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“Humaare ghar mein Angrezaan ghuss gaye the. Razakaaron ku gher re the aur jeepaan mein daal ko leko jaa re the (Englishmen stormed into our house. They were rounding up Razakars and shoving them into jeeps),” narrated Halima Bi. Her slender frame and moderately frail voice complemented the stoic tone.
Like Punjabi, the Dakhani dialects of Urdu add the “aan” to turn any singular noun into a plural one. The “daal ko” instead of “daal ke (put in, insert)” intrigued me as that sounded closer to a more old-fashioned style of speaking Dakhani. I was baffled by Halima Bi’s use of the word “Angrezaan”, which, if taken literally, would mean the English. But Umar clarified that she was not referring to English troops, who were long gone by the time the Indian military had started rounding up the Razakars. As an old-school denizen of Hyderabad, she referred to anyone who was not native to the princely state as the foreigner, the “Angrez”.
This pride in her origins was also reflected in her use of the word “watan”, which ordinarily refers to the nation in Urdu. But Halima Bi used it to refer to Bamini, her hometown in Latur district, which was then a part of the Marathi-speaking parts of Hyderabad state.
Umar’s paternal grandparents were from a landed family that had 50 acres of land in the Bamini village of Latur. There, the family lived on a large estate where animals roamed free.
They were also the descendants of a Sufi saint, which bestowed another layer of prestige on the family. Halima Bi mentioned that her father, Umar Shah Quadri, had been a disciple of Hussain Shah Baba whose shrine is located 10 kilometres northeast of Pune.
In 1948, their lives were overturned one afternoon. As part of Operation Polo, the Indian Army was chasing down Razakars. Latur district was a stronghold of the group, given that Qasim Razvi was from the same area.
Without much emotion, Halima Bi narrated how the army entered their house, grabbed members of her family and marched them all up to the Haqqani Baba Dargah, a Sufi shrine on top of a hill near their home. She was certain they were all going to be killed. But some of her family members got on their knees and begged to be spared. Miraculously, they were set free. They made their way back to the house. In the fracas, Umar Shah Quadri’s leg got fractured. That fateful afternoon, he picked up a limp that would stay with him for the rest of his days.
After the incident, Umar Shah Quadri decided to take his family to Mominabad, about 200 kilometres northeast of Aurangabad. I asked Halima Bi if her family was able to take any belongings with them. Diluting her impassiveness with a bit of humour, she retorted, “Maathi kuch bhi nahin leke jaa sake apan (We could not take diddly squat with us).”
For three years, they lay low in a Muslim-dominated locality. “The Hindus helped us out a lot with food and shelter. The nomadic lambadas who lived in the bushes also made sure no harm came to us.” Halima Bi remembered.
Despite the helping hands, they knew that they would be safer in the northern Telangana districts of Hyderabad state.
Beyond the basic differences between sectarian groups like Sunnis and Shiites, or even sub-sectarian ones between Ismailis and Bohras, I do not have much of a grasp on the finer distinctions between the various branches of Islam. More so, I am not acquainted with the Deobandi school of thought that influenced Maulana Maududi, the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami. Interestingly enough, the JI founder was also a Syed from the Sufi silsila (order) like Umar’s grandfather.
The last name Quadri denotes a family pedigree that goes back to a mystic order of priests that is distinct from the three other major Sufi orders: Chishtiya, Suhrawardiya and Naqshbandi. The common factor among them is that they all trace their lineage back to Prophet Muhammad.
Syed Abul Ala Maududi, the founder of the JI, was born in Aurangabad. From a young age, Maududi immersed himself in the study of political and religious texts. His writings, published in his monthly journal Tarjuman-al-Quran, got him noticed by the poet and philosopher Muhammad Iqbal.
Iqbal was impressed with the clarity and sagacity that this promising Hyderabadi writer and thinker displayed. Hence, he invited Maududi to Lahore. Finding him had narrowed his search for a competent individual to spearhead an Islamic centre of learning called Dar-ul-Islam. Chaudhry Niaz Ali Khan, one of the poet’s protégés, allocated land and funds for Dar-ul-Islam in Pathankot, in present-day Punjab. In 1941, three years after Iqbal’s death, the Jamaat-e-Islami came into existence as an organization. Five years later, Maududi spoke against the Muslim League by saying that the fate of Pakistan would “lay in the hands of those who believed in a secular mode of politics and state”. In 1947, when Pathankot became a part of independent India, Maududi migrated to Lahore.
As the 1947 Indo–Pak war over Kashmir raged on and both countries reeled under the aftermath of the Partition violence, the question of Hyderabad’s future was close to Maududi’s heart.
According to a letter he sent to Qasim Razvi in December 1947, Maududi knew about the calamities that awaited the people of his native land if the ruling and feudal classes did not take stock of certain
realities. He felt that it would only be a matter of time before Indian democracy supplanted the monarchy. And that is why he wrote a letter to Razvi imploring him to negotiate with the Indian government for terms of accession before things got worse with New Delhi.
Mohammed Yunus, Syed Abdul Qader and Mohammed Khurshid, who formed a small contingency of the Jamaat in Hyderabad, took this letter to the MIM’s headquarters in the Dar-us-Salaam area of Hyderabad city. The Majlis chief did not even offer the courtesy of meeting them, despite the fact that they had secured an appointment with Razvi. But one of Maududi’s prophecies would come true soon.
“The state’s forces, police, courts and administration will not be able to hold their own in the event of a conflict with the Indian Union,” he had written. He had also correctly warned, “The rich and powerful have always watched out for their own ilk and interests. To avoid the same fate as the Nawab of Junagadh, they will cut deals with the new establishment to save themselves.”
Had Qasim Razvi heeded the advice of Maududi, life would have perhaps been different for Umar Shah Quadri. Even though Maududi’s words did not find takers among various aristocrats and princes, his teachings would play a major role in the lives of Quadri’s descendants.
Excerpted with permission from The Hyderabadis: From 1947 to the Present Day, Daneesh Majid, HarperCollins India.
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