Tushar Gandhi
May 25, 2025
Guha is a small hamlet in Rahuri taluka of Ahmednagar District, now renamed Ahalyanagar. It has a population of around 3,500 Hindus – Marathas, Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Dalits – and a tiny minority of Muslims, roughly 450 people or 120 families, mainly OBC and Dalit Muslims.
Guha has an ancient heritage. Many locals claim that a Hindu saint, Kanhoba, an adherent of the Bhakti ideology, came to Ahmednagar district and adopted Islam upon the influence of Sufi Saint Saiyyad Us Saddat Nizamuddin. He took the name Baba Ramjan Shah Mahi Savaar and settled in a cave in Guha. Upon his death, a dargah was erected over his mazaar.
Approximately in the 1200s, a sanad, a land grant proclamation, was issued to a Muslim man appointing him custodian, or mujawar, of the dargah and 10 acres were given under the inaamdari award for its upkeep. This was ratified in 1857-58 by the British government.
A picture of syncretism
Since much before the British, from the 13th century, descendants of the mujawar have lived and administered the dargah and land grant. True to the Sufi tradition, they have lived in harmony with their Hindu brethren and developed close bonds with them. They have a syncretic tradition in which both communities participate in each other’s traditions and festivals.
Maqbool Sheikh, the current mujawar, installed the first sarvajanik (public) Ganpati in his cycle hire and repair shop. In those days, the village women used to say: “Chala, Muslamanachya dukaanaat Ganpati darshana la.” (Let’s go the Muslim’s shop to worship the Ganpati installed by him.)
Children of both communities would refer to the village elders as mama (uncle) and maushi (aunty). A masjid was also built across from the dargah and 30 acres were granted for its upkeep.
As part of the tradition, the mujawar would go from home to home seeking alms and grain for the dargah and at the time of the urs (death anniversary) of the saint. Hindus and Muslims would come together to prepare the feast. The qurbani (sacrifice) of animals was offered at the dargah, but Sheikh stopped the practice out of compassion for the animals.
Dalits were not allowed to enter the dargah but Sheikh opened its doors to all and corrected the injustice. Today, he is 88 years old and the patriarch of a clan that lives close to the dargah. Hindus would lead the Muharram procession and Muslims carried the Ganpati Idol to the installation as well as the immersion.
All this is history. Today, Guha stands divided, a victim of a campaign of hate, of the divisive Hindutva experiment for the establishment of a Brahminical Hindu Rashtra.
The dargah, where saffron flags have been installed and loudspeakers put up by the radicals.
Dialling up the hate
For the past year, Allauddin Sheikh, a Rashtriya Seva Dal activist and associate, had been asking me to visit Guha. Allauddin is the son of Maqbool Sheikh. I visited Guha as part of a team of Hum Bharat Ke Log, an organisation promoting Gandhian values, to assess the situation. You can’t understand or even get acquainted with all its aspects in the three hours we spent there but what we witnessed was shocking, to put it mildly.
Today, Guha is cleaved along communal lines. The Hindus, largely Maratha land owners and farmers, have, like in many places across the country, claimed that the dargah was originally a temple of Sant Kaneefnath. A segment of radicalised youth owing allegiance to the Sanatan Sanstha – a Hindutva organisation that has been under the lens in the murder cases of anti-superstition activist Narendra Dabholkar, Left-wing politician Govind Pansare, scholar MM Kalburgi and journalist Gauri Lankesh – are spearheading the movement.
There is some debate over who Kaneefnath was. Many say Kanhoba and Kaneefnath were the same while other say they were different persons who arrived there at different times. Whatever the truth may be, the site is being used to stir communal passions.
A leader of the sanstha visited Guha and made hate speeches, calling Muslims jihadists and alleged that before the 1200s there was a temple of Sant Kaneefnath which was destroyed and the dargah built over it. He called on Hindus to “liberate” the temple from the “jihadists”
We were told an interesting story. The young leader of the radicals had, under the influence of the sanstha, placed a photograph of Kaneefnath in the dargah. When the mujawar brought it to the notice of the youth’s father, his close friend, the father took the photograph home and confronted his son. Upon facing his son’s arrogance, he took off his shoe and gave his son a thrashing. This rankled the young man further and, after his father’s death, he launched the hate campaign.
