Meo (community from Mewat)
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The Meos Of Mewat
India Harmony VOLUME - 1 : ISSUE – 3 APRIL, 2012
Reflections on the State & its Citizens
By Shri Virendra Dayal
The Meos of Mewat are a proud and valiant people: Rajput by descent, Muslim by faith, syncretic by custom, tradition and inclination.In many respects, they are a remarkable example of the composite culture of our exceptional country. They have contributed bravely to its history and faced its vicissitudes and tragedies with fortitude.
It therefore came as an unpleasant surprise when, in September 2011, media reports proclaimedwith more zeal than discretion- that a “communal riot” had broken out in the Gopalgarh area of Bharatpur district, Rajasthan. The initial reports went on to add that the conflict had pitted “Muslim Meos” against “Hindu Gujjars” and that many deaths had occurred in the ensuing violence.
Subsequent reports and enquiriesdiffered radically from the initial reports. They suggested that, in fact, there had been no “communal riot”; there had, over the preceding days, been the revival of a long-standing dispute between the Meos and Gujjars about a plot of land, a matter that was on the verge of being settled peacefully; provocateurs had entered the scene and fuelled incendiary rumors of insult and injury, raising passions all around; the police, whose judgment and motives came into question, had responded by opening fire on a group of Meos, killing nine instantly and grievously wounding others.
In the face of this outrage and demands for corrective action by senior political figures and the public alike, it was learnt in the days that followed that the State Government had, after initial hesitation, transferred the District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police of Bharatpur, together withthe entire staff of Gopalagarhthana. It was further learnt that a judicial enquiry would be instituted, that the State Government had accepted the need for an investigation by the CBI and that monetary compensation-that increasingly banal response of the State to the deaths and injury caused by its own agents-had been offered to the families of the victims. Better late than never, these corrective measures were, nevertheless, cold comfort. The entire incident raised disturbing questions.
Why had a long-standing dispute over a plot of land been allowed, so unthinkingly, to escalate into reports-that were false-of a “communal riot”? Why had the onus of criminality and wrong doing fallen, so readily, on the Meos? Why had the police opened fire, singling out the Meos and causing their deaths?
Here, we need to step back in time and history to understand the damage that the State, its agentsand ingrained prejudice- can do to the cause of harmony.
For centuries, the Meos have exhibited a strong resistance to domination by others and a determination to create, evolve and defend an identity of their own. They made common cause with the Rajputs of the Doab to fight against Balban in the 13thcentury. In the 16th century, their legendary leader, Hasan Khan, died heroically on the battlefield of Khanwah, joining forces with Ibrahim Lodi and Raja Sangha against the first Mughal Emperor, Babur. The Baburnama records, with some disbelief, that the “affections of the infidel”, whom Babur calls Raja Hasan Khan, “lay on the side of the natives”. In the 18th century, the Meosstood against the marauding forces of Ahmed Shah Abdali.And in 1857, they stood together withJats, Meenas and Gujjars in fierce battles against the British in and around Delhi.
Then came the reprisals: physical, with the torching and confiscation of their lands and villages; punitive, with the inclusion of Meos under the provisions of the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871. That vicious Act, renewed and amended repeatedly, remained in effect till 1949, when it was repealed. Under its draconian provisions, a carefully selected list of ethnic and social communities of India-many that had defended the nationalist cause in 1857- were defined as “habitually criminal”, “addicted to the systematic commission of non-bailable offences” and stripped of a range of civil liberties. Unthinkable as it may now seem, criminality-at least in Indiawas made hereditary by the British in the late 19th century.
The consequences were severe, unjust and prolonged. With this deliberate act of the State, directed against its own citizens, there followed a legacy of administrative neglect of the regions and aspirations of the communities affected by the Act. At Independence, these numbered 13 million people belonging to 127 communities, subject to constant surveillance, search and arrest without warrant, and other indignities.
Independent India sought to do away with the grievous implications of the Criminal Tribes Act but its efforts, even ifassumed to be well meaning, were grossly naïve. In 1952, the “criminal tribes” were “denotified”, butthebureaucratic change in nomenclature simply redefined the same groups. The stigma of criminality remained. Next, though theCriminal Tribes Act was repealed in 1952,Parliament adopted theHabitual Offenders Act in the same year. That fed straight into the accumulated prejudices of the State, its administrative apparatus and, indeed, of society more widely.
