CONVERTED SPACES
Unifying Structures, Structuring Unity:
Negotiating the Sharing
of the Guru’s Mosque
Anna Bigelow
In the mid-seventeenth century the sixth Sikh Guru,
Hargobind, is widely believed
to have built a mosque for the Muslim population of a
settlement now called Sri Har-
gobindpur on the river Beas in Punjab, India. Two
hundred years later the Muslim
residents departed during the Partition of India and
Pakistan in 1947, and the site
fell into disuse for some years. Sometime in the
mid-1980s, a group of Nihang Sikhs
came to claim the building and care for it, regarding
it as a sacred duty, given that
their revered Guru had ordered its construction.
1
They cleaned it up, raised a Sikh
banner out front, and placed a copy of the Sikh
scripture called the Guru Granth
Sahib in what had formerly been the qibla, marking the
direction of Mecca. This
effectively converted the Guru ki Maseet (Guru’s
Mosque) from a disused mosque
into an active gurdwara, or Sikh place of worship. No
Muslims lived in the town at
the time, and initially no one objected. Then in 1997,
a heritage restoration orga-
nization called the Cultural Resource Conservation
Initiative (CRCI) came upon
the old mosque. They noted its architectural value,
heard its story, and targeted
the deteriorating structure for conservation. In the
fall of 2000, publicity about the
project brought the building to my awareness as I was
in India studying shared
sacred sites and interreligious relations.
The publicity also caught the attention of
the Punjab Waqf (Muslim religious endowment) Board,
which was the legal owner.The Waqf Board and other
concerned Muslims raised objections to the
Sikh presence and usage of the site. Eventually
negotiations took place, resulting in
a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which agreed to
share the maintenance
of the site between the Sikhs and the Punjab Waqf
Board, with the heritage group
CRCI functioning as mediators and midwives to the
process.
Among the many unusual features of the memorandum is
the tenth stipulation stating that “social practices
that can fracture the structural unity of the site
and the building will be disallowed within the
complex.â€
Significantly, in the view
of the architects of the agreement, the “structural
unity†of the mosque known
as the Guru ki Maseet does not merely refer to the
bricks and mortar that consti-
tute the building itself. Quite the contraryâ€"the
three main parties to the MOU
agreed that “structural unity is defined as the
physical structure which includes the
building and its precincts and the social cultural
values associated with it.†These
values include the “message of the historic
building, namely the promotion of the
peace and harmony between different religious faiths
by means of participation
and sharing responsibility.â€
Such language in the agreement was carefully forged
over several drafts executed by the three parties to
the MOU: the Nihang Sikh jatha (band), the Punjab Waqf
Board, and CRCI, the heritage conservation group
based in Delhi. This story illuminates the production,
conversion, reconversion, and
ultimate transformation of a contested space into a
unifying structure. The negotia-
tions constituted a complex process through which the
parties involved generated
a definition of the mosque as a shared site and
affirmed all three groups as hav-
ing legitimate interests in caring for it. This
challenges the usual assumption that
mosques are exclusively Islamic spaces. In this case,
through affirming the site as
a mosque, the Guru’s intention in building it was
also affirmed, giving the Nihangs
and the Waqf Board common ground. Furthermore,
bolstered by their willingness
to pursue a cooperative arrangement, the Guru ki
Maseet’s role as a unifying site
was given historical roots through a range of
practices engaged at all levels of the
constituent community. The negotiations over the final
agreement revealed a subtle
mutual attunement of language and the accommodation of
conflicting practices in a
highly charged political context. In particular, close
attention to the process through
which the final MOU’s language evolved shows how a
shared conceptual space
was laboriously created to sustain the joint
management of a shared physical and
social space.
The saga of the Guru ki Maseet is bound up with many
highly charged issues:
population shifts, Partition history, minority
religious identity, religion and politics,
heritage conservation, conflict resolution, and the
sharing of sacred space. An exam-
ination of the most intense phase of negotiations over
the site’s identity in the spring
of 2001 indicates that the resolution of the multiple
claims to the Guru ki Maseet
did not require that a single understanding of the
site become dominant, eliminating other claims or
suppressing variant usages of its space. On the
contrary, the shared
site came to embody what the phenomenologist of space
Edward Casey identifies as
the unique ability of a place to contain without
conflict the most diverse elements
that constitute its being. [...] This
raises interesting possibilities for transforming
contestation into cooperation.
The Guru ki Maseet is generally believed to have been
built by the sixth Sikh
Guru Hargobind. His father, the fifth Guru Arjan,
founded Sri Hargobindpur in
1587. According to local lore, at some point in the
early-to-midâ€"seventeenth century
Guru Hargobind came to the town to spend a rainy
season due to the settlement’s
advantageous situation on high ground looking over the
Beas River. According to
tradition, the Hindu god Visvakarma descended to earth
to help in the construction
of fortifications, completing them in seven days.
