TFIE INDIAN MUSSULMANS.
[To TEE EDITOlt OE TUE Sracriaon.-.1 Sra,-When the Times describes the Indian Mussulmans as a homogeneous race with a common language, one need not be . surprised if people who have never been in India are deluded. But I am surprised that your correspondent General Tyrrell, a retired Indian officer, whose letter appears in your issue of January 19th, should share such a delusion. He differs, indeed, from the Times in that he admits that the Moham- medan conquerors were not originally of one race. They were, lie says, Arabs, Afghans, Turks, and Persians, all talking, of course, very different languages. But he holds with the Times that the majority of Indian Mossulmans are descendants of these different peoples, who have in the course of time coalesced and now form one people speaking one language, Urclu. This delusion was quite common fifty years ago before the first Indian Census exposed it. I think, if the writer of the Times article referred to and your correspondent had studied the Census of 1901, they would not have resusci• toted it.
Of the sixty-two and a half millions of persons professing the religion of Mahomet within the present confines of India, no less than twenty-seven millions belong to Bengal and Assam. Your correspondent says these are converts f rem Hindus of low caste. This is not quite correct. There are among them descendants of highly respectable Hindu families who were converted, setae within the last two hundred years. And there are also, a few descendants of Afghans, Arabs, Turks, and Persians. According to the Census, 385,476 persons out of twenty-seven millions claim to be Salads. Pathans, and Moghals. So, on your corre- spondent's admission, I may fairly claim some twenty-seven million Indian Mussulmans in this province alone as being of the same race as their non-Mohammedan neighbours.
Next to Bengal, the Punjab has the hugest number of Diussul- mans, fourteen millions. Of these the Census Report writes :- "Even in the North-West of India a large proportion of the present-day Mahomedans have little or no foreign blood in their veins, and of 14,141,122 Mahomedans in the Punjab only 1,114,243 are returned as Pathan. 491,789 as Baloch, 340,063 as Shekh, 315,032 as Salad, and 111,885 as Bfoghal. On the other hand, the Jals of this persuasion numbered nearly two millions, the Rajputs and Aroma nearly one million each, and the Jolabas, Awans, Clujars, Muchis, Numbers, Tarkhans, and Tells form one to two thirds of a million each. The vast majority of the present- day followers of Islam are shown by their caste designation to be the descendants of local converts." I may add that these figures ifidnde the trans-Indus territory, where Pathans, Balochs, &c., are indigenous,—that is, are not descended from invaders of India. If this territory, with its two millions of Mohammedans, be excluded, the proportion of persons who are shown by their caste designation to be the descendants of local converts becomes larger still. I may fairly claim that some ten million Mohammedans in the Punjab are of the same race as their non. Mohammedan neighbours. In Kashmir there are over two million Mohammedans, seventy- five per cent, of the population. The Census Report writes of these Up to 1340 A.D. there was not a single Mahomedan in Kashmir. The proselytes to Islamism are mostly from the original Hindu population, strangers and foreigners being but few. Shekhs form a very numerous class, representing the descendants of the original Hindus who were converted to Islam by Mahomedan conquerors or by propounders of Islam." This is written by a Mohammedan gentleman. I thiuk on this evidence I am entitled to claim that some two million Kashmiri Mohammedans are of the same race as their non-Mohammedan neighbours.
Sindh has two and a half million Mohammedans, seventy-six per cent. of her population. Of these a hundred and twenty thousand claim tote Arabs, and there are a few Pathan& There are half-a-million Balochs, who are more or less indigenous, and certainly not descendants of Mohammedan conquerors of India. There are nearly a million Shahs, "a term now used by almost ' all Hindu converts to Islam," as the Census Report puts it. It is clear, I think, that in Sindh few Mohammedans are descended from Mohammedan conquerors.
The four Census divisions or provinces above discussed contain forty-five millions out of the total sixty-two and a half millions of Indian Mussulnians. I have shown, I think, that the vast majority of the Mussulmans in these divisions are of the same race as their non-Mohammedan neighbours, or, at any rate, are not descended from the Mohammedan conquerors of India.
