Hindu-Muslim Syncretic Shrines and Communities

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The present book is basically an outcome a two year long study undertaken by the author as an aftermath of the severe communal configuration which occurred in Mumbai, a few years back. Being associated with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences relief work, the author realised that relief alone is not enough to counter the phenomenon.

It appears that there exists a serious misunderstanding among the middle class urbanites about the nature of religious rites prevalent at the level of the common peoples who in their day to day life. Quite often they ate syncretic and lot of Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains and Sikhs frequently visit each other's shrines that too with a lot of veneration. The Dargah of Khwaza Muinuddin Chişti, or the Laxmi temple of Chiplun (in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra) are some of the finest illustrations of this.

Through the study the author has indicated that to confront the vagaries of nature and agonies of diverse life-situations peoples all faiths join hands together instinctively and the textual religious rites take a back seat consequently. Apart from theoretical discourse, case studies from all districts of Maharashtra have been provided in this brief volume humanist compact among collectivities of diverse orders.

DR. J.J. ROY BURMAN (b.1955) is primarily an anthropologist, although he did his Post Graduation from North Bengal University in Sociology and Social Anthropology. Immediately after obtaining the degree he worked on the impact of counter-insurgency among the Mizos in Mizoram-as a fellow of Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development, Chandigarh. After living there in a village for about one year he joined Help Age India as Project Adviser for East and North- East India. After almost eight years of his direct contact with social work and social engineering, he joined Tata Institute of Social Sciences, as a member of the Faculty. Apart from teaching anthropology, Roy Burman also carries out researches mainly on the problems in rural areas. Forests, environment, mass religion have been his main areas of interest. He is the first person in India to have done Ph. D on Sacred Groves from the sociological perspective. Few anthropologists have had the opportunity to travel in the tribal and forest areas all over the country, like him. Right now it has become his passion to portray the inter-ethnic harmonious relations in the country.

The communal forces always stress purity of culture Jinnah maintained that Muslims have a separate Islamic culture whereas the RSS ideologues insist that the Hindu culture is Vedic culture and maintain that it is pure Hindu culture. Though it is true that religion is an important factor in any culture, it is not the only factor as it is maintained by the communal ideologues or religious puritans.

On the level of the people culture is always of composite nature Besides religion, language, artistic traditions and people's beliefs and practices constitute important ingredients of a culture. It happens that people of same religious faiths speak different languages and belong to different geographical region and historical tradition and hence belong to different cultural groups. Though they share same faith with but not same culture. They may belong to a cultural group with which they do not share their faith. Cultural ties, it is important to note, are as strong as religious ties.

Thus the Muslims from Kashmir have little in common with Muslims of Kerala as far as culture is concerned and Hindus from Tamilnadu have little in common with the Kashmiri Pandits. In this sense neither there is an all India Hindu culture not an All India Muslim culture. Kerala Muslims have much in common with Kerala Hindus than with Kashmiri Muslims except religion. Even local religious traditions vary in as much as culture influences certain religious practices. Of course vice-versa is also true religion also influences certain cultural practices and hence some differences will be found in cultural practices of the same cultural group following different religious faiths.

Thus there may be Muslim and Hindu variants in the same cultural groups but they cannot be said to be belonging to two entirely different cultural groups. It is very important to stress because communal forces want to divide people on purely religious lines. People's culture essential is a composite culture.

**Contents and Sample Pages**