The town’s design included gather-
ing places for the Guru’s followers, Hindu temples,
and the Muslim mosque. At this
point the Sikh tradition was still taking shape, and
among the Guru’s followers were
Hindus and Muslims who clearly felt no compulsion to
convert. Therefore, when
Guru Hargobind settled in this spot, he felt it
necessary to provide for the spiritual
needs of the whole company. The building of a mosque
was an especially important gesture as Guru Hargobind,
his followers, and his allies (some Muslim) were
increasingly in conflict with the Mughal authorities.
Though the Guru moved on,
the mixed population remained until the Partition of
1947 split Punjab in two and
divided the population along religious lines. Most
Muslims in East Punjab moved
west to Pakistan, and Hindus and Sikhs in the west
shifted to the Indian side of
the new border. This rupture involved the kind of
violence that impacted nearly
every part of the region, leaving memories and shaping
identities that endure to this
day.
Since Partition there have been no Muslims among Sri
Hargobindpur’s four
thousand residents, and hence no Muslim worship took
place in the mosque for over
fifty years.
Muslim lands and buildings abandoned in 1947 became
the property of the
Punjab Waqf Board, the state bureau of the Central
Waqf Council based in New
Delhi. Waqf agencies oversee Muslim charitable
endowments and Muslim proper-
ties such as graveyards, mosques, schools, shrines,
hospitals, and any other property
that has been given in perpetuity for the benefit of
the community, both Muslim
and non-Muslim. Particularly in Punjab, where the
fewest Muslims remained, Mus-
lim structures were often taken over by the local
population or an influx of refu-
gees from the west. Some properties were eventually
reclaimed, but many were not.
Some sites were maintained for their original use by
non-Muslims. This is espe-
cially the case with many tomb shrines, called dargahs
in South Asia. At several
dargahs in Punjab, Sikh and Hindu caretakers now
facilitate the worship of mostly
non-Muslim pilgrims to these places. In some
situations the Muslim families who
had maintained the shrines explicitly asked neighbors
to take over when they left;
in other cases the supervisors are self-appointed.
Many lapsed Muslim properties
were allocated to migrants, and in some cases there
have been conflicts between the
Waqf Board and the local non-Muslim population.
The politics of these lapsed properties are complex.
For the Waqf Board and
the Muslim population of Punjab, the sight of mosques
turned into barns or homes is
distressing and at times leads to legal action against
the occupants.
In other places
it is not worth the effort to evict the new occupants.
A former head of the Punjab
Waqf Board told me of a program that had been in
practice when he was younger
for asserting Muslim ownership. He himself had taken
up residence at a disused
mosque in an agricultural district from which nearly
all Muslims had departed. He
stayed in the place in order to offer the five-time
daily prayer and strengthen the
Waqf Board’s claim to the site. For the minority
Muslim population in India, this
is an important identity issue and a matter of
community pride, and so, even if they
are not in active use, such properties are zealously
defended. Muslims have been
especially sensitive to threats to their property
since 1992, when Hindu extremists
tore down the sixteenth-century Babri Masjid in
Ayodhya. Furthermore, state and
national politics further complicated the situation as
from 1999 to 2004 the Hindu
nationalist party (the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP)
was in power at the national
level and a Sikh nationalist party (the Shiromani
Akali Dal, or SAD) was in power in
the state. Although the absence of Muslim residents in
Sri Hargobindpur somewhat
simplified the negotiations, this was offset by
complications rising from the case’s
notoriety among Punjabi Muslims and its coverage in
the Indian Muslim press.
Furthermore, the negotiations over the Guru ki Maseet
took place not long after
a mosque elsewhere in Punjab had been destroyed,
reportedly by Hindu national-
ists. Indeed, when the head of the Central Waqf
Council came to visit the Guru ki
Maseet and negotiate with the Nihang leader, he
proceeded from that meeting to
the site of the demolished mosque to investigate.
These events increased Muslim
sensitivity about the ownership and usage of sacred
space, making the eventual reso-
lution of the situation even more significant. Thus
the contestation over the Guru
ki Maseet ramified within and beyond Punjab since the
politics of religion in India
at the time were particularly tense. These conditions
overshadowed the prospects
of sharing the space. The conservation of the mosque
at this juncture demanded
a considerably broader approach than merely renovating
the building. It required
an integrative philosophy designed to
unify the structural integrity of both the
building and the community in which it
was located by facilitating the connec-
tions between the mosque and the com-
munity, as well as between the Nihangs
and the Waqf Board.
So it was that in 1997 a survey
team with CRCI came to the town and
saw the Guru ki Maseet. Recognizing
the significance of the building, the
group began to undertake the restora-
tion of the mosque as part of a program sponsored by
the United Nations (UN)
called Culture of Peace, which was a joint venture
between UNESCO, the UN
Development Project (UNDP), and the UN Volunteers
program (UNV). The UN
assisted financially and also sent volunteers to help
with both architectural restora-
tion and social development work. Additional financial
support was obtained from
the U.S.-based Sikh Foundation.
After the financing for the first phase was secured,
the next hurdles were
local. The area around the Guru ki Maseet had been
encroached on by neighbors,
and the hillside was eroding. Furthermore, the local
residents seemed largely
unaware of this unique treasure and were not entirely
comfortable with the Nihang
presence at the site. But as CRCI’s director Gurmeet
Rai pointed out, “all too often
the physical condition of a building does not reflect
the depth of the bond between
a site and the community surrounding it.â€
Therefore, in conjunction with the work
on the mosque, CRCI worked to reestablish these links
between the site, the his-
tory it symbolizes, and the citizens of the town.
