THE BLUE-SKINNED GOD AND HIS IN-LAWS: Reflections on the Bibi Nachiyar Legend
Note: I do not consider this any sort of “formal” research but rather my reflections upon a legend I grew up with and have learned to re-contextualize through my participation and journey through two very different communities. A lot of this is from the oral stories I encountered and was raised with. Nonetheless, I have still listed a number of sources at the end of the post.
THE BLUE-SKINNED GOD AND HIS IN-LAWS
In the Bay Area, it was Ramanuja’s 1000th birth year—for about the second or third time, because no one seemed to be in agreement about when exactly he was born.
The theater hall was damp and packed with tilakam-wearing mamis as well as thiruman-wearing mamas who adjusted their poonuls under their office shirts. There were youngsters too, some of course bored out of their minds, while others were wide-eyed and transfixed on the play before them:
Onstage was a proud Muslim princess, her twin braids dancing and her sequined, “turkish-inspired” outfit glimmering against the lights overhead. In her grip was an idol of Vishnu, and opposite to her was a pleading Ramanuja. Behind them, overseeing them in intense curiosity and suspense, was the Badshah of Delhi himself, dressed in Mughal-esque garb.
“If I ask and he comes,” Ramanuja said to the princess, “will you let him go?”
The Muslim princess held onto the idol tighter, her expression defiant. “He won’t go to you—he’s my doll. But feel free to try!”
Ramanuja whispered a silent prayer before extending his arms, taking a deep breath, and saying, “Oh Chellapillai, my Lord! Come to me and sit upon my lap!”
The stage suddenly went dark to murmurs of confusion from the audience. But then, light again—the idol had now disappeared from the princess’s hands, and out came running a child Krishna, his pearl-studded crown adorned with peacock feathers dangling lopsided against his thick, dark curls.
Achilamaaaa’s and achoooo’s of adoration poured in from the audience as Krishna made himself cozy in Ramanuja’s embrace. After the lights went out again and the child was replaced with the same idol from earlier, the Muslim princess looked upon the sight of her beloved in the Brahmin saint’s arms as the Badshah exclaimed, in an exaggerated Urdu accent, “Subhanallah! Mashallah! Truly, you are a man of God!”
“No, no, Baba!” the princess cried, “You are the Badshah, the king of this land! Order him to hand over that doll! Order him!”
“Beta,” the Badshah said, “I cannot go against my own word! He has masterfully retrieved what I had promised to give him.”
The rest of the story of Bibi Nachiyar, the Muslim bride of Vishnu, played out as follows: after retrieving the idol, Ramanuja left Delhi to return to Melkote with the protection of the Dalit Holeya caste, who fended off highway robbers who had set traps for Ramanuja along his journey; however, tailing closely behind him was the princess herself, who was determined to reunite with Chellapillai. And that, she did—not in life, but in death, by breathing her last at the entrance of her Beloved’s temple.
***
A saint by the name of Syed Rahmatullah Suthari Valiullah (R.A.) had been granted around 400 acres from Nawab Mohammad Ali Khan Wallajah; around twenty-six acres of this land was offered to the Sri Mushnam temple, out of gratitude for Hindu tahsildar Uppu Venkata Rao’s help in demarcating the land. As a result, the utsavar idol of the Sri Mushnam temple leaves the comfort of his altar once a year to greet his old friend Syed Suthari (R.A.)’s dargah; the procession halts at the shrine; shawls, coconuts, and rice are exchanged; incense is lit, and the Qur’an is read.
But the Vaishnavas have a slightly different version, one where the Nawab (who is sort of merged with Syed Suthari (R.A.) into a single mishmashed character) is afflicted by a tumor and childlessness. Uppu Venkata Rao suggests he pray to Bhoovaraha at Sri Mushnam; the Nawab, desperate and out of options, does so, only to miraculously find his tumor drained and emptied and his wife pregnant with his heir. In this story, the Muslim character is “won over” by the non-Muslim deity and promises that his people will continue to uphold this same gratitude.
This tug-of-war between alliance and dominance in these reports is not new to popular South Asian religion. In early Shaiva and Shakta texts, Shiva is responsible for slaying an unruly Varaha, who then was more akin to his tribal roots as guardian of the earth with the ability to both destroy as well as yield harvest (and thus needed to be subdued by a “high” god). However, the same Shiva later becomes a devotee of Varaha in the Varaha-kavaca (“The Armor of Varaha”) hymn, where he not only disseminates the qualities of Srimushnam Varaha to his wife Parvati but also further goes on to attribute the birth of his two sons, Vinayaka and Kartikeya, to his devotion to the boar-deity. Varaha reprises this very role in fertility (one he manages to never lose in the process of Brahminization) in the story of the childless Nawab, who initially opposes him (as Shiva does) before succumbing to the necessity of Varaha’s favor. Meanwhile, in the dargah’s account of events, the relationship is flipped; it is Varaha who depends on the continued friendship of the politically significant Pīr and his people.
