Empires of the Indus

by Alice Albinia

  I lie in the tent, wondering: the Tibetans must have chosen Senge Khabab for a good reason. These Drokpa know every part of the Changthang that is theirs by grazing right. The early twentieth-century explorer Sven Hedin was told by his Tibetan guides that Senge Khabab emits the same amount of water winter and summer–that it, unlike the other tributaries, was not dependent on seasonal snowmelt. This is visibly true, for this source does not rise from a glacier, but from the ground, and thus is perhaps known as the source on account of its year-round reliability.

  Nevertheless, that night in the tent I suggest to the three men that instead of turning back tomorrow, we should continue onwards to where the Dorjungla rises. They look at each other and laugh. Karma translates my Hindi into Tibetan, Yujaa shakes his head in disbelief, and I hear Sonamtering utter my name–Alicay–through his laughter. That night, as our tent is filled with the music of Yujaa’s singing, I am resolved to accept, for my companions’ sake if nothing else, that I have indeed reached the source of the Indus.

  The next day, we turn for home. Yujaa is in buoyant spirits. Sonamtering is looking forward to seeing his shrimati (Karma’s Nepali word for wife). ‘If he stays away any longer,’ Karma teases, ‘his Shrimati will scold him.’ Karma himself is cheerful, and chatters to me all the way back to Tseti-La. But as we walk home through the mountains, I am overcome by sadness, even despair. Even when we climb Tseti-La again, so that the peak of Kangri Rinpoche comes into view, and Yujaa and Sonamtering fall to their knees, prostrating themselves in the snow like Muslims saying namaz; even when Sonamtering, before he turns for home, walks up and down the slope of the mountain, collecting a blue wild flower–the Pang-kin-u-lu, he says–and presents one to each of us; even when, two days later, we complete our circumambulation of the mountain, thus obliterating the sins of a lifetime; even when I walk into Tsegar’s house in Darchen and see the smile of relief on his face; even then I am filled with sadness.

  I feel sad for the river: for this wild and magnificent, modern, historic, prehistoric river; for this river which was flowing for millions of years before humans even saw it; for this river which has nurtured the earth since the land rose from the ocean.

  Most creation stories begin with water. Those told by the Dards of Ladakh, by the Kalash in Chitral, by the Aryans of the Rig Veda, all attribute the creation of the world to the fetching forth of land from water. In the Qur’an it is written:

  So let man consider of what he is created:

  He is created of water pouring forth.

  But for how long will the waters continue pouring forth? The river is slipping away through our fingers, dammed to disappearance. The Atharva Veda calls the Indus saraansh: flowing for ever. One day, when there is nothing but dry riverbeds and dust, when this ancient name has been rendered obsolete, then the songs humans sing will be dirges of bitterness and regret. They will tell of how the Indus–which once ‘encircled Paradise’, bringing forth civilizations and species, languages and religions–was, through mankind’s folly, entirely spent.

  Glossary

  There are many variations, throughout South Asia and beyond, in the way that words from South Asian languages are transliterated into and used in English. The forms used here follow current local practice: thus ‘shalwar’ (as in Pakistan) rather than ‘salvar’ (as in India).

  A–Arabic

  Pu–Punjabi

  C–Chitrali

  Skt–Sanskrit

  Pali–Pali*

  S–Sindhi

  Pa–Pashto

  T–Tibetan

  P–Persian/Farsi

  U–Urdu, Hindi

  agni–fire; fire deity from the Rig Veda (Skt)

  ahl-al-kitab–literally, ‘people of the book’. That is, those who take the Bible, Jewish scriptures or Qur’an as their religious guide. Under some interpretations, Hindus are also ahl-al-kitab, because they follow the religious teachings in the Vedas (A)

  ajrak–richly coloured indigo and red hand-printed cotton shawl worn by Sindhi peasants and politicians; the word is a Sindhi indigenization of the Arabic word azraq, blue (S)

  alim–theologically learned person (A)

  arya–noble, a term from the Rig Veda (Skt)

  asthana–the seat of a saint (P)

  asvamedha–horse sacrifice, a royal ritual for claiming land in ancient India (Skt)

  azan–call to prayer which issues from mosques alerting Muslims to prepare for the five daily prayers (A)

  basti–a settlement (U)

  begum–lady; a title for married women (U)

  bhajan–Hindu devotional songs

  bhang–marijuana (U)

