'saints' and sailors

377 Pages·2014·13.13 MB·English

Merchants, ‘saints’ and sailors: the
social production of Islamic reform in a
port town in western India
Edward L. Simpson
London School of Economics and Political Science
University of London
PhD
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UMI Number: U615213
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Abstract
This thesis analyses Islamic reform as a social process interwoven with
apprenticeship, work and learning in shipyards in the port of Mandvi in western
India. Those owning shipyards and the ships built in them are engaged in active
campaigns of Islamic reform and proselytisation in the town that are intimately
related to trade routes and their experiences overseas, especially in the ports of the
Gulf States. Assuming that religious reform movements are defined by what they
oppose as well as by what they represent the thesis presents an analysis of rhetorical,
daily and occasionally violent opposition to Hindus and other Muslims in an
ethnographic exploration of David Hume’s ‘flux and reflux’ hypothesis. These
oppositions it is argued are products of the historically contextualised biographies of
those who patronise the reform process, rather than a random expression of religious
identity. The thesis contrasts the social organisation and economic engagements of
ship owners with Hindus and other Muslims in order to demonstrate the socially
meaningful nature of communal antagonism in the process of religious reform. This
exercise is conducted through an exploration of varying conceptions of ethnicity,
race, social segmentation, migration, nationalism and diaspora. The ethnography of
shipbuilding, skill acquisition and hierarchy, in the workplace demonstrates that
apprenticeship and the division of labour that surrounds it reproduce a reformed
social and religious order. This involves a discussion of issues that relate local
Islamic social and ideological practices to wider geographical and doctrinal
perspectives. Throughout the thesis runs a concern with the role of charismatic
leaders and their constituents which, it is concluded, points to the fact that Islamic
reform movements more generally contain within them the potential to reproduce the
same social and religious orders they oppose.
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In memory of those who lost lives and loved ones in the earthquake that hit Kachchh
in January of2001
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Contents
Acknowledgements 8
Notes on abbreviations 9
Figures, maps and plates 10
Orthography and transliteration 11
Glossary of selected terms 12
Introduction 16
Chapter 1. Bhadalas and their *others*
1.1. Kachchh - Mandvi 25
1.2. Migration 29
1.21. Natural disasters 30
1.22. Demography 31
1.23. The 1819 earthquake 32
1.3. Hindu-Muslim relations in the past 33
1.4. Hindus, Kharvas and Muslims 38
1.41. Religious geography of Mandvi 3 8
1.42. Violence 40
1.43. Social organisations and violence 42
1.44. Assimilation of violence and social form 44
1.45. The discursive realm of violence 45
1.46. Smuggling and material interests 46
1.47. Hindu nationalist discourse 49
1.5. Divine tensions within Islam 52
1.51. ‘The Natural History of Religion’ 53
1.52. Islam and charisma 57
1.53. Pilgrimage and travel 60
1.54. The Prophet: charisma and performance 63
1.55. Learning 65
1.56. Tradition: I say unto you... but it is written 66
1.57. Fundamentalism? 68
1.6. Conclusion 70
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Chapter 2. Royal endogeny and mercantile exogeny: a model of littoral society
2.1. Tradition in ethnography of peninsular Gujarat 72
2.11. Stereotypes and ‘cultural models’ 74
2.2. Kings and kingdom 79
2.3. Traders and kingdom 82
2.4. Bhatiyas 87
2.41. Co-residence and urban-rural connections 87
2.42. Case 1. The Durbar and the regulation of slavery 88
2.43. Case 2. Mandvi Customs House 92
2.44. Genealogical origins: is cooling Rajput blood an
‘ethnological problem’? 94
2.45. Religious propriety 98
2.46. Maharaja Libel Case 101
2.47. Bhatiya kuldevis 102
2.5. Endogeny and exogeny 104
2.51. Horses 106
2.52. Mercantile patronage of Ravalpir 110
2.6. Merchant-Princes 112
Chapter 3. Mandvi*s Muslim social hierarchy: segmentation and historically
contingent migrations
3.1. Muslim population in Kachchh 117
3.2. Muslim social organisation in India 121
