L - Gurmat Veechar

So, converting this country which means India from 'Dar-ul-Harb'
into 'Dar-ul-Islam' was one of the more important objects of the
Muslim conquests in India. Anyway, the upshot is that not only
the N.W.F.P. which was more or less considered a part of the
larger Mghanistan, Islam, through the centuries ofits dominance,
had converted huge populations right upto the river ]helum
excepting perhaps of Khukhrains, the Hindu townsmen in the
salt range. In fact, all major tribes of Punjab up to ]helum had
become Muslim to a man. But beyond the ]helum, or more
precisely speaking, to the east of that river, there were important
pockets of Hindu influence.
However, in the Rachna Doab which means the Doab
between the rivers Chenab and Ravi, the Hindu-Sikh population
was large enough not to be considered marginal. And beyond
the Ravi, the Hindus and the Sikhs started preponderating. This
demographic composition was almost intact right up to the
Partition of India. And if the Hindus and the Sikhs had settled
in the towns of extreme Western Punjab as willing agents of the
British for the purpose of trade and commerce during the
comparatively peaceful times of the British rule, the main
purpose of it was to open up the country for commercial
exploitation.
But one important change did seem to have defmitely taken
place. The Muslims of Punjab had started looking upon
themselves as no more than a separate caste and not a
community. That the Muslims were a separate nation did not
occur to them at all. It is this position that Shah Mohammed states
in the stanza quoted earlier. In point of fact, the concept of caste
had been so deeply ingrained in the common mind that Shah
Mohammed looked at the Feringhee as yet another caste now
intruding upon the Hindu-Muslim oneness. Now what does it
mean?
Going by my personal experience in childhood in one of
the more important mother villages of the Hindus of the Rachna
Doab viz., Eminabad, the Muslims had themselves started
looking upon the Hindus as a separate and superior caste. I often
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