  Bhangi–the generic name for sewer cleaners in India and Pakistan, generally low-caste Hindus or Christians (U)

  bhangra–traditionally a Punjabi harvest dance performed by men (Pu)

  brahmi–Indian script coined by Emperor Ashoka for his edicts

  burqa–all-enveloping covering used by some Muslim women (A)

  chaal–gait, walk (U)

  chador–a huge cotton shawl used in place of a burqa in some parts of the North West Frontier Province (U)

  chai–tea (U)

  charpay–literally, ‘four feet’. A wooden bed with a woven rope base, ubiquitous in India and Pakistan (U)

  chillah–a meditation session lasting forty days (P)

  chorten–Buddhist stupa or reliquary in Tibet (T)

  dargah–a shrine complex: the tomb itself and attendant outbuildings (U)

  Dasa–das, as in Dasa Avatara, is the Urdu word for the number ten. Dasas were an Indian tribe demonized by the arya, the writers of the Rig Veda (Skt)

  dhammal–religious dancing to the beat of a drum at Sufi shrines (P)

  djinn–a spirit, sometimes benign often malign, believed to inhabit human beings (particularly beautiful ones) and cause distress (A)

  dupatta–headscarf (U)

  Eid-ul-Azha–the celebration at the end of the Haj which commemorates Abraham’s pact with God (A)

  Eid-ul-fitr–Muslim celebration at the end of Ramzan, the holy month of fasting (A)

  faqir–a religious devotee of a saint who puts faith above material cares; from the Arabic faqr, poverty (A)

  ghazi–holy warrior (A)

  giddha–the female equivalent of the bhangra dance (Pu)

  gompa–Tibetan monastery (T)

  gurdwara–Sikh temple (P)

  guru–religious leader (Skt)

  Hadith–the collected traditions or sayings of the Prophet, and an important reference point for devout Muslims (A)

  Haj–the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina that it is enjoined on every Muslim to perform at least once in their lives. A hajji is somebody who has performed Haj (A)

  halal–‘permitted’ the Islamic equivalent of the Jewish concept of ‘kosher’, particularly in reference to meat (A)

  haleem–a kind of meat porridge (U)

  halwa–a warm cooked sweetmeat (U)

  haram–the opposite of halal: forbidden (A)

  hari–peasant or sharecropper (S)

  hijra–transvestite, eunuch, transsexual. In Pakistan hijras earn a living by dancing at weddings, blessing newborn children, or through prostitution: a service they generally provide at lower rates than women (U)

  hujra–male guesthouse situated outside the family compound (Pu)

  iftari–food with which the fast is broken during Ramzan, the holy month of fasting (A)

  jannat–heaven; from the Arabic word for garden: the Arabic for heaven is jannatul-firdaus (Garden of Paradise) (U)

  jheenga–shrimp (S)

  jihad–there are two types of jihad: the greater jihad is an internal spiritual battle for self-improvement; the lesser jihad, a defence of the faith which includes holy war (A)

  jirga–a meeting, usually of men, convened by a community to arbitrate on a dispute (Pa)

  jungli–wild or uncouth; from the Sanskrit jangala; hence the English word ‘jungle’ (U)

  kaccha–literally, ra
w or uncooked; temporary; the opposite of pukka or pakka, cooked or permanent. Thus a concrete-built house is ‘pukka’ while a shanty house or hut is ‘kaccha’. This word also describes the fertile lands which lie along the banks of a river directly in its floodplain, and for which the land tenure is not fixed (U)

  kafir–‘unbeliever’, a non-Muslim (A)

  kalma–Islamic creed (A)

  Khan–a clan name or title implying a leader (Pa)

  kiang–wild ass; an alternative spelling is kuang (T)

  lakh–100,000; hence lakhi: the forest of one hundred thousand trees in the Punjab (Skt)

  lama–Tibetan religious male teacher (T)

  lhamo–Tibetan religious female teacher (T)

  lingam–symbol of Shiva’s penis worshipped by Hindus (Skt)

  madrassah–Islamic religious school (A)

  maidaan–open space in a settlement or town (U)

  majoon–a herbal confection mixed by a hakim. Some majoons are made of hashish, opium and other intoxicating substances and are sometimes sold as aphrodisiacs (A)

  malik–a headman or leader of a tribe (A)

  mandala–literally ‘circle’ a painting, chart or text representing the cosmos and used by Buddhists and Hindus as an aid to meditation (Skt)

  masjid–mosque (A) maulvi, mufti,

  mullah–Islamic religious teacher (A)

  mela–literally ‘gathering’ a religious meeting of Hindus, or a fair (Skt)

  mitha–sweet (U)

  mleccha–a non-Sanskrit-speaking person, an outcast (Skt)

  mugarman–a waist-high drum with feet, sacred to the Sheedis; also called maseendo (S)