CRCI’s approach to these chal-
lenges was multifaceted. Rather than bringing in a
skilled workforce from outside
Sri Hargobindpur, local laborers were trained in the
techniques required to work
on the structure. Since many local men were leaving
town to work as truck drivers
or laborers elsewhere in the state, hiring residents
helped to integrate the com-
munity into the project because its members saw the
project’s potential in terms
of labor and potentially in terms of tourism.
Additional strategies for integration
included approaching neighbors and giving them an
opportunity to learn about the
site, to share their own knowledge, and to meet
Balwant Singh, the Nihang care-
taker. CRCI also initiated a project in the local
schools to connect children to the
history of their town. Along with educational programs
and oral history projects that
recorded memories about the town and its sacred sites,
the UNV and CRCI work-
ers engaged in a constant circuit of visitation around
the town. Visitors were always
welcome at the site. This rendered CRCI’s work
transparent to the local community.
This availability and honesty built trust in the town
that CRCI was not simply trying to commandeer their
cultural heritage. Through these multilayered efforts
and
trust-building measures the majority of Sri
Hargobindpur residents came to know of
the restoration project and consider it a positive
addition to the community.
As the restoration work began, the encroachment was
cleared and the land
cleaned up. A neighbor donated a piece of land and
additional property was pur-
chased by CRCI. Having gained trust and interest in
the project, residents began to
get involved in the physical labor of conservation.
They contributed their time and
energy to the site by organizing a large seva. Seva,
meaning service, is a central ele-
ment of Sikh religious practice. The Sikh Gurus placed
a high premium on behavior
that strengthened the community by improving the
conditions of life for all. Seva
is also a way of generating and promoting
egalitarianism as everyone serves and is
served by others. No one’s labor counts more than
anyone else’s. So, for example, at
the Golden Temple, the holiest Sikh site of all, Sikh
pilgrims rich and poor not only
pray and perform ablutions but also pick up brooms and
mops, spend time distribut-
ing water, or work in the twenty-four hour communal
kitchen. Such activities facili-
tate bonds between Sikhs as they share a common
experience. In local communities,
seva is often undertaken on the initiative of
governmental or civic groups for public
works projects such as building a school or clearing
ground. In Sri Hargobindpur,
the goal of the seva at the Guru ki Maseet was to
remove debris and vegetation from
the land around the mosque. Mobilized by CRCI and by
community leaders, people
from all over the area came to the mosque’s seva.
Some labored on the grounds and
others in the kitchen, where a communal meal, or
langar, was prepared. Langar is
another Sikh practice that fosters egalitarianism and
counters caste prejudice. Any-
one may prepare and consume the food that is regarded
as blessed by the Guru. The
meal is eaten on the ground in rows, and one has no
choice regarding whom one sits
next to, who serves, or who has prepared the food.
Since seva and langar are two of the principal
expressions of devotion and
affirmation of the community in the Sikh tradition,
these activities served to incor-
porate the site into local religious life. People who
had initially been skeptical of the
project or afraid of the Nihangs began to learn about
their beliefs and practices and
now frequently and unhesitatingly visited the site to
see the progress of the project.
Sangeeta Singh Bais, an architect and UN volunteer,
said that when she first came, the
site was overgrown and unvisited. But, “now people
can tell you all about it. Now they
come to see the site and see how the work is going,
and say what good work we are
doing.â€
The seva and other efforts of CRCI to be open and
transparent clearly paid
dividends, as did the program to educate the community
about the Guru ki Maseet.
Yet the population that was connecting with the Guru
ki Maseet was also
entirely non-Muslim. Although both Hindu and Sikh
residents revere the structure
as part of the Guru’s legacy, the Islamic dimension
of the building was not a part of
their collective identity and only the elderly had
memories of its use as a mosque. In
preserving the structure and reintegrating it into the
life of Sri Hargobindpur, CRCI also inadvertently
intensified the non-Muslim elements of the structure.
Playing up
the Guru’s role and waging an educational campaign
to raise awareness of this his-
tory solidified the bond between the building and the
community. Sri Hargobindpur
began to feel proprietary about the Guru ki Maseet.
This was perhaps most evident in the way in which the
mosque had been
effectively converted into a gurdwara. When Baba
Balwant Singh came to the
mosque, he placed a copy of the Guru Granth Sahib in
the mosque and erected
a Nishan Sahib (a staff bearing the Sikh standard)
outside. These markers of Sikh
sacred space brought the building’s identity as a
mosque into question. Although
places, as Casey has argued, may be uniquely able to
contain contradictory mean-
ings, in some cases the multiple identities of a place
actually conflict and cannot be
contained. This became apparent after articles
appeared in several national news-
papers about the Guru ki Maseet and CRCI’s efforts.
The publicity brought a chal-
lenge to the progress of the restoration and to the
Nihangs’ role as caretakers. A
prominent Muslim activist and former member of
parliament, Syed Shihabuddin,
heard about the restoration from these newspaper
accounts and raised objections.
