An absorbing documentary highlights a little known reality, that Punjab’s Sufi soul now rests with its dalits

By Hartosh Singh Bal

Every few weeks the cult of the Sufis besieges the Delhi glitterati. It is not a cult born of the city; those who frequent the Nizamuddin dargah have little to do with it. The evenings are occasions for those who matter to be seen, the sponsors are among the big Indian corporates. Like all fashions, this too will fade. But Sufism survives in the subcontinent, as it has always done, not through the patronage of the powerful but the powerless.

Sufism in Punjab has been unique in its connection with the popular tradition of the land. From Bulle Shah to the lovers, Shah Hussain, a Muslim, and Madho Lal, a Brahmin, known as the sufi poet Madho Lal Hussain, their verses continue to be sung in the villages of Punjab.

But today’s Punjab is not the Punjab of Bulle Shah. In Pakistan, the Punjabi looks to Arabia to deny his connection with the subcontinent. In Delhi, the Punjabi Hindu can barely speak the language and in Punjab what passes for the Sikh clergy has been nudging the faith into a ghetto. Fittingly, the flame of Sufism lives on among the dalits of Punjab. It is a little known fact, entirely undocumented but for a fascinating new documentary film by Ajay Bhardwaj — Kitte mil ve mahi (Where the twain shall meet).

From the beginning to the end, the film captivates — be it Najjar Shah, mason-turned-cobbler and custodian of the shrine of Baba Chuhar Shah in Jalandhar, who links the traditions of the cobbler sant Ravidass to his Muslim pirs, or dalit radical poet Lal Singh Dil (above), a convert to Islam, who speaks of the dispossession of his people. The film centres on the sufi shrines of the Doaba, the part of Punjab that lies between the Sutlej and Beas. At Bhujpur, the custodian of the Qadri shrine tells the tale of the Muslim jutt Baba Sondhe Shah who passed the flame to a Balmik wrestler-turned-disciple Baba Dasondhe Shah.

This tradition goes beyond gender; at Sofipind village, the Gaddi-nasheen of the shrine of Sant Pritam Dass is Channi Shah. Hookah in hand she relates how people once questioned her relationship with her pir; today they seek her blessings. In a moment that captures the heart of this quietly flourishing tradition, she, a peasant among peasants, looks at the camera and asks, “What use is fakiri if no one comes to us?’’

The same strain flows through the haunting qawwali of the Paslewale Qawwals at the shrine of the Lakh Data (the one who grants a 100,000 wishes) Pir at Kotli Than Singh village, “Lord, you will be called giver only if you grant wishes.’’ Sons of daily wagers, Balli and Surinder learnt from Pandit Gurdasji or ‘Khan sahib’ with the blessing of the naked fakir Wali Allah of Rurka village. The people’s faith now speaks through voices fluent in a classical tradition that has rarely opened up to the poor or the out of caste.
But the 72-minute film does not forget the shrines exist in a context. It was among the emigrants from the Doaba that the Ghadr movement first flourished, it is in this region, close to Nawanshahr, that Bhagat Singh was born, and it is here where the dalits make up over one-third of the population that the movement that gave rise to the bsp began.

At the Ghadr memorial, the words of Baba Bilga, one of the most prominent members of the movement, illuminate almost every aspect of the film. From the loss of the shared heritage of Urdu, to the strides the dalits have made thanks to reservation, “We used to write with pride putt jattan de, I am amazed they also say putt chamaran de.” But the conscience of the film is the poet Dil who embodies the traditions of the leftist revolutionaries and the dalit resurgence. For him, the dispossession from land is at the heart of the dalit’s deprivation. Yet, as the film reminds us, even amidst this deprivation, the dalits of the Doaba have held on to something precious that the rest of Punjab seems to have forgotten.