There are many deities who draw close connections and co-dependencies with Muslim figures. Draupadi Amman tests a Rowther Muslim, Muthala Ravuttan, by demanding he sacrifice his pregnant sister; when he attempts to do so, she stops him, is pleased by his devotion, and makes him her chief guard. (In other accounts of the Muthala Ravuttan story within the Draupadi cult, he is a sorcerer who refuses to wed his daughter to her son; they battle mantravadi magician style until he surrenders, pledging his allegiance to her.) One form of Mappila Theyyam recounts a Mukri who is drowned in a river and subsequently merges with the main deity of the village, Karinchamundi. (In other versions, Karinchamundi feasts on his wife’s fetus and kills the horrified Mukri when he attempts to fight her off; it is important to note that these spirits are as unpredictable as nature itself and do not operate under the benevolence-malevolence binary understood by organized religion.) Within the Sabarimalai cult, Ayyappan battles “Vavarsami,” a Muslim warrior, and either defeats him or forces him into a draw; Vavar then pledges to assist Ayyappan against his enemies, and in return, he receives throngs of pilgrims at his mosque/dargah before they progress into the Sabarimalai temple. Mallanna (a local deity associated with Shaivized figures Mallikarjuna, Khandoba, and Mylara) even spends time in Mecca, living one with the local Muslims until he incurs their anger after stealing all their gold. In the ensuing chase, he jumps into a river—which turns out to be a divine feminine figure that combines both Bibi Fatima S.A. and Gangamma. “Bipatma” then offers up her own hand to be cut off by the pursuing Meccan forces, and as a result of her sacrifice, Mallanna promises that her insignia would be paraded upon an elephant every year (an obvious reference to the procession of Bibi Ka Alam in Muharram, though of course the Shi’as of Hyderabad do not accept this account).
The reverse of this dynamic where the Muslim figure becomes a ruling presence over non-Muslims is also a common trope. Nathar Vali R.A., for example, a Qalandari dervish whose cult is based in Trichy, flings a chakkaram (discus) as a miracle for a (perhaps Brahmin-coded) congregation who oppose the presence of meat-eaters in their town. The serpent-wielding, tiger-riding Baba Fakiruddin R.A. dispenses blindness, disease, insanity, etc. to local non-Muslim rulers who do not realize his miraculous nature, as so does Sikander Shah R.A. when his martyred spirit blinds his assassin from the Pandiya kingdom (again, same note about the malevolence-benevolence binary becoming moot in folk religion). Coming back to the south, Nagore Meeran R.A. cures a bewitched Achutappa Nayak by removing a needle from a dove, and his cult becomes so all-encompassing that he even transforms into a kuladeivam (family deity) to some fishing communities. The Muslim saints of Deccani Urdu and Telugu-country, particularly Gugudu Kullayappa R.A. and Shadullah “Peddagutta” Baba R.A., too attain this position, their absorption into the syncretic Peerla Panduga rites attended by devotees of various faiths, castes, and regions of south India.
I want to note at this point that dominance by a saint, spirit, or deity is not usually considered negative. Many deities are thought to have married from various castes and communities, such as Murugan with Valli and Devayani (though Devayani is considered a later insertion by more dominant castes), Sivan with both Meenakshi and the Sembadavar princess Choolai Angalamman, and Khandoba with his many wives (among whom is a Muslim woman from the oil-presser caste); these “brides” were all in fact tropes meant to show the reconciliation of “opposites,” and they were likely used as an important form of alliance and democratization among their peoples. The “benevolently conquered” were also rarely coerced to wholly discard their identities—Mukri of the Karinjamundi Theyyam is still a Muslim who performs salat at the beginning of the theyyam performance; and Muttala Ravuttan, unlike other kaval deivangal (guardian spirits) is usually never offered pork or alcohol, instead given goats, chicken, rice, cigarettes, and marijuana. The various communities who congregate at syncretic events (at any shrine which hosts them) still maintain their own unique identities at the end of the day—it is just that these identities need not become barriers within the phenomenon of folk syncretism, specifically in a Bahujan context, where any number of deities and saints from various traditions can easily become guardians, ancestors, friends, and helpers.
However, on the flipside, there are ways where syncretisms and points of sacred convergence can also be used to strengthen existing hierarchies and otherize certain communities as “foreign”. I cannot speak for every known example of this; therefore, my focus will be on the Muslim bride of Vishnu, Bibi Nachiyar—who is also known as “Thulukka Nachiyar” (“Turkic Bride”) as well as “Bibi Nanchari” (in Telugu) and “Surathani Nachiyar” (“Sultana Bride”)—and how her stories and attempts at historification serve different functions within hyperconservative Iyengar spaces, which too can be analyzed with these intersecting and sometimes conflicting motifs of partnership and dominion in the broader discourse surrounding syncretism. I will be touching on three notable versions as follows:
Bibi Nachiyar of Melkote
Thulukka Nachiyar of Sri Rangam
Bibi Nanchari of Thirumalai and Devunigadapa
BIBI NACHIYAR OF MELKOTE
When the Vaishnavite saint Ramanuja fled the Shaivite Chola kingdom in fear of religious discrimination, he was welcomed into the Hoysala kingdom in what is now Karnataka. Here, Ramanuja set up a mutt (monastery) in Melukkottai/Melkote, and converted many people of various castes and communities (who all eventually became arranged into a hierarchy of Sattinar poonul-wearing castes and Sattadar without-poonul castes).