Shihabuddin had long been concerned about the
co-optation of Muslim sacred sites
by non-Muslims. He was a key figure in the Babri
Masjid Action Committee and in
legal efforts to restore that mosque at Ayodhya after
it was destroyed by Hindu mili-
tants in 1992. No doubt because of his involvement in
the Ayodhya dispute, which
remains a thorny problem for India’s Hindus and
Muslims, Shihabuddin was on the
alert. Dismayed by reports of what appeared to him as
yet another case of Mus-
lim property being usurped by non-Muslims in a place
in which few Muslims lived
and could defend their legal ownership, Shihabuddin
lodged a complaint with the
United Nations Committee on Human Rights (UNHRC), as
well as notifying the
Waqf Council. Waqf Board representatives visited the
site. The police were called
to take statements from CRCI and locals about the
mosque’s history and status. The
situation became tense, and the site that had been
heralded as evidence of India’s
rich, plural culture was in danger of becoming another
example of politicized reli-
gion and communal conflict.
Recognizing their failure to include the Waqf Board as
legal owners or any
Muslims in the conservation process, CRCI and Sri
Hargobindpur community lead-
ers began the arduous process of overcoming their own
missteps and the mistrust
between the parties. Several measures were taken to
give the Waqf Board and the
Muslim minority a stake in the mosque and its symbolic
role as a multiconfessional
site. First, a new structure was built away from the
Guru ki Maseet, and the Guru
Granth Sahib was moved. On the invitation of CRCI and
the local community, vari-
ous officials from the Waqf Board, members of the SGPC
(the Shiromani Gurdwara
Prabhandak Committee, which oversees gurdwaras),
members of the legislative
assembly, and at least one member of parliament all
visited the mosque. Each of
these visitors had concerned constituents who felt
they had a stake in the identity
of the Guru ki Maseet. While the SGPC did not press a
claim to the mosque, it was
interested in how all sites associated with the Sikh
Gurus were maintained. These
visits assuaged their fears and gave them resources
with which to address queries
from members of their constituencies who wished to
know about the status of the
site. But, as the Nihangs wished to continue their
seva at the mosque and the Waqf
Board wished to reestablish its proprietary rights,
these roles needed clarification.
To resolve these potentially conflicting claims, a
meeting took place on February
8, 2001, between the Secretary of the Central Waqf
Council, Dr. Mohammad Riz-
wanul Haque, and the jathedar or head of the Nihang
Tarna Dal (Baba Bakala), Sant
Baba Kirtan Singh, to determine the future of the Guru
ki Maseet. It was critical
to the progress of the negotiations that both men were
inclined toward a mutually
agreeable resolution and sought to mute oppositional
voices within their respective
communities who may have preferred exclusive ownership
rights.
Haque traveled from Delhi to Punjab to Baba Kirtan
Singh’s gurdwara in
Bakala. Baba Kirtan Singh also made a long journey
into the annals of Sikh history
to discover precedents from the past that would
strengthen the bonds of the two
communities. The jathedar brought to the meeting
several texts, some written in
Gurmukhi and others in Persian script.
To open the dialogue Baba Kirtan Singh
chose to read stories describing the Gurus’
ecumenical beliefs and practices. In one
account, Guru Hargobind converted the house of a dead
Muslim into a mosque
and set up a langar for the poor of all faiths. He
also told of an encounter between
Guru Nanak and some Muslims that ended with the
declaration that “if Hindus are
the left hand, then Mus-
lims are the right, and
we all believe in the one
true God.â€
By establish-
ing with texts and stories
that the authentic attested
Sikh tradition opposed
religious prejudice, Baba
Kirtan Singh connected
the Gurus’ ecumenicism
to the present situation.
For his part, Haque
also strove to acknowledge
the shared interests of the
Baba Kirtan Singh and
Mohammed Rizwanul Haque
during the meeting on February
8, 2001. He frequently added to Baba Kirtan Singh’s
stories,
demonstrating his familiarity with some of the
narratives and his respect for Sikh tra-
dition. Haque emphasized the crucial role of the
Nihangs in keeping up the mosque
even as he firmly asserted the building’s Muslim
identity. He said, “The Guru built
a mosque and it was his intention that Muslims come
and do namaz [ritual prayer]
there. With no Muslims there, you people have been
preserving it very well and
we all want it to stay in the same form, and so we
must make an agreement with
the Waqf Board to keep on with the work that has
begun. With your help we want
to restore this symbol of your Guru’s.†Haque’s
assertion that the maintenance and
restoration meant maintenance and restoration as a
mosque was reaffirmed by Baba
Kirtan Singh. At one point the elderly jathedar
declared, “Nobody can damage this
maseet. We will protect it like it was a gurdwara.
