Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c22.s3: Caste System
Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, A.D. 1000–1800 c22.s3
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Caste System
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The Caste system also contributed its mite to the preservation of Hindu social order, indirectly checking proselytization. Some modern writers think that it was the degraded status of low caste Hindus and the social democracy of Islam that were responsible for large-scale conversions to Muhammadanism in medieval times. Many others give the caste system all the credit for saving India from becoming Islamised.
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But neither caste was so oppressive nor Muslim society so democratic. Within the steel frame of the caste system some sort of vertical and horizontal mobility was always permitted. There was also a sense of pride in belonging to one's caste whether high or low. However, for any error caste did not fail to punish, and sometimes even ostracized the delinquent whether or not the act of omission or commission was due to his own fault. In a few such cases conversion was a welcome way out. Therefore some conversions would have taken place because of the rigid caste rules although contemporary accounts are silent on this point. On the contrary this very rigidity served as a bulwark against proselytization and to this contemporary accounts bear witness. To the majority caste was synonymous with religion, and so there was a general reluctance and often resistance to conversion to Islam both by the high and the low caste Hindus.
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Let us study the case of the lowest classes first. Alberuni writes at length on the caste system. About the lowest castes, or the so low as to be casteless, he has this to say :
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"After the Sudra follow the people called *Antyaja*, who render various kinds of services, who are not reckoned amongst any caste, but only as members of certain craft or profession. There are eight classes of them, who freely intermarry with each other, except the fuller, shoemaker, and weaver, for no others would condescend to have anything to do with them. These eight guilds are the fuller, shoemaker, juggler, the basket and shield maker, the sailor, fisherman, the hunter of wild animals and of birds, and the weaver......These guilds live near the villages and towns........but outside them.
"The people called Hadi, Doma (Domba), Candala, and Badhatau (*sic*) are not reckoned amongst any caste or guild. They are occupied with dirty work, like the cleaning of the villages and other services. They are considered one sole class, and distinguished only by their occupations...They are considered like illegitimate children......they are degraded outcastes...
"Of the classes beneath the castes, the Hadi are the best spoken of, because they keep themselves free from everything unclean......the Doma...play on the lute and sing. The still lower classes practice as a trade killing and the inflicting of judicial punishments..."¹⁵
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¹⁵ Alberuni, *op. cit.* (Ch. IX, n. 2), I, pp. 101-102.
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*Vis a vis* Alberuni's list of low castes in the medieval period, is the Table¹⁶ of low castes in modern times prepared on the basis of U.P. Census Report of 1931 :
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¹⁶ Compiled from the Census Report of India, 1931, Vol. IX (United Provinces), Part 2.
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Table 11
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*Showing some Hindu low Castes of U.P.*
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| | Per cent of caste Members adhering to Hindu Religion | Per cent of each Caste in Total Religious Membership. |
| Chamar | 99.7 | 15.1 |
| Ahir | 97.7 | 9.4 |
| Kurmi | 99.7 | 4.2 |
| Pasi | 100 0 | 3.5 |
| Kahar | 99.1 | 2.8 |
| Lodh | 99 7 | 2.6 |
| Gadariya | 99.6 | 2.4 |
| Kori | 99.9 | 2.2 |
| Kumhar | 98.7 | 1.9 |
| Teli | 74.8 | 1.8 |
| Kachi | 99.9 | 1.7 |
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The Table clearly shows that most of the lowest castes included in Alberuni's list from Chamar downwards have not only continued to remain Hindu, but, even their caste subdivisions have multiplied. Alberuni has been quoted at length, not because his study of the caste-structure in India is precise, but because he provides the clue to the non-conversion of low caste Hindus to Islam. His notice shows that (a) the caste-system was tyrannical to the low classes, (b) that it was based on craft or profession, and (c) that it was heirarchical.
