PART – II :BOOKS ON MOHYAL HISTORY PUBLISHED DURING THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
1. THE HISTORY OF THE MUHIYALS: THE MILITANT BRAHMAN RACE OF INDIA By T. P. Rusell Stracey
From the beginning there was great pressure on the General Mohyal Sabha to produce a book on Mohyal History and the Founding Fathers had listed “Mohyal History” on its to-do list as early as 1893. A Research Committee was established, individuals were exhorted and several efforts made but the community could not come up was a solution. Mohyals have a tradition of ‘oral history’ – folklore and stories that have come down the countless generations of our elders. A draft prepared from these ‘traditional beliefs’ presented to GMS was accepted and, by a very wise initiative, the material was given to T.P. Russel Stracey, who authored the book in English. Kavits were also collected from our Rais (Bhatts), which are of immense interest. The monogram had a Foreword by the former Commander in Chief, Roberts, and a detailed Review in the Civil and Military Gazette of Lahore on 23 March, 1911, resulting in the recognition of Mohyals as a vibrant community of Punjab. Even if a “cavalier job” (according to P. N. Bali, page 157) the book rendered a very useful service because of its English medium and pioneering position. Several Mohyals were inspired to write caste-histories – Bali Nama (Persin), Tarikhe Vaidan etc. but these have not survived the vagaries of time.
One thing needs highlighting that some fragments of history (from oral tradition) mentioned in this narration, have been found authentic in the subsequent research. [Thus, Raja Jaipal of Lahore who met Mahmud of Ghazni twice in battle was a Mohyal Braman. p. 10].Through a thousand years of foreign rule, almost akin to slavery, Mohyals had kept up the memory of their past glory, and with it, their self-esteem – which is Mohyaliyat
AUTHOR. Thomas Patrick Rusell Stracey was Assistant Secretary Department of Finance, Punjab, during the period that he wrote the book. Later, he was posted in Bombay and Madras and retired in 1932. Obviously Bakshi Ramdas Chhibber of Bhera, played a stellar role in this project – as in several others.
PUBLISHER: The original edition published in 1911 at Lahore states “Compiled for the General Muhiyal Sabha”. Its Reprint was published in 1938. While headquartered at Amritsar, GMS asked Sh. A. N. Bali to revise Stracey’s book but he could just get it ‘reprinted’ with a very helpful ‘Introduction’- on behalf of GMS. To their credit, Mohyal Sabha, Chandigarh again ‘reprinted’ the 1911 edition, which is also now out of print. Copies of these two post-Partition reprints are available with GMS Secretariat, Delhi.
2.GULSHAN-E MOHYALI, PARTS I&II, (Urdu) By RAIZADA HARICHAND VAID OF SUKHO (Rawalpindi)
Incensed by the motley collection of anecdotes and certificates in Stracey’s work, Raizada Harichand Vaid of Sukho, then resident in Rawalpindi, bent has energies to the task and produced his Gulshane Mohyali (Urdu) (Lahore, 1923). One is highly impressed by the high quality and wide sweep of the sources he consulted (wonder how he accessed them all). Sample these, out of the 40 books quoted by him: Islahe Mohyali, History by Ferishta, Muntakhabu-t-Twarikh by Al-Badaoni, Trarikh Jahan Numa, Rajatarangini (of Kalhana), Mahabharata, Todd’s Rajasthan, Tuzk Hind, Alberuni’s India; books on History of India by Vincent Smith, Letharge, Thomas, Lala Lajpat Rai, Prof. Balkrishan, Lala Mohan Lal, Ghulam Din Kuldun; and regional histories of Rajasthan, Punjab, Kashmir and Afghanistan. But the crowning glory was handwritten manuscript Twarikh Saheb Numa (Persian) by Lala Ganesh Das, which formed the basis of his account relating to Vaid rule in Punjab (filling a hiatus in the History of India). Lamentably, this, historically valuable, manuscript is also lost.
With its Urdu medium and the craving of the community for a ‘standard’ book on Mohyal History, it became very popular. It played a significant role in educating that generation of (newly educated) Mohyals about their history and a genuine pride in their past.
AUTHOR: Not much is known about the personal life of Raizada Harichand Vaid, but it is clear from the language he has used that he had great command over Persian and Urdu and knew English. He wrote: that he neither had the time, nor intellectual attainment, nor financial resources for this difficult challenge. That, nevertheless, it became difficult for him to suppress this urge – to produce a Mohyal History that will raise the Mohyal community from its depressed condition and make it aware of its heritage of valour, harmony, unity and patriotism and help its young to become real Mohyal braves. Also, that he was publishing the material, among others, to create an interest among more qualified persons to improve upon it. He had worked on the research project for several years
The author got 1000 copies printed at Public Printing Press Lahore of Mehta Raghunandan Lau and it was priced at Rupee one and three quarters. He had also to arrange their sale. It is a pity that the writers of Mohyal History, who take up the intellectual ordeal to serve the community, are stuck with the non-literary burden of printing and selling also. Why this continued indifference of our Organisation?