This maseet was established by our
Guru. If anyone tries to damage it, we will kill
him.†Although perhaps unnecessarily
bloodthirsty, Baba Kirtan Singh’s vehemence clearly
reassured Haque and the Mus-
lim delegation that everyone understood the
fundamental identity of the structure to
be a mosque. In this reciprocal fashion, the two
leaders made great efforts to under-
stand each other, to hear and be heard as they
discussed the ways in which both com-
munities could simultaneously live up to their
interest and obligations in preserving
and maintaining the Guru ki Maseet. But this
encounter, extraordinary as it was, had
no binding force beyond its emotional impact on those
present. The meeting ended
with everyone feeling that a cooperative arrangement
was within reach.
Coming to a written agreement was more complicated and
involved several
stages. The exchange of drafts between CRCI, the
Nihangs, and the Waqf Board
required the development of a language that was at
once specific enough to have
meaning in terms of legal claims and proprietary
obligations and also open enough
to resonate with each community and address its
respective needs. A great deal of
this labor fell to Savyasaachi, a sociologist from
Jamia Millia University in Delhi,
who was a crucial part of CRCI’s team. CRCI did not
serve as a traditional third
party in the negotiations as the organization had a
vested interest in a particular
outcomeâ€"completing the physical and cultural
conservation of the site. Further-
more, the Nihangs had entrusted CRCI to negotiate with
the Waqf Board on their
behalf. This was based largely on the trust built
between the Nihangs and CRCI
over the years. The Waqf Board did not question this
arrangement, perhaps because
CRCI had also established trust with Haque in
particular. Although both parties
appeared satisfied with the negotiating terms and
agents, CRCI was concerned to
establish a direct relationship between the Nihangs
and the Waqf Board that could
persist after they were no longer a daily presence at
the Guru ki Maseet. Savyas-
aachi and CRCI director Rai together worked to ensure
that the language of the
agreement addressed not merely ownership rights, the
division of responsibility for
the maintenance of the structure, and the proper
conservation of the building but
also what they termed the “structural unity†of
the Guru ki Maseet. As referenced earlier, this
structural unity was explicitly defined as both the
physical building and
the social value and message of the ecumenical
structure. To facilitate the agree-
ment, CRCI authored a draft on behalf of the Nihangs
in April of 2001, and the
Waqf Board submitted its draft in July.
These circulated for several months, and
the final memorandum, written in both Punjabi and
English, was signed in Novem-
ber of 2001. The first CRCI draft emphasized the
historical intention of the Guru
and made repeated references to a text called the Gur
bilas chavi padshah (History
of the Sixth Guru) and its authenticity as an
eighteenth-century historical record of
the seventeenth-century foundation of the Guru ki
Maseet. The draft underscores
the importance of the Tarna Dal Nihangs in taking on
responsibility for maintaining
the neglected site. There is also considerable detail
about the physical conservation
of the site and the importance of the community’s
involvement in the efforts. This
draft shows that CRCI and the Nihangs had a limited
grasp of the Muslim concerns
about the Sikh presence at the mosque. In this initial
document the Sikh associa-
tions with the Guru ki Maseet are quite prominent.
Clearly this would do little to
assuage Muslim fears of Sikh co-optation.
By contrast, the Waqf Board’s first draft of the
Memorandum of Understand-
ing reflected a markedly different agenda.
The draft focused on the Waqf Board’s
ownership of the site and its rights to take sole
possession at any time. It banned any
financial profit from being gained from the site and
barred any further construction
without prior Waqf Board approval. It asked that space
be made for a maulvi (cleric)
to lead namaz (ritual prayer) and that caretakers,
identified as the “second party,â€
be responsible for his appointment. Most
significantly, in the initial draft it names
CRCI as the second party rather than the Nihangs. This
indicated that the Waqf
Board had failed to acknowledge the Sikh investment
and interest in the Guru ki
Maseet. The overall emphasis on ownership and profit
reflected the Waqf Board’s
chief role as property managers and of Muslim fears of
losing groundâ€"literallyâ€"in
an overwhelmingly non-Muslim environment.
In the second Waqf Board draft the second party was
properly identified as
the Nihangs. It also incorporated more language
regarding the importance of the
site as a symbol of unity and as a part of the local
community. The first paragraph
noted that the Nihangs’ care of the maseet was “a
matter of pride and a goodwill
gesture that the sanctity and piousness of a Mosque
which is a place of worship was
always maintained by Sant Baba Kirtan Singh in a true
letter and spirit keeping
the secular tradition of this great country high.â€
This draft eliminated the most
confrontational language about the Waqf Board’s sole
ownership and dropped the
demand for a maulvi. It asserted that neither party
should do business at the site
and included CRCI’s stipulation that the site be
open not only for namaz but for
all visitors of any faith in general. Notably, it
added the clause cited previously that
stated, “that any social practice that can fracture
the unity of the site needs to be
disallowed within the complex.â€
These drafts reveal a dialogic process through which
the parties came to
understand one another’s interests and claims to the
site and to attune their own
language to be more in harmony with the shared goal.
Each party to the MOU had a
particular agenda in addition to the collective goal
of resolving the conflict. CRCI’s
overriding interest was in the physical and
sociocultural structure of the maseet in
its broader context. Through the conservation they
sought to fulfill their mission to
reintegrate the community with its own heritage. For
the Nihangs it was crucial that
the original spirit and structure of the mosque be
preserved as intended by Guru
Hargobind and that they be able to continue in their
role as caretakers. For the
Waqf Board, the right of ownership, even in absentia,
was essential, and its leader-
ship did not wish to relinquish that ultimate
authority. Yet they, too, saw the value
of promoting the site as an emblem of interreligious
cooperation, especially in the
absence of Muslims who might have wished to use the
mosque for regular prayer.