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Caste-system was bad, but it had two compensating features. One was that since the low classes were 'distinguithed only by their occupations' and they intermarried, there was occupational and vocational mobility and also perhaps some sort of social Sanskritization. Another is that it had (and has) an heirarchical structure, and even low caste people feel proud of being superior to some other lower castes, Thus a Teli feels himself superior to an Ahir, an Ahir to a Chamar, a Kahar to a Pasi, and so on. In Bengal, the land of mass conversions, caste pride among low caste Hindus was as pronounced as elsewhere. About the Dom, sometimes also called Chandela. H.H. Risley says that he will eat the leavings of others, but "no Dom will touch the leavings of a Dhobi, nor will he take water...or any sort of food or drink from a man of that caste." "Pods or Chasi, a fishing, cultivating and landholding caste of lower Bengal" will eat the leavings of Brahman, but Vaishnava Pods abstain from all kinds of flesh. Rajbansi, a synonym for Koch, wear sacred thread in Bihar.¹⁷
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¹⁷ H.H. Risley, *The Tribes and Castes of Bengal*, Bengal Secretariat Press, (Calcutta, 1891).
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In fact the lower class people are more particular about 'caste preservation' than even the higher caste ones, and "the Hadi...keep themselves free from everything unclean." A significant point to note is that even the lowest classes had an importance of their own in Hindu society. In Hindu marriage, for example, the co-operation and services of Nai, Dhobi, Kumhar, Kahar etc. were and are as important as that of the Brahmin Purohit. The higher castes depended as much on the lower as the lower on the higher. All castes and non-castes were an essential part of the Hindu social and economic order. Therefore, and in spite of the cruel discrimination, low caste people have been as unwilling to convert as the higher. That is how most of Alberuni's *Antayaja*, as the Census Table above shows, have not converted—the fuller (Dhobi), shoe-maker (Chamar), Juggler (Nat), fisherman (Kachhi, Macchua), hunters and bird catchers (Gadariya), Doma (basket-maker, street dancer, singer). That there are, about 60 million 'untouchable' Hindus to-day is the greatest proof of their ancestors' unwillingness to convert in medieval times.
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There is also recorded contemporary evidence of the unwillingness of the low-caste people to voluntarily convert to Islam. Mahmud of Ghazni used to convert people by force, but his contemporary Alberuni (eleventh century) nowhere mentions voluntary conversions of low caste Hindus. Writing about the low class Hindus called Govis (now called Paraiyar) Marco Polo (thirteenth century) says: "nothing on earth would induce them to enter the place where Messer St. Thomas is—I mean where his body lies...Indeed, were even twenty or thirty men to lay hold of these Govis and to try to hold him in the place where the Body of the Blessed Apostle of Jesus Christ lies buried they could not do it."¹⁸ This is the testimony about the South. About North Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya (fourteenth century) at many places admits that Hindus "do not embrace Islam", and that "the heart of these people is not changed through sermons."¹⁹ In the seventeenth century Manucci wrote that the low caste people were proud of their caste and were reluctant to convert.²⁰
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¹⁸ *Ser Marco Polo*, *op. cit.*, (V, n. 22), II, p. 335.
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¹⁹ Amir Hasan Sijzi, *Fawaid-ul-Fuad* (Delhi, 1865), pp. 150, 195-97.
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²⁰ Manucci, *op. cit.* (II, n. 41), III, p. 173. Also II, p. 238.
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In short, contemporary evidence does not speak of low caste as a factor contributing to conversions to Islam. The presence of a large number of vocational groups among Muslims is due to the fact, mentioned earlier, that Muslim regime and society provided people with new avenues of employment. Those who lacked resources of self-defence during war or those who could not make both ends meet without a change of religion, converted. Among these surely people of low caste predominated. But caste system as such had little to contribute to conversions.