One night, Ramanuja dreamt of the utsava-moorthy (metal idol) of Cheluvanarayana Perumal calling out to him, asking to be taken back home. When he woke up and inquired about this to the temple officials, they revealed to him that they had been victims of a Turkic Badshah from Delhi who had sacked their temple and stolen the utsava many years prior.
Ramanuja thus set out on a journey to Delhi to meet the Badshah in person, upon which he performed miracles for him in order to earn his favor. It was not unlike the various karamat of Sufi saints who wooed over Hindu subjects; similarly, here too the Badshah was instantly won over. Ramanuja then requested the Badshah to return Cheluva—which was then at the hands of the Badshah’s daughter.
The princess, who had fallen in love with her “doll,” refused to give it up. This was where the events at the start of my post played out, so I will recap those quickly: Ramanuja summoned the idol back into his hands, and Bibi was so distraught that she followed him all the way back to Melkote, where she dramatically died. At this point, Ramanuja and his priests fashioned a brass idol of her to be placed underneath the idol of Cheluvanarayana whom she had been so lovingly devoted to. It is worth noting what happened to the Holeyas who helped Ramanuja through his journey—they were now allowed to come and go to the temple as they wished, circumventing the stringent untouchability laws of the Brahmins, though this visitation was later reduced to a few days a year following the decades after Ramanuja’s passing. The framing of this “privilege” yielded to a group among the Dalit, Bahujan, Adivasi (DBA) communities is important; we will come back to it later.
THULUKKA NACHIYAR OF SRI RANGAM
When civil war broke out within the Pandyan Kingdom, Alauddin Khilji of the Delhi Sultanate took advantage of this political unrest and sent his general Malik Kafur off to invade the south. During this period of time, Vedanta Desika (usually accredited with being the founder of the Vadakkalai movement, though this is disputed) was the presiding acharya of the Sri Rangam temple in Trichy. Fearing Kafur’s onslaught, Desika and his various co-priests built a false wall over the main idol, the large stone Ranganatha. For a few of the utsavar idols, they were able to send them off with brigades led by Pillai Lokacharya (usually accredited with being the founder of the Thenkalai sect) to Thirupati. However, as for the main utsavar, things were a little too late; Malik Kafur’s army poured in, plundered and sacked the temple, killed hundreds, and took with it the main utsava-murthi. Meanwhile, Desika and some of his disciples pretended to be corpses so that they would be spared as they helplessly watched Kafur loot Sri Rangam.
It is here where a temple courtesan who would later be known as “Pin Sendra Valli” (The Lady Who Followed) came forward and devised a plan to reclaim the murthi—by setting off to Delhi with her entertainment troupe to impress Khilji. Her plan was a success, and Khilji allowed Valli and the troupe to take back the utsavar. However, there was one problem; Malik Kafur’s daughter had fallen in love with the doll. Kafur's daughter thus followed the band all the way back to Sri Rangam, where—as in the Melkote version—she collapsed and died upon being denied entry. Instead of being given a statuesque idol, this Thulukka Nachiyar was commemorated with a painting, as a halfway nod to her religion's anti-idolatrous stance.
In this narration, the Kodavas assumed the role the Holeyas had in the Melkote story; the Lakshmi utsavar, which had been whisked away to Thirupati, was under the care of the Kodavas. When they returned the idol, however, they were surprised to find an identical utsavar somehow already present at the temple; this caused much panic, as no one could identify the fake. An elder from the washerman caste, who had been cleaning the clothing of the deities for decades, volunteered to drink the run-off water of both idols, as he was well-acquainted with the smell and taste of the original. Thus, due to the intervention of various communities—courtesans, Kodavas, washermen—order was restored to Sri Rangam despite the Muslim onslaught.
BIBI NANCHARI OF THIRUMALAI AND DEVUNIGADAPPA
The version which associates Bibi Nanchari with Thirumalai's Venkateshwara cult is unique in that it does not exactly have its own tale explicitly historicized with larger events. (Many other Vishnu temples with the Muslim Bride have followed this same format.) Here, like in Sri Mushnam, we see the split understanding of one syncretic phenomenon; the Vaishnavites prefer to adopt the “canon” versions of Melkote or Sri Rangam, while the Muslims at Devunigadappa—the Kadappa temple which is considered the “entrypoint” of the temple at Thirumalai—believe that Venkateshwara is their son-in-law, who fell in love with one of the local Muslim women and thus now responds to the community’s calls. Once a year, these Muslims make their way to the temple to greet their son-in-law, who they shower with gifts such as jaggery and coconuts. It is important to point out that this ritual is observed only at the Kadappa temple, and not at Thirumalai itself.