From the calumny of criminality it was a short step to the innuendo of communalism. The 1920's saw a peasant uprising by Meos against the revenue policies of the rulers of Bharatpur and Alwar and the succeeding years witnessed the growing influence in Mewat of the TablighiJamaat, founded by Maulana Muhammad Ilyas, on the one hand, and reformist Hindu organizations, on the other. It was easy, in such circumstances, to misrepresent the positions of the Meo community on matters of faith, custom and politics. The lead up to Partition was thus fraught with tension: communal riots erupted, large-scale killings occurred and substantial numbers of Meos headed for Pakistan. It was then that Mahatma Gandhi, together with thenationalistMeo leader, Chowdhry Yasin Khan, stood at the crossroads of Ghaseda village in Gurgaon district, urging the Meos to return to their homes and to trust independent India, a call that they heeded. That call and pledge are still remembered by the Meos, with deep emotion.
History lends itself to diverse interpretations. That is both its charm and danger. Inter-communal relations, in particular, can be seen as a record of perpetual conflict and a struggle for dominance, or they can be seen as the strivings of groups and communities, each proud of its identity, to understand and accommodate the other, to live in harmony and to forge a common future of shared goals and values.
In recent years there have, fortunately, been studies of considerable depth and originality that have opened the way to a greater understanding of our diverse communities, including the Meos. Drawing on the remarkable oral traditions of the Meo community, for instance, these studies paint a portrait of the Meos far removed from the stereotypes that have caused them harm.
They point, instead, to a history that is uniquely syncretic. Muslim by faith, the message of Islam came to the Meos with the earliest Sufi saints. Concurrently,their cultural identity and customshave remained imbued both by Islam and by the Hinduism of their Rajput origins and their links with Jats, Gujjars and Meenas.Their social structures are built around 'gotras' and 'palas'; marriage within the 'gotra' and between cousins is taboo. Marriage ceremonies and inheritance laws often have elements that are both Muslim and Hindu andRajasthaniMeos still combine names characteristic of both communities. But most of all, as Professor Shail Mayaram observes, the mythic traditions of the Meos, expressed in their oral tradition, span both lslam and Hinduism, defining the unique identity that they have evolved for themselves. Illustrative of this, is the celebrated, constantly adapted,Meo rendering of the Mahabharata, “Panduunkakara”, sung by their balladeers, the “Mirasis”, themselves Muslim.
The years since Independence have seen the Meos striving to overcome the discriminatory legacies of the past. Their agricultural lands were often of poorer quality than that of their neighbors, their irrigation facilities inferior; their infrastructure of roads, hospitals and schools fell behind that of adjoining areas and the negative effects were evident in their standards of health, in women and child mortality, and literacy rates-especially of women-that were among the lowest in India.
All of that is now in the process of being reversed, the State and society making amends. Greater attention is being paid to the development needs of Mewat from the level of the Planning Commission to that of the district and village; numerous non-governmental organizations are active in the field; there has been a steady increase in educational institutions both private and governmental, secular and denominational, though resistance persists in certain circles to modern education for girls; recruitment of Meos to governmental jobs, including the police, appears to be increasing; the economic boom in neighboring Gurgaon and Faridabad is having its own powerful effect, simultaneously raising economic possibilities and societal anxieties. The values of land have soared, but so have land disputes and the fear of dispossession by more powerful groups and interests.
The processes of development are never entirely comfortable and they can quickly be reversed by acts of violence and the disruption of communal harmony. Speaking with Meo elders recently the question was asked “What would you most like for your community?” The answer was instant: “Education, education, education!” Yes, indeed. And the same could be hoped for the State and its agents. They need to be educated in the history and culture of the peoples they serve,for education is the basis of understanding, and understanding of respect. For only then will it be ensured that tragedies such as occurred in Bharatpur last September will never ever again be allowed to detract from Gandhiji's pledge, made on the crossroads of Ghaseda in 1947.