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Conversions of high caste Hindus were also few. Hindu religion and philosophy were ancient, vast and deep, and Hindu intellectuals, intelligentia and high castes were proud and even vain, as Alberuni points out, of a highly developed philosophy of their own. It was therefore no easy matter to induce them to convert.²¹ It is true that prospects of employment under Muslim government would have provided some incentive for conversion even to high-caste people, and a few instances of conversion for acquring economic and status benefits are on record.²² But in the early medieval period job opportunities being not unlimited and high offices being monopolised by Turks, or Muslims of foreign extraction, infiltration of and competition by Hindu converts in government service was resented. Cases of Imad-ud-din Rayhan, Nasiruddin Khusrau and Ain-ul-Mulk Multani are instances in point. They are talked of with contempt by the Turkish ruling class. Minhaj Jurjani asserts, rather bluntly, that 'Turks of pure lineage and Tajiks of noble birth could not tolerate (Imad-ud-din of)...the tribes of Hind to rule over them'.²³ Thus the attitude of the foreign-extraction Muslims repeatedly expressed in the diatribe of Muslim chroniclers who usually call them "low born" would have discouraged Hindus to convert even for the allurement of jobs. In the Mughal period Hindus began to be appointed to high posts but for getting these there was no need to convert. Under Aurangzeb some high status people converted to Islam. Manucci states that three Rajas embraced Islam against promises and temptations offered by Aurangzeb, but later they regretted their conversion and remained unhappy²⁴, because Hindu converts to Islam commanded little respect.²⁵ Needless to add that lower Hindu castes could not get equality with the other Muslims in the "democratic" Muslim social order. They carried their caste and social status with them even after their conversion and high class Muslims would not mix or even eat with them if modern practices are any indication for the medieval.²⁶
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²¹ See the way of Raja Man Singh's refusal to convert in Mujeeb, *op. cit.* (X, n. 24), p. 360
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²² Sadharan of Thaneshwar married his sister to Firoz Tughlaq, accompanied him to Delhi, and later became Wajahat-ul-Mulk (Distinguished man of the State). Sikandar bin Muhammad, *Mirat-i-Sikandari* (Bombay, 1308 H), pp. 5-8. Also S.C. Misra, *Rise of Muslim Power in Gujarat*, *op. cit.* (XI, n. 35), pp. 137-39, and Mahdi Husain, *Tughluq Dynasty*, *op. cit.* (V, n. 8), p. 408.
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²³ Minhaj, Raverty, *op. cit.* (VI, n. 4) p. 829.
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²⁴ Manucci, *op. cit.* (II, n. 41), II, p. 436.
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²⁵ *Ibid.*, p. 451.
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²⁶ A.K. Nazmul Karim, "Muslim Social Classes in East Pakistan" *op. cit.* (XVI, n. 50), pp. 120-130, 138-143. Also E.A. Gait, *Census of India Report, 1901*, VI, pp. 439-442, and *Ibid.*, II, p. 544.
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From the modern census figures it appears that not many high caste people voluntarily converted to Islam in medieval times. Bohras, Khojas, Ismailis and Mopilahs were, by and large, converted by peaceful methods from to high caste Hindus, except perhaps the Mopilahs. But their statistics in modern times show how small their numbers would have been in medieval. According to the census of 1921 there were about 5 million shias, a little over one million Mopilahs; 382,000 Labbes; 153,363 Bohras; and 146,000 Khojas in India (now India and Pakistan).²⁷ Keeping in view the patronage Persian officers had in Muslim courts in India, it is certain that a good number would have come here from outside in the medieval period. But even with local converts and with centuries of growth in numbers their small figures in modern times point only to a few voluntary conversions in medieval times. The 1931 Census Report of U.P. presents the following picture of Muslim and Hindu high castes.²⁸
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²⁷ Titus Islam, *op. cit.* (IX, n. 11), pp. 40, 41, 87, 95, 103, 106.
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²⁸ Adopted from the Table prepared by Kingsley Davis, *op. cit.* (I, n. 9), p. 165, compiled from Census of India Report, 1931, Vol. 18 (United Provinces), Part 2.
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Table 12
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*Showing High Castes of Hindus and Muslims*
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| Muslim Castes | Percent of Caste Members | Percent of Total Religious Membership falling in each caste. |
| *Muslim Castes* | | |
| Shaikh | 100.0 | 81.0 |
| Saiyyad | 100.0 | 4.2 |
| Mughal | 100.0 | 0.8 |
| Pathan | 100.0 | 21.4 |
| Rajputs | 4 4 | 2.2 |
| *Hindu Castes* | | |
| Brahman | 99.4 | 10.9 |
| Rajput | 94.2 | 8.5 |
| Vaishya | 92.7 | 2.8 |
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It is probable that not all high caste Muslims are of foreign extraction, but the percentage of high caste Hindus clearly indicates that their ancestors were disinclined to convert in medieval times so as to bring out the above picture in modern times.