as damaging

knowledge on the Muslims. It also displayed the global contours of Muslim influence that

could be given a political twist if required.

Indeed Thanesri’s Sawaneh Ahmadi challenged the wider politics of the

colonial state, and not just confined itself to protecting Muslim interest. For the text

countered the very production of colonial knowledge on which British power was

structured. The Sawaneh shows how the print culture and access to English language and

resources made available by colonial rule could be effectively used to generate fresh

useful knowledge about Islam and its leaders. And this knowledge could be used to

effectively counter the colonial constructions of people, histories and events. Thus print

capitalism and access to wider linguistic domains of knowledge introduced through

colonial networks, enabled Thanesri to re-write of the history of Islam in 19th century

India. And, both the colonial global print capital as well as the particularistic re-writing of

Islam’s history in India that it shaped, offered an effective challenge to the colonial

constructions of Islam as illustrated for instance in Hunter’s text. The portrayal of Syed

Ahmed in the Sawaneh as a leader not unfavourably inclined to the British, stood in sharp

contrast to his more popular anti-British image disseminated by colonial writings, and

later nationalist Muslim literature of the early 20th

century. Yet, the pro-British image of

Syed Ahmed notwithstanding, the text is extremely significant as it challenged the

knowledge base of colonial rule by countering the very basis of colonial rule through an

attack on texts generated by its officials. Sir Syed Ahmed too had countered Hunter’s text

through his writing of Asbaab-i Baghawat-i-Hind, and Sarkashi zilla Bijnor . But

Thanesri’s attack was unique because it was entangled both within the colonial networks

of knowledge production as well as derived from his particularistic take on the close fit

between men of Islam, like Syed Ahmed, and their global agendas-the puritanical Tarika

Muhammadiya or the Muhammedan path. Both the colonial and the Islamic global were

critical to his subtle anti-British fight.

In terms of Urdu literary genre the Sawaneh Ahmadi marked the beginning of

the writings of historical biographies that very much in the tazkira tradition glorified their

subject; but unlike the tazkira they focussed narrowly on the individual rather than his

entire genealogy. Further, it was written in the style of medieval Islamic literature that did

not always show reverence to sources and authorities from which it borrowed

information. It was written in simple Urdu, and used as its source unreferenced accounts,

of people who had lived in the time of Syed Ahmed. It was also written in consultation

with English books, which again are not acknowledged anywhere. It is noteworthy that

authenticity of the works cited, their referencing and acknowledgement of sources, are

thrown out of the window by Thanesri all through the text. Indeed, he is honest in his

introduction when he says,

‘I have written this book with great effort and consultation with the different writings

(tehreer) which were written by those who have actually witnessed the events…whatever

books I have consulted unfortunately I have not put the dates and so I felt difficulty in

arranging the events. But I have travelled a lot and consulted some English books also.

Though I do not claim recording of events strictly date wise. Still I have made every

effort to be correct in my recording of events. But still there is no doubt that the book is

more authentic on the subject and better than previous biographies’60

.

The text effectively shifts the focus of Syed Ahmed Shahid’s life and career

agendas away from the British and towards the Sikhs in Punjab. Thus Thanesri’s text

begins with the atrocities of the Sikhs on the Muslims that were so cruel that at the time

of the birth of the Syed, society was waiting for a saviour. That appeared in the form of

the Side who was welcomed. And thus it followed that the Sikhs and the saving of the

Muslims form their cruelty remained the foremost agenda of the Syed. As he says, ‘the

jihad of Syed sahib was only against the zalim (cruel) Sikhs, who had wrecked havoc on

the Muslims of Punjab’61

. And this fight too was not to obtain the badshahat or political

rule over Punjab, but only to stop them from torturing Muslims.

The text cleverly avoids discussion of the Syeds anti-British activities, but

projects him as a universally popular leader whose powers lay not so much in political

wisdom as in his extra-ordinary role as reformer and a performer of karamat, miracles

60

Sawaneh, p. 5. 61

Ibid., pp.335-7.

and the fountainhead of barakat (blessings). This made him popular across the length

and breath of the country-a source of influence and power. The biography deftly alludes

to the political bending which the Syed could give to the immense spiritual power and the

popularity that he attained because of that. But his political role is cleverly confined by

Thanesri to his interventions in Shia-Sunni disputes in Rae Bareily, Hindu-Muslim

conflicts in the area, and of course the Sikh atrocities on the Muslims. As he explains

through several undated anecdotes involving anonymous men in dialogue with the Syed

that the latter always explained to his clientele that he could not declare jihad on the

British because, ‘his main task was spread of tauhid-i-ilahi, and the sarkar angrezi

allowed them to do that without any hindrance. There was thus no justification for

declaring jihad on the British62

.’

And yet, without bringing the anti-British role of the Syed in to the narrative

and locating him instead as a miraculous healer and man of barakat and supernatural

powers, Thanesri projects him, and by implication the mujahids, as an individual who

represented a formidable force to the powers that be. Indeed he shows how the powers of

the Syed were all the more exceptional and fearsome because his spirituality linked his

territorial clientele to the extra-territorial. And of course the main link here was the

puritanical Tarika-i-Muhammadiya that he represented. A path that was a global

phenomenon because of its exhortations to follow the path of the Prophet –a universally

acceptable figure. But Thanesri’s points of emphasis were more on his individual

spiritual powers that knitted him to an even wider clientele than his puritanical Tarika

could ever achieve.

The key to Syed Ahmed’s exceptional potential in politics was explained by

Thanesri in the fact that he combined the batini (spiritual) with the zahiri (worldly)

stamina (quwwat). The former was represented in his powers of miracles and barakat that

welded together a constituency of Shias, Sunnis and even Hindus, and zamindars, native

officials, traders and even some English traders into his clientele63

. His services were

often loaned by the officials of Awadh in solving Shia-Sunni conflicts in the region.

Hindus milk traders (gwalas) of Tonk came for his ziyarat, and the pious of Benares were

62

Sawaneh, p. 91. 63

An English indigo trader of the Rae breily area came for ziyarat to him and offered him food and

money.Ibid., p. 61. For traders of mirzapur and zamindars see,pp. 62-3.

his murids. The latter often requested him respectfully to leave the city when they feared

that his prayers and zikr (with which they personally had little issue) on the city would

anger their Gods64

. And such powers extended beyond India where Thanesri shows how

miracles happened in Aden when he needed assistance in travel and on the ship when en-

route to Jeddah to perform haj65

.

And this vast and culturally diverse clientele that had extra-territorial dimension

as well and was welded together through his spiritual powers lent him immense potential

in worldly politics as well. And thus it is no surprise that the Syed in Thanesri’s account

made a trip for the holy pilgrimage-haj- before he declared his political war-jihad- against

the Sikhs. Thanesri describes the long boat ride that he took from Rae Bareily to Calcutta

adding murids and consolidating his cross country support on the way using his

spirituality to mobilise support for and reinforce his politics against the Sikhs. The Syed

had made it clear according to Thanesri that this haj was a necessary preparation for his

jihad against the Sikhs. And thus the combination of the batini and the zahiri could not

have been made clearer.

64

Ibid., pp. 92, 65

Ibid., p. 75. Camels arrived on their own at the port of aden to carry him to the city.And then disappeared

before he could even pay them.