The final MOU incorporated these concerns. It opened
with the declaration
that Guru Hargobind “conceptualized this Maseet as a
symbol of peace and unity
between the Sikhs, Muslims and the Hindus,†and
remarked that “this Maseet is
described as sanjhi walda [shared sacred space].â€
It went on to acknowledge the
Nihangs’ care for the abandoned site. The placing of
the Guru Granth Sahib in the
mosque was explained thus: “The Guru Granth Sahib,
the holy book of the Sikhs,
was placed inside the Maseet by the Nihang Sikhs due
to the association of the
Maseet with the sixth Sikh Guru, Guru Hargobind. The
sanctity of the Maseet was
always maintained in keeping with the secular
traditions of India. This is a matter of
pride.â€
This statement frames the Nihangs’ actions, which
could easily have been
seen as efforts to appropriate the mosque as a
gurdwara, as actually upholding the
identity of the site as emblematic of India’s plural
culture. What was almost a point
of conflict is agreed upon as “a matter of pride.â€
The MOU asserts that it is the inherent nature of the
Guru ki Maseet to
promote inter-religious cooperation and harmony. The
mosque is defined as a struc-
ture that incorporates two fundamental parts: “The
description of the structure
includes the physical aspect, that is the building of
the Maseet and site landscap-
ing as it has emerged as a result of the restoration
process and the social cultural
aspect includes the message of the historic building
namely the promotion of the
peace and harmony between different religious faiths
by means of participation and
sharing responsibility.â€
By emphasizing the shared responsibility to maintain
the
structural unity of the Guru ki Maseet, the parties to
the MOU established a kind
of commons in which the good of all is preserved by
everyone’s adhering to best-use
practices designed to maximize the openness of the
site. By attesting to this pub-
licly, the Nihangs, the Waqf Board, CRCI, andâ€"by
extension and applicationâ€"the
residents of Sri Hargobindpur essentially formed a
public trust in which the obliga-
tions and duties of each constituted a crucial
ingredient in the proper functioning of
the shrine into the future. Every party has both a
stake and a responsibility in the ongoing life of the
shrine. The Nihangs will continue to maintain the
sanctity of the
site on a daily basis out of respect for the Guru, but
they acknowledge the property
rights of the Waqf Board and the site’s identity as
a mosque. The maintenance of the
Guru’s mosque fulfills their obligation to perform
the Guru’s service by caring for
the Guru’s building and the Guru’s community. The
Waqf Board and any Muslim
visitors are free to perform namaz or any other
religious activity. However, it should
be remembered that ease of access for Muslims,
especially in a region devoid of a
significant Muslim population, is entirely dependent
on the goodwill of the local
population. By choosing not to press their exclusive
legal rights to the property, the
Waqf Board sought to ensure that goodwill and affirmed
CRCI’s view that struc-
tural unity entailed physical as well as social
dimensions. CRCI agreed to continue
their work on the physical building and stipulated
that no inappropriate materials
or constructions would damage the mosque. Furthermore,
its efforts to reintegrate
the mosque into the life of the town are acknowledged
and celebrated for being as
critical to the success of the project as the
conservation of the building. Even Shi-
habuddin has seemed to embrace these events, printing
an article by me about the
Guru ki Maseet in his journal Muslim India in April of
2001.
The Memorandum of Understanding was formally
celebrated with a cere-
mony on April 23, 2002, when namaz was performed for
the first time since 1947 at
the Guru ki Maseet. The imam of the Jama Masjid in
Amritsar, Maulvi Hamid Hus-
sain Qasmi, came, and a representative group of
Muslims prayed together in front of
the building, surrounded by the Nihangs and community
members. As reported in
India’s Muslim press, this was a much-needed gesture
of goodwill and harmony in
the aftermath of the religious riots in Gujarat that
began at the end of February 2002
and lasted for several months, killing up to two
thousand mostly Muslim people and
displacing a quarter million. In the Islamic Voice, a
weekly news magazine, Andalib
Akhtar wrote, “At a time when the nation is at the
crossroads of communal hatred
and disbelief, the Sikhs of this small village of the
historical town of Gurdaspur
on the Indo-Pakistan border have set a unique example
of love, brotherhood and
communal harmony. They quietly handed over ‘Guru ki
Maseet,’ a historical Masjid
built by the sixth Sikh Guru Hargovind in the early
17th century, to the Muslims.â€
Although the mosque was not strictly speaking
“handed over,†as the Sikh presence
as caretakers continued, clearly the gesture was an
important one at that moment.
This case study reveals a number of important aspects
of shared sacred
spaces. First, it challenges a generally held notion
that mosques are always exclu-
sively Muslim sites.
In this case and others, arrangements for sharing can
be made.
After all, even the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya had been
shared for many years prior to
its becoming a political and religious flashpoint for
conflict.
