The Raja Of Mahmudabad

Doordarshan, the official television channel, had opened its doors in Lucknow in the mid 1970s. At that time the office near the National Botanical Gardens on the prestigious Ashok Marg and in one corner of the Sikandarbagh square was one of the most prestigious places to visit.

That is where I met Suleiman Bhai, the late Mohammad Amir Khan Raja of Mahmudabad for the first time. It was on the sets of a live quiz show that was produced by the film and theatre personality Saba Zaidi. There were some other guests participating in the same show, but I remember only Suleiman Bhai, an astrophysicist who spoke Farsi fluently.

His spontaneous recitation of poetry in different languages, his conversation inspired by a deep love for both physics and philosophy, and his wit and sense of humour had charmed whoever was fortunate enough to have met him.

Soon after I had left Lucknow. I kept in touch with Suleiman Bhai through all the stories told to me about his foray into politics and his lifelong quarrel with the state that seemed to question his patriotism. He was a two time member of the UP Assembly having won elections from the Mahmudabad constituency.

He spent decades fighting legal battles over the ownership of the sprawling property that his family had owned in Lucknow and around Uttar Pradesh (UP). But more than losing land, what had bothered him most was suspicion sometimes shown by the state over his love for the country of his birth!

Suleiman Bhai belonged to Mahmudabad, which was one of the largest landowning families since the rule of the Mughals. The family elders came to India in the early 13th Century and were employed as scholars and lawyers.

The ancestors first made a home in Amroha in western UP, and the family moved to Mahmudabad in Sitapur district in the 16th Century. In 1857, the family had supported the freedom struggle against the British led by Begum Hazrat Mahal when the Mahmudabad Fort was destroyed, and many lives were lost.

It was Suleiman Bhai’s father who had left Mahmudabad in 1947 and taken Pakistani citizenship. Disillusioned with the newly formed Pakistan, he had moved to London soon after and where he died in 1973. Suleiman Bhai’s father was also a freedom fighter and had fought the British, but he ended up supporting Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s idea of a separate country for Muslims.

He was a friend of the Governor of UP, Sir Spencer Harcourt Butler and was the first Indian to be a member of Butler’s administrative council till 1926. He had played a key role in making Lucknow the capital of UP, and had laid the foundation of the Lucknow University.

Suleiman Bhai was 14 years of age when he got to know that his father had taken Pakistani citizenship. He had studied in England while his mother never left Mahmudabad. However, the accusation was that Suleiman Bhai’s father, a Pakistani citizen, had sent him and his mother back to India to claim citizenship and the ownership of property that belonged to a citizen of an enemy country under the Enemy Property Act.

Because of his father’s choice, Suleiman Bhai had spent his entire life proving that he and his mother have always been Indian. Suleiman Bhai’s wife is Vijaya Mehta, daughter of former foreign secretary Jagat Singh Mehta and the older son Ali is an author, historian and professor at Ashoka University.

I had caught up with Suleiman Bhai again in 2012, and met him many times after that in Lucknow. In the autumn of his life he was visibly pained at the plight of the country’s minority communities, and the politics of the day. He had continued to believe that the Mughal Empire had united the country, and had celebrated the diversity of the citizens of this land. It was this unity amongst the people that was seen as the greatest threat to the divide and rule policy of the British.

That is why Britain that had the most powerful army of that time, had put its weight behind the overthrow of the last Mughal Emperor in Delhi, and the last ruler of UP Nawab Wajid Ali Shah in Lucknow. The nagging thoughts of rising hatred amongst citizens for each other had made Suleiman Bhai very sick. He passed away last week at the age of 80 years.

Call For Caste Census

Encouraged by the decision of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, even ruling party allies have welcomed a caste count in UP. Today all political parties belonging to Other Backward Castes (OBC) want a caste count that was last done in 1931.

In a tweet, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav recently said that the ruling party should stop playing politics and concentrate on conducting the much needed nationwide caste census.

Ruling party allies like the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) of Rajbhars, the Nishad Party of boatmen and fishermen and Apna Dal (Sonelal) a political front for Kurmis are other dominant OBC groups after the Yadavs.

The ruling party which is not keen on a caste census is hosting an OBC conclave in Prayagraj next month to show how citizens from every caste are benefitting from its policies, pointing to the high post of Prime Minister enjoyed today by a member of the OBC.

Even UP’s deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, an OBC, dismissed the demand for a caste count. Earlier Maurya had favoured a caste census in UP but now he has changed his mind perhaps in tune to the position of his party.

More Than Fifty Percent

The population of OBCs in UP is large. It is estimated to be over 50 percent. However in the absence of a caste census, the exact figure of the OBC population in the state is unknown. According to the Hukum Singh Committee of 2001, the Yadavs are the largest OBC caste with a share of 19.40 percent. The Kurmis, a caste to which Nitish Kumar belongs and the Patel are the second largest OBC group in UP with a share of 7.4 percent.

Though no authentic data of a caste wise break of the OBC population was available after the 1931 Census, UP’s then minister for parliamentary affairs Hukum Singh led a committee in 2001 and worked out 7.56 crore as the population of 79 OBCs in the state, based on family registers maintained in rural areas.

The riverine communities of Nishad, Mallah and Kewats are 4.3 percent, the Bhars and Rajbhars 2.4 percent , Lodhs 4.8 percent and Jats 3.6 percent of the total OBC population.

According to Prashant Trivedi, associate professor at Lucknow’s Giri Institute of Development Studies, it is possible that the population of OBC is more than 50 percent in UP.

The Mandal Commission found that the OBC population was 52.2 percent. However, only a census will show the exact population of every caste in UP, the country’s most backward state where the unemployment, illiteracy and poverty rates are high.