LOCALIZING AND OTHERING VIA THE STORY OF BIBI NACHIYAR
Growing up, I had several distant relatives named “Chenchumani,” “Chenchuvalli,” and “Chenchulakshmi.” The Chenchus are a scheduled tribe from South India with their own unique language; how then did their name find this niche within my family among the hyper-conservative Brahmin Iyengars and caste-diverse Vaishnavas alike?
The answer lies in the site of Ahobilam in Kurnool, Andra Pradesh. Ahobilam houses various connected shrines of Narasimha, the Vaishnavite lion-man deity; here, Narasimha’s consort is “Chenchu Lakshmi,” a local tribal girl. Though today, Narasimha of Ahobilam is associated with the Vadakalai Iyengar Ahobila Mutt monastery (as a result of lavish patronage from the Vijayanagaras), he was once a Chenchu deity himself. In fact, the story of Chenchu Lakshmi predates the Vaishnavite Narasimha cult; in the origin legend of the Chenchus, their ancestor is a forest-dwelling girl who falls in love with a warrior god. Over time, both Shaivites and Vaishnavites adopted this legend to localize their specific deities—Shiva as Mallikarjuna and Vishnu as Narasimha—into the tribal landscape and into the persona of that very pre-Brahminical warrior deity with totemic and animal-like qualities.
Since Ahobila Narasimha’s assimilation into the Sri Vaishnavite pantheon, the Chenchus are afforded special “privileges” from the Iyengars in control of the Ahobilam site. They are allowed to offer meat to the deities and can participate in some of the religious functions; however, they are barred from the full reigns of officiating for their own deity, and only the Brahmins are considered the wielders of the “canon” legend behind the temple. The favor of the Chenchus was necessary for continued access to Ahobilam and for their role in animal sacrifice. (Though Iyengars practice stern vegetarianism, there is some continued fear and unfamiliarity they harbor towards the more “wrathful” ugra forms of Narasimha, who can only be placated with blood and flesh.)
At this point, it is important to note Bhaktic and esoteric functions behind these myths as well. A god “embedding” himself into the earth via lovers from the “working people”—Dalit and Adivasi—is done to reconcile the Divine with the Human on equal terms. In the spread of Vaishnavism in its Bhaktic forms, this also served as a way to integrate various groups under one, shared devotion. However, these aspects should not be overstated to the point that we erase or invisibilize the uncomfortable caste relationships and hierarchies that feature in these tales.
The Holeya connection to Cheluvanarayana is not so different, as they had a strong presence in Melkote even prior to Ramanuja’s entry. By weaving them into the utsavar reclamation story, their systemic exclusion—from full control to participation in limited ways—can now be construed as a “privilege” and a “reward,” and thus the Holeya characters become witnesses not of Vaishnavization, but of affirming a mythical Vaishnavite origin itself. This legend was perhaps a way to ensure continued patronage of the then-politically significant Holeya caste towards the Melkote temple.
Sri Rangam’s legend deals less with origins and leans more towards the need for continued patronage, allyship (something which most syncretic legends—regardless of their origins or intentions—are founded for), and service. This is why the Kodavas, Isai Vellalars (via the heroic temple courtesan), and washermen all feature in the story.
There is also another dark spot in the bhaktic evaluation of the Bibi Nachiyar myths: why are the Muslims the only ones being otherized, never used to localize as the other communities are? This is not entirely true across all legends of Bibi, but it is worth analyzing which perspectives use Bibi as a localizing, allying force and which ones specifically otherize her people as hostile foreigners.
As we have already noted, Devunigadappa’s “informal” traditions from its Muslims associate the warrior-chieftain persona found in Venkateshwara with that of their legendary son-in-law, who married one of their local women and thus became answerable to their demands, their love, and their allyship. Similar oral legends surrounding Melkote in fact do the same thing—on top of going one step further by making Bibi Nachiyar an explicitly Adivasi Muslim girl. According to Tho. Pa, the Bibi Nachiyar story imported into the Vandiyur Veeraraghava temple also does this with Kallazhagar via associating him with a local Muslim woman—and by extension, her community.
Sri Rangam, meanwhile, was surrounded by the continued presence of Tamil Muslims, was later patronized by Muslim rulers, and found itself interwoven into regional dargah cults, specifically that of Nathar Wali R.A.
Furthermore, Nachiyar’s “thulukkar” title—now, largely a slur used to describe Muslims as “Turks”—was once a term used to refer to the Tamil and Malayali Muslim Rowther community of warriors and horse-traders. In fact, Rowthers feature several times in local legends, most notably as Muttala Rowther in the Draupadi Amman cult, but also as a few other ancestral deities (kula deivam) in scattered regions, as well as sometimes manifestations of deities such as Sivan and Murugan. (See “A Secular Temple in Kongu Heartland” listed in the sources.) Not only Rowthers, but all Tamil Muslims share more with various fellow Dravidian communities than they do with the wealthy, privileged Islamic rulers whose sins they (as well as the majority of Indian Muslims, namely the Pasmanda) are wrongfully blamed for, and whose privilege and power they do not wield, specifically in the present day.
