Skip to main content

Home of Harmony

 

Celebration of Diwali at Mahdi Bagh

Media Watch

The latest edition of The Week brings us a delightful article titled ‘Harmony has a home’ written by Sravani Sarkar. It tells us about “India’s smallest known religious sect (that) has set a unique example of peaceful, disciplined living.” The Mahdi Bagh Institution is a tiny community of progressive Muslims who belong to the Atba-e-Malak Badar, the smallest known religious sect in India. The Week focuses on the Nagpur settlement of this community though they have branches in Ujjain, Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad as well as California and Sharjah. They are essentially Muslims but with some differences. They believe that salvation is possible only through the daee, the community’s infallible spiritual master.

The Mahdi Bagh Institution in Nagpur is spread over 25 acres. Each family has a separate residence. But there are no boundary walls between them. The houses are never locked. It is like a private township with its own traffic system, water and power supply, rainwater harvesting facility, dispensary and a community hall. They have a swimming pool, a fishing pond, golf course, cricket and football grounds, tennis court, volleyball and badminton courts and indoor games facilities. The entire campus is maintained meticulously and it is a kind of paradise on earth. 

A newly wed couple

The people are guided by the principles of peace, simplicity, love, brotherhood, gender equality and respect for all faiths. Not every child born to the members automatically becomes a member of this community. The child has to grow up and make a choice as an adult, a choice made on the basis of understanding and accepting the community’s fundamental spiritual beliefs and principles.

The community is neither exclusivist nor expansionist. They accept individuals from outside through marriage. But once again the individual has to make a personal choice, a commitment. 

Maulana Amiruddin Malak Saheb, present spiritual head

I have always believed that if the systems are good the individuals will be good too. In other words, if our socio-political setup encourages compassion and generosity, there will be compassion and generosity around. People like to be good. But they need the support of the systems. Why is there so much evil around? My firm conviction is that our systems foster evils. Just look at the present India. Isn’t it founded on hatred and mutual distrust? Aren’t we told and taught to hate rather than love? Aren’t we taught to dig up ancient hatreds and hug the blood-hungry ghosts?

Institutions like the one highlighted above show us that goodness is not necessarily a dream.

PS. All pictures above are from The Week.

Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanJune 19, 2022 at 2:34 PM

    Hari OM
    An intriguing example of how to live life differently. YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yamini MacLeanJune 19, 2022 at 2:36 PM

      PS - my comment yesterday has not appeared - do check your spam comments folder; Blogger has been playing some tricks with everyone's comments this past couple of months. Yxx

      Delete
    2. Tomichan MatheikalJune 19, 2022 at 3:15 PM

      It's good to know that such communities exist. They give us hope.

      Delete
  2. HaddockJune 20, 2022 at 8:33 PM

    This is interesting and informative. I never knew about this sect.The best part is ..... the child has to grow up and make a choice as an adult....... All said and done, The Week always comes out with unique articles.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJune 21, 2022 at 4:10 AM

      I wasn't aware of this sect too. Communities like this offer hope for a better world.

      Delete
  3. AnonymousJune 21, 2022 at 7:12 AM

    I think I heard about bohra muslims but not this...sounds cool specially the act of leaving the choice to kids till they grow .
    ......before they choose a religion....wish they had an option to not choose at all...they must be having ....but what if even normal muslims are just as open as this and keep religion very personal....u think they are very minimal and exceptional group ?? :( Among many I kno there r ignorant but mostly submissive sect who keep religion inside doors but ya I kno there r some frenzy folks...however good to kno that some people are called *progressive muslims* specifically :) this is afshan
    ..unable to comment with my profile

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJune 22, 2022 at 4:57 AM

      Religion should have become defunct long ago. That's my personal view. Religion does more harm than good whether Islam, Hinduism or Christianity. In such a world where gods are pernicious, sects like this Mahdi Bagh become significant. They show that religion needn't be so abhorrent.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousJune 22, 2022 at 8:13 PM

      That's true! I agree

      Delete
  4. Rajeev MoothedathJune 24, 2022 at 2:55 PM

    Good to know about this progressive community...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Randeep the melody

Many people in this pic have made their presence in this A2Z series A phone call came from an unknown number the other day. “Is it okay to talk to you now, Sir?” The caller asked. The typical start of a conversation by an influencer. “What’s it about?” My usual response looking forward to something like: “I am so-and-so from such-and-such business firm…” And I would cut the call. But there was a surprise this time. “I am Randeep…” I recognised him instantly. His voice rang like a gentle music in my heart. Randeep was a student from the last class 12 batch of Sawan. One of my favourites. He is unforgettable. Both Maggie and I taught him at Sawan where he was a student from class 4 to 12. Nine years in a residential school create deep bonds between people, even between staff and students. Randeep was an ideal student. Good at everything yet very humble and spontaneous. He was a top sportsman and a prefect with eminent leadership. He had certain peculiar problems with academics. Ans
25 comments
Read more

Queen of Religion

She looked like Queen Victoria in the latter’s youth but with a snow-white head. She was slim, fair and graceful. She always smiled but the smile had no life. Someone on the campus described it as a “plastic smile.” She was charming by physical appearance. Soon all of us on the Sawan school campus would realise how deceptive appearances were. Queen took over the administration of Sawan school on behalf of her religious cult RSSB [Radha Soami Satsang Beas]. A lot was said about RSSB in the previous post. Its godman Gurinder Singh Dhillon is now 70 years old. I don’t know whether age has mellowed his lust for land and wealth. Even at the age of 64, he was embroiled in a financial scam that led to the fall of two colossal business enterprises, Fortis Healthcare and Religare finance. That was just a couple of years after he had succeeded in making Sawan school vanish without a trace from Delhi which he did for the sake of adding the school’s twenty-odd acres of land to his existing hun
19 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
37 comments
Read more

Pranita a perverted genius

Bulldozer begins its work at Sawan Pranita was a perverted genius. She had Machiavelli’s brain, Octavian’s relentlessness, and Levin’s intellectual calibre. She could have worked wonders if she wanted. She could have created a beautiful world around her. She had the potential. Yet she chose to be a ruthless exterminator. She came to Sawan Public School just to kill it. A religious cult called Radha Soami Satsang Beas [RSSB] had taken over the school from its owner who had never visited the school for over 20 years. This owner, a prominent entrepreneur with a gargantuan ego, had come to the conclusion that the morality of the school’s staff was deviating from the wavelengths determined by him. Moreover, his one foot was inching towards the grave. I was also told that there were some domestic noises which were grating against his patriarchal sensibilities. One holy solution for all these was to hand over the school and its enormous campus (nearly 20 acres of land on the outskirts
13 comments
Read more

Sanjay and other loyalists

AI-generated illustration Some people, especially those in politics, behave as if they are too great to have any contact with the ordinary folk. And they can get on with whoever comes to power on top irrespective of their ideologies and principles. Sanjay was one such person. He occupied some high places in Sawan school [see previous posts, especially P and Q ] merely because he knew how to play his cards more dexterously than ordinary politicians. Whoever came as principal, Sanjay would be there in the elite circle. He seemed to hold most people in contempt. His respect was reserved for the gentry. I belonged to the margins of Sawan society, in Sanjay’s assessment. So we hardly talked to each other. Looking back, I find it quite ludicrous to realise that Sanjay and I lived on the same campus 24x7 for a decade and a half without ever talking to each other except for official purposes.      Towards the end of our coexistence, Sawan had become a veritable hell. Power supply to the
12 comments
Read more