In the United Provinces the Mohammedans, nearly seven millions, form only eleven per cent, of the population. Of these over a million are Salads, Pathans, and 3loghals, "theoretically of foreign origin, though it is certain many of them are not," accord- ing to the Census Report. One and a quarter millions describe themselves as Shekh, "the tribe to the membership of which converts from Hinduism can easily attain?' Two and a quarter millions are "Hindus who have not changed their caste, name, or occupation on conversion." Of these four hundred thousand are Rajputs. It seems to me that I must claim six million out of the seven million Mohammedans in the United Provinces as of the same race as their non-Mohammedan neighbours.
I have now considered the MSC of fifty-two and a half millions out of sixty-two and a half millions, province by province. Among the remaining, ten millions scattered throughout the rest of including, nearly a million Moplahs, the descendants of the Arab, Afghan, Turk, and Persian conquerors are few and far between.
For the whole of India the Census returns one and a quarter million Salads, three and a half million Pathans (Afghans). 358,000 Moghals. 1,122,000 Balochs, 307,000 Arabs, and 415,000 Ajlaf (not Ashraf). Of these the Afghans and Balochs are largely indigenous people of the West and North-West Frontier. dud the well-known proverb, "Last year I was a jolaho, ; now I am a Shekh ; next year if prices rise I shall be a Salad," must be borne in mind. Not all the Mohammedans who claim to be Salads (descendants of the Prophet) could establish their claim.
, A further examination of the last Census tends to confirm my estimate, which I made in your issue of October 13th, 1906, that out of sixty-two and a half millions of Indian Mussulmans, about five millions may be descended from the Mohammedan conquerors of India, and my statement that Indian Mussul- , mans are generally of the same race as their non-Mohammedan neighbours.
Surely your correspondent is wrong in holding that the bar of religious difference prevents, or has prevented, intermarriage between the conquering Arabs, Afghans, Turks, and Persians and the natives of India. He says lower down that the Moplahs are the offspring of Arab sires and Hindu women. Surely he does not mean that this is an isolated instance. The Census says the 'Moplahs are descendants of converts made by the Arabs in the "eighth century. My impression is that the Mussulinans take, and have taken, native women into their harems quite freely. Lastly, I come to the Mohammedan language, the common language of the Mussnlman race, the Urdu. Your correspondent holds that they have dropped the languages of their Afghan, Arab, Turk, and Persian ancestors, and have adopted Urdu, the Camp language, in their place. This Urdu is fully described in pares. 570 to 575 of the Census Report. "It is that form of Hindustani (the language of Hindustan) which is written in the Persian character and makes free use of Persian (including Arabic) in its vocabulary. It took its rise in the efforts of the ever-pliable Hindu to assimilate the language of his rulers. It is spoken chiefly in the towns of Western Hindustan and by Mussulmabs and Hindus who have fallen under the influence of Persian culture. It has become the lingua franca of Hindus as well as of Mussulmans." It • is not the vernacular or mother- tongue anywhere, except, perhaps, in Western Hindustan, the upper Gangetic Pooh, • and Rohilkhand—essentially Hindu countries—but it is written and spoken more or less all over India in various forms. It is. essentially a native, or Hindu, language. It is not mentioned separately in the list of Indian languages in the Census Report. Indeed, I can find nothing in that Report to support the theory advanced by the Times and your correspondent that Mohammedans do not use the same vernacular languages as their non-Mohammedan neighbours,—that is, that Punjabi Mohammedans do not use Punjabi, Kashmiri Mohammedans Kashmiri, Sindhi Mohammedans Sindhi, and Bengali Moham- medans Bengali. I think I have shown that the account given of Indian Mussulmans by the Times and your correspondent—that they are a separate race, descended from the Arab, Afghan, Turk, Persian, and Moghal invaders, and speaking a common language—requires a good deal of modification in the light of the last Census Report. There can be no doubt, if that Report is to be relied on, that the Indian Mnssulmans are generally of the same race as their non. Mohammedan neighbours, and use the same language. Why should the Times and your correspondent ignore the Census? -
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