  Mujahideen–combatants, soldiers who fight for their faith; in Afghanistan, this was the name given to those who fought Soviet rule during the Communist period, 1979-89 (A)

  murid–devotee of a saint (A)

  nafrat–enmity, hatred (U) naga,

  nagi–snake deities, guardians of rivers, springs and lakes, reverenced by Buddhists and often depicted in Gandharan art (Skt)

  nala–a ditch or drain (U)

  namaz–Islamic prayer (P, U)

  namkeen–salty (U)

  nawab–chief (U)

  nazim–mayor (U)

  paan–a mildly intoxicating confection of betel nut, lime paste and other condiments chewed after dinner as a digestive (U)

  paanch–the number five (U)

  paisa–one-hundredth of a rupee; plural, paise (U)

  panchayat–a group of five community leaders (U/Skt)

  pandit–a Hindu religious teacher (Skt)

  pir–holy person, generally a man (U)

  purdah–literally, ‘curtain’ the Muslim practice of covering the hair or face of women from view (A)

  qalandar–a wandering religious mendicant (U)

  Qawwali–religious devotional songs sung at the shrines of Chishti saints in the Indian subcontinent (U)

  Quaid-e-Azam–‘Great Leader’ the title given to Muhammad Ali Jinnah by his acolytes (U)

  raag–Indian musical form (U)

  raja–king (Skt)

  Ramzan–the holy Muslim month of fasting (A)

  risalo–the generic name for a poetry collection, from the Arabic (S/A)

  roti–flat bread (U)

  sadhu–Hindu holy person (Skt)

  Sajjada Nasheen–guardian of saint’s shrine; a hereditary position (S)

  sarovar–bathing tank; lake (Skt)

  sehri–food eaten during Ramzan before sunrise; from the Arabic for ‘dawn’ (A)

  shalwar kameez–baggy trousers and long shirt. The first word is derived from Persian; the second probably came into use from the Arabic qamiz (the same root as the Latin camisia) (U)

  sharab–alcohol (A)

  silsila–literally ‘chain’ or ‘thread’ the school or teaching to which Sufis are affiliated

  sindoor–red powder smeared by Hindu wives in the parting of their hair, a symbol of their marital status (Skt)

  soma–iconic and mysterious Rigvedic juice drunk by the ancient Aryans (Skt)

  stupa–Buddhist reliquary, where the bones or remains of the Buddha and other holy Buddhists are stored. Stupas vary in size from tiny monuments to structures as large as temples (Pali)

  sutra–religious text (Skt) syed,

  sayed–descendants of the Prophet through his two grandsons Hasan and Hussain, the children of his daughter Fatima and cousin Ali; Syed is also an honorific, meaning ‘Sir’ (A)

  tara–local moonshine in Chitral (C)

  taravih–recitations of the Qur’an held in the mosque during Ramzan after the night prayers (A)

  tsampa–roasted barley flour, the staple food of Ladakh and Tibet (T)

  urs–literally, ‘marriage’, the word denotes the date when a union finally occurred between the seeker and the sought. In practice an urs is the death-anniversary celebration of a saint’s life held at his tomb (P)

  Wali–leader, e.g. of Swat (A) wallah (masculine), wali (feminine)–an associative suffix (P)

  yogi–Hindu holy person (Skt)

  zabardast–literally, ‘upper hand’ wonderful, marvellous (U)

  Notes

  Preface

  ‘sliced off and “thrown out”’: Collins and Lapierre, p.70.

  1: Ramzan in Karachi

  ‘“Recite!” it told him’: Lawrence, p.24. Iqra’a was the first word of the revelation; hence Qur’an: recitation.

  ‘diminishing length of its 114 suras (chapters)’: Haleem, p.6. Muslims generally believe that the order of the Qur’an is also sacred and part of the divine revelation.

  ‘the arrangement of the Rig Veda’: Bryant, p.66.