Why then does Melkote and Sri Rangam’s “canon” sthalapuranangal recounted today not seek to find Bibi in any of these familiar Muslim connections, instead retrieving her from within the folds of its enemies, pitted as blasphemous, irreverent barbarians against its shining, highly-venerated figures, Ramanuja and Desika? This is because the “canon” understandings of Bibi Nachiyar retroactively shove various disparate communities into one religion and—in the present day—into Hindutva ideology, which relies on Brahminism being the righteous alternative to the “barbaric,” “foreign” Islam (as well as the “treacherous” Christianity) whose woman pursuing interfaith marriage now becomes more of a trophy of conquest rather than a symbol of communal harmony.
These contentious sentiments surrounding Bibi Nachiyar within the “canon” has in some cases spilled over as doubts upon the more tolerant oral traditions as well. In a modern India where riot slogans include “Pillaiyara erakku, palliya norukku, thulakkana vettu, thulukkachiya kattu” (“Bring in Ganesha, smash the mosque, slice the He-Turk, and marry the She-Turk”) and the internet becomes rife with events like the more recent “Sulli Deals,” Muslims who have heard of the Bibi Nachiyar legend (particularly in Vandiyur) have largely responded with animosity, feeling that a Muslim woman marrying a Hindu god comes with connotations of sexual conquest. In my opinion, this discomfort is intensified by patriarchal ideals found in Indian society, where women must carry the increasing burden of modesty, reputation, and community expectation, and therefore cannot choose interfaith or intercaste marriage for themselves; yet, it does not mean these suspicions of dehumanization are completely unfounded or irrational, nor does it falsify the intentions behind historicizing a very specific angle of the Bibi Nachiyar legend.
RELATING AND REMAKING HISTORY THROUGH RECALLING BIBI NACHIYAR
There are a few key historical events which feature in the Bibi Nachiyar legends, namely the exile of Ramanuja to the Hoysala kingdom, the 14th-century invasion of Sri Rangam, the sheltering of idols in Thirumala, and the eventual toppling of the Madurai Sultanate by the Vijayanagaras.
Of course, there are also several obvious hiccups present in the Bibi Nachiyar legends of Melkote and Sri Rangam. Firstly, in regards to the Melkote version, there was no Sultan ruling from Delhi during Ramanuja’s lifetime. Secondly, in regards to Sri Rangam, Malik Kafur was castrated and is today widely understood to have had a homosexual relationship with Alauddin Khilji (one which would eventually cost Khilji the reigns of his own kingdom—talk about messy!). This rules out the possibility of Kafur ever having a daughter. No historical records link any of Khilji’s children with Nachiyar’s fate either.
As a result, there is a rising number of Iyengars and other Sri Vaishnavas in the present day who have dismissed the tale in its entirety as “un-agamic”—that is, not in line with canon temple traditions. However, there is a much larger number who dig their heels in and attempt to historicize the event in various ways.
Here are a few hypotheses set forth which I have personally heard of, both growing up and online while observing right-wing spaces—and even in some academic papers:
The “Badshah” Ramanuja met was merely a local Muslim chieftain or trader. However, make no mistake—he was still evil and ruthless and a scourge against the dharmic Hindu life!
Bibi Nachiyar was born to Kafur prior to his castration.
The Bibi Nachiyar legend was imported from Melkote and into Sri Rangam out of the need to appease the Madurai Sultanate.
The “Badshah” was actually a Ghaznavid Sultan, Masud III. It was his general, stationed in Delhi, whom Ramanuja met.
Why not jump through these many hoops to prove Bibi Nachiyar as a daughter of Devunigadappa Muslims, as a tribal Muslim, or as a Rowther woman? Why is Bibi Nachiyar as the daughter of the “adharmic” Sultan the only focus of this retroactive history-making? To answer this, I would like to focus on the last theory in particular.
Mahmud of Ghazni is certainly a fan favorite in South Asia; he is loved by Muslim supremacists in Pakistan and used as the immediate go-to of Muslim barbarity by Hindu supremacists in India. He also has a mythologized position in Sufism, in his love of his general Malik Ayaz. The exaggerations are to the point that it’s hard to find unbiased reports on Mahmud’s actual history. To connect Bibi Nachiyar to Mas’ud III, another Sultan of the Ghaznavid empire, is to immediately evoke kneejerk, polarizing responses—particularly that of hatred from the Hindu right, which is ultimately misplaced onto lay Muslims of the present day.