Due to the history of
the site and the process of its restoration, the Guru
ki Maseet has a sacred status for
multiple religions, and the MOU ultimately affirmed
the right of all religions to visit
the site. Second, and somewhat paradoxically, only
through the general acknowledgment of the site as a
mosque was it possible for the Guru ki Maseet to take
on
multiple meanings for the various constituents. Third,
the negotiation was successful
in no small part because, although the interests and
intentions of the parties involved
were divergent in some areas, the overall will of the
decision makers and the com-
munity was committed to promote understanding and
effect a resolution. This echoes
the perspective of political scientist Steven
Wilkinson, whose studies of ethnic vio-
lence in India highlight the role of institutional
will to thwart or promote conflict.
Fourth, the successful management scheme was arrived
at through historicizing
practices, not by seeking to separate the building
from its complex history.
Thus
the Nihang leader sought precedents for sharing in
Sikh tradition; CRCI worked to
renew the Sri Hargobindpur community’s connection
with the shrine; and the Waqf
Board acknowledged the rights of non-Muslims not only
to attend but also to manage
the site. Ultimately, the structural unity in physical
and social terms was predicated
on the active efforts of multiple interested parties
to acknowledge and publicly affirm
the various meanings of the site. This was not an
uncontested, spontaneous, or even
unconscious elucidation of the site’s identity, but
a process of dialogue and a series
of compromises and strategic efforts by the interested
parties. Associational links
were forged between the Nihangs, the Waqf Board, and
the community through-
out the process, strengthening the civil societal
infrastructure. CRCI’s multifaceted
approach to the conservation of both the physical and
social aspects of the Guru ki
Maseet generated a shared language concerning the
structural unity of the site. Its
work was crucial in identifying needs and designing
effective programs that gave all
the parties a sense that they had a stake in the
success of the restoration, the mainte-
nance, and the ongoing significance of the Guru ki
Maseet.
Notes
This essay is based on a paper delivered at the
Thirty-First Annual Conference on South Asia in
Madison, Wisconsin, October 12, 2002. I am grateful
for the comments by those in attendance. I
also wish to acknowledge the invaluable contributions
of Gurmeet Rai and Savyasaachi of CRCI,
of Mohammad Rizwanul Haque, the former head of the
Central Waqf Council of India, and of
the late Baba Kirtan Singh, Tarna Dal Baba Bakala.
1. “Nihangs or Nihang Singhs, originally known as
Akalis or Akali Nihangs, are endearingly
designated as the Guru’s knights or the Guru’s
beloved, for the military ambience they still
carry about them and the heroic style they continue to
cultivate. They constitute a distinct
order among the Sikhs and are readily recognised by
their dark blue loose apparel and
their ample, peaked turbans festooned with quoits,
insignia of the Khalsa and rosaries, all
made of steel. They are always armed, and are usually
seen mounted heavily laden with
weapons such as swords, daggers, spears, rifles,
shot-guns and pistols.†Harbans Singh, ed.,
The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism (Patiala: Punjabi
University Press, 1998), 226. In addition to
this rather quaint definition, Nihangs are regarded as
somewhat antinomian by the general
population. They are often itinerant, always armed,
reputed to be quick tempered, and are
associated with landgrabs by occupation, particularly
lands left abandoned by Muslims in
1947.
2. My research took place primarily in Punjab from the
summer of 2000 to the end of 2001.
My dissertation, “Sharing Saints, Shrines, and
Stories: Practicing Pluralism in North
India†(PhD diss., University of California at Santa
Barbara, 2004), is a study of a town
in Punjab founded in the fifteenth century by a Sufi
saint where most of the Muslim
population remained during the Partition in 1947.
Furthermore, the town experienced no
interreligious violence during the crisis of 1947 and
since that time has managed stresses to
its multireligious makeup extremely well. I went to
the Guru ki Maseet in order to compare
a variety of situations of shared sacred sites and
their impact on local communities. Thus I
was able to follow the emergence of the conflict over
the mosque in the fall of 2000 through
to its eventual resolution in the summer of 2001.
3. The Punjab Waqf Board and the Central Waqf Council
are highly politicized institutions. In
Punjab in particular the board is frequently accused
of corruption. During the period of this
controversy over the Guru ki Maseet, Mohammad Rizwanul
Haque was the head of both the
Punjab Waqf Board and the Central Waqf Council in part
because of perceived corruption
in the state body. Although he was a political
appointee, Haque demonstrated remarkable
erudition and sensitivity for the job of managing the
negotiations. For more on the history of
the Waqf in India, see Gregory Kozlowski, Muslim
Endowments in British India (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1985).
4. “Agreement Deed the Maintenance of the Historic
Mosque ‘Guru ki Maseet’ at Sri
Hargobindpur tehsil Batala district Hoshiarpurâ€
(2001), 8. Hereafter this final version of the
document will be referred to as MOU.
5.
Ibid., 8.
6. Edward S. Casey, “How to Get from Space to Place
in a Fairly Short Stretch of Time:
Phenomenological Prolegomena,†in Senses of Place,
ed. Steven Feld and Keith Basso (Santa
Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 1996), 26.
