What happened to the city of graceful hosts?
On August 8, Audrey Truschke, an assistant professor at Rutgers University, posted this message on social media: “I regret to say that my lecture in Hyderabad scheduled for Aug 11— titled “Unpopular Stories: Narrating the Indo-Islamic Past and Navigating Present-day Prejudices” — has been cancelled. Today is a sad day for the pursuit of knowledge and academic freedom, and it is a happy day for proponents of the Hindu Rashtra.”
Bigotry won the day in a city that was known for liberal ethos for centuries.
A few years earlier, the Bangladesh writer Taslima Nasreen was physically attacked in the Press Club of Hyderabad by a few legislators.
But before these aberrations created by fanatics, Hyderabad was a world of charm, culture and savoir-faire.
One historian blames the founder of the city and his mistress Bhagmati for the flowing liquor and street women at doorsteps waiting for customers. One of the charges Aurangzeb uses for trying to conquer Golconda in 1685 is: “This luckless wretch (Abul Hasan)…has publicly allowed all kinds of sin and vice. He himself is day and night sunk in the deadly sins, through the intoxication of kingship…”
But much before that the fame of tolerance of Hyderabad reached far and wide. In the beginning of 1640s when Abdullah Qutb Shah was on the throne, two men Shaikh Sarmad and Abhay Chand wended their way from Thatta in Sindh (in present-day Pakistan) to Lahore to Hyderabad, the then newly built capital of the Golconda kingdom. Shaikh Sarmad was a yogi-qalandar who was born in Kashan in present-day Iran to a Jewish couple. Trade ties brought Sarmad to Thatta. Here, Sarmad abandoned everything for the life of a spiritual mendicant. He also fell in love with a Hindu singer Abhay Chand and though initially scandalised, Abhay Chand’s parents allowed their son to go with Sarmad on the condition that his education is taken care of.
Refusing to wear a stitch of clothing, Sarmad scandalised everyone. That was even before he came to Hyderabad. Here, even King Abdullah and his vizier Shaikh Muhammad Khan became spiritually enraptured by the Qalandar. Sometime in 1648, when the vizier planned to embark on a pilgrimage to Muslim holy places, Sarmad predicted that he would not be able to perform Haj. The ship in which the vizier was sailing sank. Soon people started flocking to the spiritual man for predictions. Sarmad made one more prediction for the king — his closest aide would cross over to the Mughals. This prediction too came true within a few years when the Muhammad Said, the Mir Jumla of Golconda kingdom, walked over to the Mughal side.
After these predictions, Sarmad and Abhay Chand disappear from history only to reappear in Delhi.
There, the heir apparent and the spiritually-inclined Dara Shukoh was drawn to Sarmad who predicted Dara would ascend the throne. This was one prediction that didn’t come true, at least not in the physical sense. This prediction turned Sarmad into a partisan of Dara Shukoh in the eyes of Aurangzeb and he had to pay a high price for it. After Aurangzeb won the war of Mughal succession, he cornered Sarmad and asked him about his prediction. Sarmad told the Alamgir with an equal nonchalance that Dara Shukoh will be forever held on a higher plane in heaven than Aurangzeb.
Sarmad was beheaded on charges of apostasy on the steps of Delhi’s Jama Masjid. Now, as people mill around the Meena Bazaar area there, they see a small dargah painted in blood red colour. People still come to pray and for the spiritual solace of Shaheed Sarmad.
When the French traveller Tavernier visited Hyderabad he saw flowing rivers of toddy and courtesans everywhere. He estimated about 20,000. It might have been an exaggeration but Tavernier wrote it without a trace of scandal. Today, it is tragic that the city with such a liberal ethos has allowed a few people to hijack its image.