In classic Hindutva fashion, another haphazard association is sometimes made, one that combines Masud III with Salar Masud. Salar Masud is a mythical ghazi-pir (warrior saint) retroactively historicized as being a Ghaznavid nephew in the Sufi historical romance “Mirat-i-Masudi.” This Salar Masud today has been pitted as the horrid enemy of Raja Suheldev, who rarely exists outside of Hindutva popular memory of him as a gau-rakshak (“Cow Protector”) idolized by Amit Shah’s speeches. (See “How Amit Shah and the BJP have twisted the story of Salar Masud and Raja Suheldev” in the sources.) Importing Salar Masud into the Bibi Nachiyar legend is not only bizarre and farfetched; it is also intentionally dangerous, marrying traditional Iyengar mythology with that of the modern Hindutva for a more united perspective of Muslims as barbaric outsiders.
RELIGION: INCLUSIVE OR EXCLUSIVE?
When I was sixteen, my mom told my Carnatic vocals teacher, also an Iyengar, that I was falling astray. She had hoped that he would “correct” me. Instead, my paattu teacher sat me down one day before class and told me, “Are you interested in Islamic culture? Don’t worry; if you want, you can sing some qawwali and Arabic songs in your arangetram alongside what we have planned. It would be a fun way to explore raga, wouldn’t it?” Unfortunately, I was kicked out of my community before I could ever even think of an arangetram, but that is a story for another day. It was his willingness to affirm me, as one adult in a sea of exclusionary aunties and uncles, that mattered the most, and not the arangetram itself.
What I hear often in the discourse around syncretism is, “Why must Hindus bear the responsibility of making space for Muslims and Christians? Will they not make space for us? It is Hinduism which is all-accepting and never declares other traditions or gods as false.”
Religion is not so easy to essentialize in such ways. My mother’s Sri Vaishnavism was rigid and excluded even her own ancestors, while my paattu teacher’s Sri Vaishnavism was malleable and adaptable. (It is also worth noting at this point that the Tamil classical arts were largely appropriated from the Isai Vellalar community, and so Brahmins do not have the rights to gatekeep these traditions anyhow.) As I have discussed earlier, Hindutva ideology is all about the othering and exclusion of Muslims—where does its Hinduism make room for us at all? Meanwhile, Syed Suthari R.A. made space (literally) for a Hindu god, didn’t he? Anyone is welcomed by the Marian Annai Velankanni, aren’t they? As a thirunar, I was publicly humiliated at a Vinayagar temple, but later warmly welcomed by the conservative Shi’a family of a close friend. I do not find any acceptance from Salafis, but I do find a home in the dargah culture of Tamil Nadu, where any and all are welcome, and Dravidian folk religion too—in its syncretic, fluid nature—is often accepting of bodies like mine. And even among Tamil Salafis, I must admit despite my own biases, there is seldom discrimination on the basis of caste, to the extent that Dawah efforts have been used as a tool of social integration for ex-Hindu Dalits. On the flipside, among the Ashrafiya found elsewhere in South Asia, the Pasmanda Muslim becomes systemically oppressed and excluded, while in Sunni supremacism, the Shi’a and Ahmedi suffer (and in Pakistan and Bangladesh, victims include other religious minorities—including Hindus).
In Periyar’s Dravidian vision of Islam, he asks Muslims to look away from ritual-obsession and the tendency to haram-police, and instead to learn from the various rational, inclusive, culturally-grounded iterations of Islam(s) across history, including from the very roots of Tamil Muslim communities. Ali Shariati too parallels Periyar’s call by separating the solely ritual-oriented “black” Shi’ism frozen in time from the ever-relevant socialist theology of “red” Shi’ism.
One might be surprised to realize that Dravidian leaders, specifically Kalaignar himself, have at times similarly praised the Dravidian and caste-inclusive aspects of Vaishnavite Bhaktism in Tamil culture. This can be found in the radically “avarna” poetry of Thirumazhisai Alwar, who rebukes a king and orders Perumal to leave His temple and follow him out; in stories of Perumal bleeding when his Dalit devotee Thirupan Alwar is unjustly killed by a Brahmin ascetic; in the openness of feminine desire embedded within Andal’s verses; in Nammalwar’s withdrawal from all social expectations. However, when Brahminism, in its caste-based interests, holds the reigns of Sri Vaishnavite theology, the theology’s overtones of radical love are lost, scattered in the wind to later be picked up in the north by Sant Kabir and once again ignited into anti-caste, anti-communal, transformative theology. Meanwhile, Bibi Nachiyar sits deep within Sri Vaishnavite temples as a haunting spectre, her story often summoned only as witness to the sins of her mythical forefathers. Her community-uniting potential withers away; what “inclusion” of Muslims exists in that anymore?
Thus, inclusivity ultimately depends on the people involved and the angles they create. When Brahmins (as a class) pull the strings, the religion becomes exclusionary, even in the stories where religious/caste-diverse communities feature in. If a Syed Salafi puppets from his pulpit, then the same happens of his religion. From an Ambedkarite perspective, however, one might wonder: if Hinduism is merely Brahminism governing various unlike Indic religions into an organized, canonical version under Vedicism, could it ever truly be inclusive, namely anti-caste? I do not claim to have the answer to that, though I do know many treasured anti-caste, anti-Islamophobic Hindu friends and activists. But one thing is clear: framing Hinduism as inherently “inclusive” and Islam and Christianity as inherently “exclusive” are both terribly reductive statements.