7. The source cited by CRCI is the Gur bilas padshah
chavi (The History of the Sixth Guru)
anonymously authored and dated to the mid-eighteenth
century. CRCI had translated
some portions of this work, but it must be noted that
these are more hagiographical than
historical documents and that there is some
controversy about the validity of this text.
8. An interesting study of memory and the legacy of
the Partition, particularly in relation
to violence and the disciplinary power of the state,
is Gyanendra Pandey, Remembering
Partition: Violence, Nationalism, and History in India
(New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2001).
9.
The population of Sri Hargobindpur was 3,993 according
to the 2001 census of India,
www.censusindia.net/results/data/pun_uatowns.PDF
(accessed December 1, 2006).
10. Of course a similarly emotional response exists
among Sikhs and Hindus regarding the
conversion of their sacred sites now in Pakistan.
However, there is a miniscule non-Muslim
population in Pakistan to actively witness these
transformations, whereas India has a
substantial Muslim minority of 13.5 percent, or
roughly 138 million, according to the 2001
census. Punjab’s population is 1.6 percent Muslim
(382,045). Census of India, “Data on
Religion,â€
www.censusindia.net/religiondata/index.html (accessed
December 1, 2006).
11. Gurmeet Rai, interview by the author, Sri
Hargobindpur, India, October 25, 2000.
12. It should be noted that Sikhs and Hindus both
value seva and langar as part of their
religious obligations, as do Muslims. Yet the
centrality of these practices in the Sikh
community is undeniable. Furthermore, the
egalitarianism promoted by the particular form
of these practices in Sikhism particularly forms a
counterpoint to the kind of caste rules and
barriers that prevail in Hinduism.
13. Sangeeta Singh Bais, interview by the author, Sri
Hargobindpur, India, October 27, 2000.
14. These texts included the Gur bilas patshahi chavi,
the Guru Granth Sahib, and a book
called the Sakhi Ustad ke Sath kuch kahanian (Some
Stories of the Benevolent Master). I
was unable to record the publication details about
these texts at the meeting.
15. As an observer to this meeting I recorded the
proceedings but did not interview the
participants, thus the dialogue took place principally
between Haque and Baba Kirtan
Singh, with the Nihang group, the Waqf Board, CRCI ,
and I observing. This quotation and
subsequent ones are all from my notes from February 8,
2001.
16. The copy I have of the first CRCI draft is dated
April 10, 2001.
17. The Waqf Board’s first draft is dated June 28,
2001. The Waqf’s second draft is dated July
13, 2001.
18. MOU, 1.
19. Ibid., 2.
20. Ibid., 8.
21. Anna Bigelow, “Guru ki Maseet: An Essay in
Inter-Communal Harmony,†Muslim India
220, April 2001, 169â€"70. This was actually a reprint
of an article I published in the Punjab
newspaper the Tribune, “Tying Bonds of Unity at Guru
ki Maseet,†Tribune, February 24,
2001. I was unaware that he reprinted the piece until
it was brought to my attention by Haque.
22. Andalib Akhter, “Creating History at
Hargovindpur,†Islamic Voice, May 2002,
www.islamicvoice.com/may.2002/secular.htm (accessed
September 21, 2002).
23. In his work Religious Nationalism, Peter van der
Veer asserts that mosques are exclusive
spaces, as opposed to dargahs or tomb shrines, which
tend to be quite open to all
comers. “In religious practice, however, there is a
shift when one proceeds from shrine to
mosque. The shrine is an open public space, which,
though under Muslim control, leaves
interpretation and practice to a great extent
undetermined. The shrine and the veneration of
the saints create a community that is hierarchized in
terms of the degree of its involvement
in the brotherhood. Hindus do participate, as people
who benefit from the flow of saintly
power, but they remain at the outer fringe of public
ceremonies such as the saint’s days.
However, in terms of tone and atmosphere, a saint’s
day is entirely different from that other
form of public worship in Muslim life, prayer in the
mosque. The latter is an exclusive
Muslim affair, which takes place within an enclosure
that hides the prayer from the eyes of
the infidels. The boundary between the community of
believers who submit unanimously to
Allah and the rest of the world is clearly drawn.â€
Peter van der Veer, Religious Nationalism
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 37.
Certainly the present essay serves to
complicate this view that mosques are always exclusive
spaces. Indeed, the prayers in April
2002 were held publicly in front of an audience of
Nihangs and other community members.
24. Another prominent example of a shared mosque is
the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus,
which was shared by Christians and Muslims for many
years after the conquest until the
Muslim community outgrew the Christian one and
purchased the building.
25. Steven Wilkinson, Votes and Violence: Electoral
Competition and Ethnic Riots in India
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
26. Robert Hayden makes an opposing argument in his
article “Antagonistic Tolerance,â€
Current Anthropology 43 (2001): 205â€"31, in which he
asserts that the nonconflictual
sharing of sacred space is actually an ahistorical
stasis. Clearly I disagree, and this
case study I think helps to complicate our
understanding of the amount of conflict and
contestation that goes into sharing sacred space.
Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye
Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye
The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping
The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping
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