In March 1920, a three-day conference was convened at the dargah (shrine complex) for the Sufi saint Muinuddin Chishti (d. c.1230) in Ajmer in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan. More than 10,000 people attended, and various political speakers discussed the question of whether to support the Khilafat movement, which existed between 1919 and 1923 and opposed the removal of the Ottoman sultan. The British administration of Ajmer recorded such politically motivated activities in detail and, in light of the conference, deemed the shrine a ‘peculiarly fertile centre for political and religious propaganda’.1 These politically ambitious gatherings were observed and classified, and the details passed on to the India Office. A Sufi shrine as a centre of propaganda? How could this have happened?
Continue reading Between Spirituality and Resistance: The Sufi Pilgrimage Town of Ajmer under British Rule- Continuation of Home Department telegram of 2 Feb. 1920, Political and Secret Department Records, IOR/L/PS/10/798, British Library. [↩]