ISLAM AS THE OPPOSITE
As perhaps evident from this post so far, I am a convert to Islam and was not raised Muslim.
My father’s side was deemed “untraditional Brahmins” for their involvement in cinema, alcoholism, unfavorable reputation, and lack of interest in religion. My mother’s side, descended from a Brahminized chieftain community, were poor and considered socially inferior, relegated to domestic service in Brahmin households as servants and cooks, and their Vaishnavism was creolized with Tamil folk religion. My parents’ arrangement together was thus quiet and convenient for everyone involved—my father was a “step up” for my mother, and my mother was the “best option” my father could get. They moved together to the U.S., where they started anew as hyperconservative, recognizable Iyengars within the diaspora Tamil Brahmin haven. Despite their pasts, casteism and Islamophobia became their easy ways of assimilation and acceptance from the larger group, as well as allowing them some alliance with whiteness in a post-9/11 America. Shared Islamophobia also gave the appearance of integration with Hindu friends from other castes, but in private, I saw many Iyengars revert to casteist language and norms, such as the observance of madi-acharam and using anti-Bahujan slurs.
However, in my early childhood, when my hyperconservative upbringing wasn’t yet in full throttle, I saw glimpses of another side to my parents, of what could have been had they not shifted towards caste isolationism, Brahmin supremacy, and Hindutva-ism. My father was a staunch opposer of the RSS and BJP, and my mother was the first one to teach me about Jesus and the Prophet Muhammad SAW (though she was not the best at remembering the exact details of their stories). In fact, as she fondly recounted, in her childhood she used to imitate the baangu or adhaan every time it was recited from her local mosque.
“Can you do it for me?” I asked her.
She shook her head and laughed. “No da chellam,” she said. “I don’t do it anymore. My brother told me it is a paavam, a sin, to venerate an anniya kadavul.”
Anniya kadavul—”Stranger Deity.” Yet, my mom worshiped deities outside of Vaishnavism, including Sivan (who she believed was Narasimha—again, another look into the complex evolution of the lion-man), Murugan, Kaliya (the snake subdued by Krishna), and Nagakanni, as had been practiced by her family for generations.
“Aren’t you making the same sin as I am?” I asked her, years and years later when she chastised me for my mere interest in Islam. Perhaps this question hit its mark, but not in a way I expected; instead
of recognizing the ostracization of her own family’s beliefs under Brahminism, she gradually discarded association with “lesser divinities,” ones who were recognizably Dravidian and just as foreign to Brahminism as Allah was.
Indeed, by putting Islam on one side and Brahminism on the other, the latter can assert itself as the torchbearer of Hinduism—which is not really a single religion, but an umbrella term for hundreds of Indic faiths of various origins. In the past, my mother’s Vaishnavism and Tamil nattar vazhipadu would have been considered completely different religions, but in the present, they are both Hinduisms. The only reason many Bahujan communities oppressed by Brahmins (and the Brahminized) can be considered as part of the same religion as them today is because Islam and Christianity exist comparatively as so-called opposites to unitedly rally against.
Take for example the creation of Ganesh Chaturti as a wide-scale event. (See “The Lokarnanya and the Sardar” in the sources.) Bal Gangadhar Tilak, in his two magazines Kesari (Marathi) and Mahratta (English), painted Mopplahs as savage beings out to “harass the poor Hindu in all directions,” and alleges that their first crime was in killing a Brahmin. Through this rhetoric, Tilak connects the Brahmin and those he oppresses as part of the same struggle against the Mopplah. Taking advantage of the anxieties generated from his magazines, communal riots, and the overall political climate, Tilak decisively made his next move: to pit Ganesh Chaturti against Muharram. Muharram in many regions of India was (and still is) an event attended by various non-Muslim communities, but via Tilak’s urging, the Hinduized Bahujan was coerced to choose Ganesh Chaturti over Muharram. On the surface, one could say that at least the Bahujan now finds equality with the upper castes in the collective observation of Ganesh Chaturti—but at the cost of authentic Bahujan self-determination via anti-Brahmanical agitations such as the Satyashodhak Samaj (led by social reformer Jyotiba Phule), which too attracted Tilak’s animosity. Through this surface-level inclusion, the system of caste became safeguarded through a uniquely “Hindu” festival and identity pitted against a Muslim one. (Later, in Tamil Nadu, Ganesh Chaturti was used in an almost identical fashion to antagonize Muslims and jumpstart the 1990 Triplicane Riots.)
If Hindu vs. Muslim bifurcation came undone, then it would expose the struggle between oppressor and oppressed castes; the Holeya, Kodava, Isai Vellalar, Chenchu, Dasari, etc. characters featuring in the Bibi Nachiyar tales would become aware of their own exclusion, and the Brahmin rulemakers would suddenly withdraw their facade of inclusivity. (Similarly, the lay Muslim, namely the Pasmanda, would find all that is common between him and his non-Muslim Bahujan brethren, and how the Syed politician and petro-Salafi preacher were benefiting from their discord.)