3.3. Social segmentation 123
3.31 .Jati 124
3.32. Musalman 124
3.33. Jamat 125
3.34. Atak 126
3.4. Purity and pollution 127
3.41. Transience 127
3.42. Permanence 127
2.43. Substance-code hypothesis 129
3.44. Jamat hierarchy 131
3.45. Pathans 134
3.46. Segmentation 136
3.5. Egalitarianism and hierarchy 138
3.51. Brotherhood of Islam? 146
3.6. Saiyeds and Shias in Sunni society 153
3.7. Conclusion 158
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Chapter 4. Mixed-blood sailors
4.1. Sailors 162
4.2. Kharvas 164
4.21. Samaj organisation 164
4.22. Narratives of the past 165
4.23. Dariyalal temple 168
4.24. Sailors that don’t sail 176
4.25. Attitude towards Muslims, crows among flamingos 179
4.3. Bhadalas 182
4.31. Salaya 183
4.32. Social organisation 185
4.33. Bhadala-Pathans 190
4.34. Education among Bhadalas 193
4.35. Narratives of the past 195
4.4. Comparison 199
4.41. The god that disappeared 199
4.42. Nava Naroj 201
4.5. Conclusion 209
Chapter 5. Apprenticeship I: shipbuilding
5.1. Practice theory 225
5.11. An ethnographic practice theory 228
5.2. Shipyards 229
5.21. Assistants 23 0
5.22. Labourers - sailors 230
5.23. Andhra Pradeshis 233
5.24. Foremen 234
5.25. Captains and navigators 234
5.3. Shipbuilding? 236
5.4. Non-linguistic practices 241
5.5. Life in the sun: the khalaasis 243
5.51. Moving materials 244
5.52. Scaffolding 248
5.53. Planking and caulking 251
5.54. Inter-changing tasks 253
5.6. Life in the shade (cool): seths 257
5.61. Economy 258
5.62. Finance 258
5.63. Labour 260
5.64. Gaidor 260
5.65. Practicalities 261
5.7. Floating a ship 264
5.8. Aspiration within hierarchy 269
5.9. Conclusion 270
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Chapter 6. Apprenticeship II: the biography of a sailor
6.1. Biography 273
6.11. Knowing others 274
6.12. Social division 277
6.2. Majid 278
6.3. Apprenticeship 280
6.31. Shipyards 280
6.32. Language 284
6.33. Playing with hierarchy 287
6.34. Kinship and sex 288
6.35. Neophyte questions 289
6.36. Jokes about Hindus 290
6.37. Mukhdummi Sha 293
6.4. Life at sea 298
6.41. The off-season 299
6.5. Moharam 301
6.51. Religious propriety 310
6.6. Migrant labour 313
6.7. Conclusion 315
Chapter 7. Conclusion. Seths, Saiyeds and sailors: the social production of
Islamic reform
7.1. Review 318
7.2. Apprenticeship 321
7.21. Pir-murid 322
7.22. Seth-sailor 325
7.23. The gift ship 328
7.3. Kingship 330
7.31. Big-manship 333
7.32. From nagarseth to dadaseth 333
7.33. Saleem Ali’s betrayal 334
7.4. Fences or bridges? The exchange of goods 336
7.41. Gifts 342
7.42. Commoditised gifts 343
7.43. Transactable commodities 344
7.44. Exchange of images and ideas 346
7.5. Islamic reform as a form of biography 352
Bibliography 359
Gujarati bibliography 374
Government Publications 374
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Acknowledgments
Since I started this project in 19961 have benefited from the advice and
encouragement of a great many people to whom I am all thankful. This project was
funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (R00429634237), the London
School of Economics and the University of California Santa Barbara. At the LSEI
would like to thank my supervisors Christopher Fuller, Jonathan Parry and the late
Alfred Gell, as well as Maurice Bloch, Martha Mundy and members of the thesis
writing seminar especially Catherine Allerton, Manuela Ciotti, Peggy Froerer, Lucia
Michelutti, Roseanna Pollen and Luke Freeman. At SOAS I would like to thank
Jagdesh Dave, Pedro Machado and Rachel Dwyer. In Santa Barbara I would like to
thank Francesca Bray, Sandy Robertson, Jennifer Tanguay, James Tate and
especially Mattison Mines. In India I am grateful for the support of the staff at the
Centre for Social Studies in Surat and the staff of the Maharashtra Archives in
Bombay. In Gujarat I would like to thank Sukhet Bakali, Nirav Bhimani, Dinesh
Katira, Anis Khatri, Majid Khatri, Makhrand Mehta, Vipul Sampat, Saleh
Mohammed Pathan, and Devendra Vyas and his family. In Bombay I am grateful to
Preeti Chopra, Chayya Goswami, Apama Kapadia and Sally Warhaft. More
generally I would like to thank Roger Ballard, Ed Baxter, Vemon and Tekla
Eichhom, Anne-Marie Giard, Thomas Goodall, Andrew Holding, Tim Ingold, Ian
Lacey, Isabella Lepri and Paul Towel, but especially Peter Gow and my family.
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