The colourful Holi will celebrate its own unique and inimitable silver jubilee at my residence when my friend and one time colleague, Tilak Raj Rustagi will come for the 25th year in continuation (without a break) to smear my forehead with gulal that stands for harmony and happiness.
Once an esteemed Maulvi Saab objected to my forehead being smeared by gulal stating that I would become a murtid (out of Islam) if done so. With all reverence and due regard, I told him that my Islam was more firm than his and that the lesson of cosmopolitanism is clearly defined in the religion. I also told him that I too was a mullah without a beard and a cap.
Holi has a Muslim history as well. Sufi saints like Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia and Amir Khusrau in their chaste Persian and Hindi loved the festival. Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, whose Holi phags (songs) are relished even today, allowed his Hindu ministers to tinge his forehead with gulal during Holi festival each year.
The children’s Urdu monthly Khilona (March 1960) mentioned that during the days of Bahadur Shah Zafar, special arrangements were made for Holi festivities. And Jam-e-Jahanuma, an Urdu newspaper (March 10, 1844), reported that on such occasions, both Hindus and Muslims joined hands. So who says Holi is an exclusively Hindu festival?
During the Shahjahani tenure of Delhi, Holi was known as Eid-e-Gulabi (Pink Eid) or Aab-e-Pashi (Shower of Colourful Flowers), and truly so, owing to its carnival spirit and hysterical rejoicing for both Hindus and Muslims.
The nobles, kings, rajahs and nawabs exchanged rose water bottles and sprinkled them on each other along with the frenzied drumming of the nagaras (drums).
This enlightened spirit percolated in the Mughals right from the time of the greatest Mughal emperor Akbar. Jahangir is shown holding Holi festivities in Tuzk-e-Jahangiri.
Many artists, especially Govardhan and Rasik, have shown Jahangir playing Holi with Noorjahan, his wife. Mohammed Shah Rangila, in a remarkable painting, is shown running around the palace with his wife following him with a pichkari or water cannon.
Such examples are umpteen in India’s cultural heritage; and this has been enriched by the harmonious amalgamation and assimilation of various faiths and ethnicities.
“Who says Holi is a Hindu festival?” asks Munshi Zakaullah in his book Tarikh-e-Hindustani’. Zakaullah writes that the carnival of Holi lasted for days during the Mughal rule during which people, regardless of religious or social distinctions, forgot their restraints. The poorest of the poor threw colour on the emperor.
(The author is the grandnephew of Maulana Azad)