  ‘to pollute it is an abomination’: Haleem, p.40.

  ‘Lyari Expressway’: see http://www.urckarachi.org/Aquila.htm

  ‘Indo-Saracenic…Anglo-Mughal’: Lari and Lari, p.x.

  ‘a thousand miles of India’: Ziring, p.98.

  ‘ten weeks’ time’: In May, Mountbatten devised ‘Plan Balkan’ which aimed to transfer power to as many separate states as necessary–but after he showed it privately to Nehru, and Nehru ‘violently’ objected, the June plan was concocted instead. The criminally accelerated timetable was Mountbatten’s initiative, almost his obsession. Nehru repeatedly voiced his concern about it; Jinnah was not consulted at all. See Sarkar, p.448; Mansergh, X: pp.714, 771.

  ‘“Japan’s surrender”’: Collins and Lapierre, p.49.

  ‘access to Kashmir’: Ziring, p.56. All records of the boundary-deciding process were destroyed–from the official notes of the Commission to Radcliffe’s rough jottings. Michel, p.169.

  ‘“confusion…bloodshed”’: Jalal, 1985, p.268.

  ‘Congress which insisted on it’: ibid., p.262.

  ‘equally naive sister Fatima’: conversation with Hamida Khuhro, Karachi, 17 December 2004.

  ‘excluded from editions of Jinnah’s speeches’: for example that edited by M. Rafique Afzal. None of the editions of 1966, 1973 or 1976 includes this speech.

  ‘a village not far from…Mahatma Gandhi’s’: Wolpert, p.4.

  ‘state-sanctioned biographies’: see for example Bolitho, 1954: ‘Jinnah’s father was a hide merchant’, p.6.

  ‘Jinnah replied that’: conversation with Dr Z. H. Zaidi, Islamabad, 8 December 2003.

  ‘Ramzan wasn’t yet over’: Mountbatten, p.258.

  ‘an official body count was never made’: Moon (1961) estimated 200,000; Guha (2005) suggests the total was between one and two million; the Pakistan Defence Journal (2000) puts the total at over two million. See also Mushirul Hasan (2002) and Gyanendra Pandey (2002).

  ‘“two million Indians”’: Collins and Lapierre, p.50.

  ‘“It was like Karbala”’: Zohra Begum is referring to the Battle of Karbala, when the Prophet’s grandson Hussain was killed, an event which is mourned every year by Shias during the month of Muharram.

  ‘Jinnah’s Times obituary’: The Times, 13 September 1948.

  ‘Pak
istan receiving the smaller share’: Mosley, p.201.

  ‘Nizam of Hyderabad’: a cantankerous man proverbially richer than the Republic of France, who did not want to secede to either country, though in the end Indian soldiers forced his hand.

  ‘along the edges of newspapers’: conversation with Bhajia, Karachi, 17 December 2004.

  ‘“an inevitable period of austerity”’: Dawn, 1 January 1948.

  ‘“Alternative to Partition”’: Jalal and Seal, p.419.

  ‘doubled in size’: Dawn, 22 May 1948.

  ‘44,000 Muslim government employees’: Dawn, 21 January 1948.

  ‘disgruntled Pakistan Secretariat clerks’: M. S. M. Sharma, p.151.

  ‘“no Hindu had the courage”’: Prakasa, p.68.

  ‘passage to India’: Dawn, 16 January 1948; 6 February 1948. The Indian Government estimated that between ‘five to eight thousand’ Hindus were leaving Pakistan daily; see Kirpalani, p.358.

  ‘“blackened my face”’: Khuhro, 1998a, p.327.

  ‘Mirza Qalich Beg’: Schimmel, 1986, p.181.

  ‘much to gain from Hindus leaving’: see Cheesman, p.448; Khuhro, p.171.

  ‘Jinnah caps into the sea’: Dawn, 13 January 1948; 18 January 1948.

  ‘“only to spite Pakistan”’: Dawn, 8 October 1948.

  ‘to disrupt Pakistan’: Dawn, 25 September 1948.

  ‘four-fifths of Sindh’s Hindu population’: Kirpalani, p.359.

  ‘“latrines of Karachi”’: Prakasa, pp.75–6.

  ‘the Mohajir tongue’: A. Hasan, 1999, p.24.

  ‘migrants got very rich, very quick’: Feldman, p.219.