Whether intentionally or unintentionally, Iyengar spaces appear to have internalized this position of Muslims as their cardinal opposites. As the Indian government increases its aggression against religious minorities, I have seen over the years a particularly dramatic uptick in diaspora Iyengar involvement in Hindutva politics and systemic Islamophobia. This is not to say that there is no such thing as an individually progressive Iyengar, or that Hinduized Bahujans cannot be Islamophobic, but rather that Iyengars, like all Brahmins, occupy a place of extreme caste privilege both abroad and at home, in a way that at times parallels whiteness—one which usually affords them unnecessariness of self-reflection. In fact, Iyengars avoid self-reflection upon their own privileges by hyper-fixating on the threat of Islam. When an Iyengar believes through the Bibi Nachiyar epic that the petty forty-three years of Madurai Sultanate rule somehow eclipses ancestral privilege via centuries upon centuries of caste violence and slavery, he is much more inclined to feel triumphant when he donates a brick towards the building of a new Ram Mandir on the ruins of a mosque. He attends a play on Ramanuja, and then a screening about Desika, which both reaffirm that he is oppressed. He watches Kamal Hassan (who he disagrees with but still secretly loves) shapeshift from the harmless, effeminate Brahmin kathak dancer into the hypermasculine, aggressive Muslim secret service agent. He hosts a touring cast member of Crazy Mohan dramas, with whom he shares mutual anxieties about the imaginary “love-jihadi” who might steal pious Iyengar daughters. (“It happened to Velukkudi’s son even, didn’t it?”) And then he goes on to thoughtlessly forward whatsapp messages on Corona-jihad and Muslims infilitrating Thirupati and replacing Sri Rangam murthis with fakes, while his sister in Nanganallur refuses to rent out to a Marakkar family moving into the city. The only thing more all-permeating than the many-armed, many-faced form of Narayana Himself is an Islamophobic Iyengar’s obsession with his primary bogeyman—that is, Narayana’s very own in-law: the cap-wearing, lungi-tying, beef-eating, bearded Thulukkan who prays five times a day and is helplessly crushed by the fist of his country’s ruthless government, while the Iyengar continues his engineering career in the safe bubble abroad.
MY JOURNEY WITH BIBI NACHIYAR
I learned of Bibi Nachiyar for the first time when I was thirteen and travelling with my parents to visit as many Divyadesam temples as we could. Finding her at the heart of the Sri Vaishnavite landscape at Sri Rangam and wondering how my god could have a mixed marriage while the rest of us couldn’t was the first blow to my religious supremacy and casteism. Then, it was the story of Bhoovaraha and his annual picnic with his Sufi friend.
Bibi Nachiyar thus began first as an enigma; then, as I became a Hindu-Muslim syncretic, a warm and familiar sight; then, as I became more disillusioned with Hinduism, an insult; then, as I finally committed myself to Islam at age nineteen and was a rather hardcore conservative at first, Bibi stopped existing at all. Now, having escaped religious abuse, disowned from my community, watching a political climate where Indian Muslims have become hyper-vulnerable, I expected to hate Bibi Nachiyar even more intensely. Surprisingly, I have landed at a nuanced perspective instead.
Outside of her role in community dynamics, her tale ties Islam with the Bhakti movement together long before their famed interactions in the north. As someone learning Islamic mysticism while still harboring a soft side for Bhaktism, Bibi Nachiyar to me is as much Majnoon to Layla and Sohni to Mahival as she is Andal and Meerabai to Krishna; she abandons her earthly form and merges with her Beloved through the unbearable yet sweet pangs of physical separation. When her entry into the temple becomes taboo, she exceeds society’s unfair boundaries by annihilating herself in the One within.
For what it’s worth, even when she is used as an anti-Muslim trope, Bibi Nachiyar exists in places where “No Non-Hindus Allowed” signs are put up. Through her proximity to Perumal, she demands respect as his consort, from both him and his community—which is how she avoids the scrutiny and dehumanization meted out against her family. In Sri Rangam, her husband wears a lungi for her and eats her butter rotis. His devotees refrain from making idols of her. She doesn’t contain the same impurities of touch I and my fellow Muslims usually do in conservative Brahmin spaces. And for whatever reason, forces of communal discord have yet to succeed in censoring these rights of hers. It is not entirely a win, but just bittersweet, just is what it is.
These topsy-turvies and fluid lines of faith at least reassure me that trenches between religion cannot be drawn absolutely cleanly, even in the most puritan environments, though the powers at work might try their very best—because somewhere in India, there is a blue-skinned god who lovingly eats the sweetmeats of his Muslim in-laws, every year, without fail. And perhaps, that might placate and hold back an even darker future, even if only by a little.
SOURCES:
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Tho., Paramasivan, Alagar Kovil, India
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