3. MOHYAL HISTORY (Urdu) By CHUNI LAL DATT ‘KANJRURVI’
Gulshane Mohyali became unavailable after the Partition in 1947 and it was natural that others tried to fill that gap, because there is always a demand for Mohyal History book. Urdu was still the common language. Chuni Lal Datt ‘Kanjrurvi’ published his MOHYAL HISTORY (Urdu) in 1955. On page 15 of his book he states that “the work of late Raizada Harichand Vaid of Sukho, Gulshane Mohyali, which is out of print and not available due to partition of the country has helped as a light-house for me. I have tried to take “reasonable” advantage of its historical writings and references”. When one compares the text of the two works, it is very obvious that Chuni Lal Datt took rather “full” advantage of the earlier work, often copying copiously verbatim. The community would have been better off with a reprint of Gulshane Mohyali but one notices that on the top of its front page there is a notation “All rights reserved. No one should print without permission” and the author was not around. So there was, probably, this technical hitch. To me, the earlier work was community’s ‘wealth’. It could be, and was, used for its original objective.
But Chuni Lal Datt set a bad precedent in Mohyal historiography in another way. First, he used the corpus of knowledge of Gulshane Mohyali wihout any further effort at research, to improve upon it. And worse still, he completely ignored the ‘references to sources’ in foot notes, which appear in Gulshane Mohyali.
AUTHOR: Ch. Chuni Lal Datt, formerly of Sant Nagar Lahore, and later of Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi spent the best part of his life in relentlessly criticizing GMS in finding fault with its arbitrary style of functioning and highlighting the discrepancies in accounts. But, it must be said to his abiding credit that his fulminations were genuinely inspired and free from inveterate malice. In fact, he was watch-dog of the community on surveillance duty. He worked as Katib of Mohyal Mitter for eight years from 1923 to 1930 and had closely watched the goings on in the august body. A man of humble birth and only a matriculate (high school) he rose to become a great champion of the popular causes. His Munshi Fazil was a degree in the subject of Urdu (one subject only) at Graduate level.[From Mohyal History by PN Bali, page 150.]
PUBLISHER: CHUNI LAL DATT, Munshi Fazil, Printer and Publisher- 4J Block, Double Storey, Quarter no. 47-48, Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi. 500 copies were printed. Price Rs. 5- each. He has thanked 16 contributors, who had advanced money for a total of 56 copies (p. 18). These contributors are from all over India, indicating how much effort must have gone into garnering this support.
4. THE HISTORY OF THE MOHYALS: A LEGENDARY PEOPLE By P. N. BALI
Times change. The second generation of Mohyal ‘refugees’, who had migrated from Pakistan in 1947, was now more comfortable with the English language, than with Urdu. P. N. Bali rendered a signal service by writing his book THE HISTORY OF THE MOHYALS: A LEGENDARY PEOPLE (1st Edition, 1986) in English at his own initiative and cost – like his two predecessors. A copy of Gulshane Mohyali was not available to him. The history part under “Constellation of Seven Castes” was based entirely on the earlier book by Chuni Lal Datt – which did not have any references or foot notes, even if Baliji had wanted to incorporate these. However he invested great energy and zeal in collecting personal data about prominent and not-so-prominent Mohyals – past and present. This immensely increased the popularity of the book but it shifted the focus from history to who-is-who. More names and family anecdotes continued to reach him, with each subsequent edition (now printed by GMS) getting bulkier. The history section remained almost untouched.
This book was like a mirror to the Mohyal intelligentsia. It was a new generation of Mohyals, more educated and with a wide intellectual horizon by virtue of high positions they had held in various Government departments. Under “A Constellation of Seven Castes”, the book did not offer anything new beyond the anecdotal history in the preceding Urdu books. An irksome lacuna was the complete lack of authentication of our seemingly tall claims. This in-house embarrassment was heightened by a letter in the Tribune (21 September, 1990) by one Prof. S. K. Sinha, pointing several infirmities in our narration of the Karbala episode: “In the absence of any scriptural authority it shall be mere fiction, created by those who had no knowledge. …” There was a lot of anger and breast beating in Mohyal Times but of course there was no explanation to counter the charges. It was a farsighted decision by the enlightened President of GMS to “adopt” the book and print subsequent editions. It kept the subject of Mohyal History in the consciousness of Mohyals.
AUTHOR: Born in village Bhaun, District Jhelum, Sh. Pran Nath Bali passed his B.Sc from DAV College Lahore, and stood second in the University. Had a versatile service career of 30 years, mostly in private concerns and after retirement started his own concern in Bombay devoted to Hospitality Industry. All his life he played a dynamic role in various Mohyal organisations – Mohyal Youngman Association, Rawal Pindi, Akhil Bharatiya Mohyal Pratinidi Sabha, Delhi, Mohyal Sabha, Bombay – among them. He was the founder and editor of Mohyal magazines (Mohyal Sewak, Urdu; Mohyal Patrika, English). But, his book on history made him a legendary figure.