In 2023, during a rally, the sanstha members in Guha, along with outside help, smuggled a statue of Sant Kaneefnath into the sanctum sanctorum and declared that it had miraculously appeared there. Local politicians endorsed the claim and the police remained a mute witness to the drama. The Muslim community appealed to the tribunal of the Waqf Board, which ordered a status quo until it reached a decision. There are other suits in progress, or rather a lack of process, in the high court and with the district magistrate too but there is official apathy. No one is interested in resolving the matter. The Muslims community has been on a dharna outside the tehsildar’s office for well over 500 days but the dargah has not been restored to the mujawar.
Provocation and abuse
There was an altercation over playing loud music during the aarti performed near the dargah twice a day to coincide with namaz. The objective was to antagonise the Muslims. An argument progressed to fisticuffs, resulting in cross complaints filed by both groups. The police arrested six Muslims who had gone to complain and filed cases against Muslims whose names they extracted from the electoral rolls. Some of them were not even alive! Sixteen Muslims are listed in the first information report. The Hindus, captured on CCTV rioting near the dargah and vandalising homes and vehicles of Muslims, were let off with a warning.
For the first time a permanent police outpost was established at the dargah. Around four months ago, a new outpost manned by six constables was erected to “maintain law and order” there. They remain mute witnesses as the radical sanstha violates the court’s status quo orders. A contempt petition filed in the Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court is languishing.
For the past two years, the sanstha has enforced a social and economic boycott of Muslims with the stated objective of forcing them to leave the village. Hindus have been warned against social contact with Muslims; anyone violating the edict faces a social boycott and a penalty of Rs 2,000. Hindus are prohibited from patronising Muslim businesses or employing Muslim workers. Muslim women, who used to work in the fields of Hindu land owners, are no longer hired. Hindu shop owners, who rented their premises to Muslims, have been forced to cancel the tenancies. A young man who runs a photocopying and general store used to do business worth more than Rs 2,000 a day. Now he barely makes a few hundred rupees – if he is luc
The tamarind from the trees near the dargah used to be harvested and sold in distant places. Not anymore.
ky. The day we visited Guha, he had not made a single sale till mid-day.
Muslims who own passenger and goods vehicles are not hired by fellow villagers.
The ancestors of the current residents had planted tamarind trees around the dargah. Locals used to harvest the tamarind and trade it in places as distant as Chennai and Vishakhapatnam. Now sanstha members don’t allow the harvest. A widow kept a herd of 50 to 60 goats and Hindu farmers would allow her to graze them on the grass in their fields. Now they don’t. She was forced to sell off the goats and has no way to make a living now. Muslims who used to till the 10 acres to grow grain for sustenance are not allowed to do so anymore. It’s same with the 30 acres owned by the masjid. Many young Muslims have been forced to leave the village in search of work. Muslim residents have to go elsewhere for even a haircut or a shave.
The dargah and masjid are situated on a small square in the Muslim neighbourhood of Guha. Every morning and evening the sanstha performs aarti there. They play loud music to coincide with the namaz. Abusive slogans are raised and threats are freely issued in the presence of the police.
There is great discontentment in Guha. The situation is tense, which is what the sanstha wants. They want a reaction so that they can unleash violence against Muslims and the dargah.
Moving the needle
The police post near the dargah.
When we visited Guha, we expressed a desire to meet the sanstha members. The Muslims told us the best way would be to send a message through the police. We did that but the sanstha representative refused to meet us.
Then, on the Muslims’ request, we visited the tehsildar’s office and met those on dharna. When we met the tehsildar to request him to be proactive in resolving the Muslims’ grievances, he offered only diplomatic responses. When we pointed out the specifics, like the boycott and the playing of loud music at namaz time, he promised to call a meeting of all stakeholders to explore a resolution.
As we were returning to Mumbai, we were informed that a large mob had visited the dargah that evening and performed an even noisier, more aggressive aarti. They refused to listen to the police’s appeals to tone it all down.
Later, we found out that the next morning a larger police force led by a senior inspector was at the spot and there were on only four or five instead of the usual 40 or 50 sanstha members for the aarti. The police told them to keep the decibel levels low and to cut short the aarti, and they had complied. The aarti was cut short from the usual two hours to 15 minutes. It seemed that the tehsildar had honoured his promise.
The Hum Bharat Ke Log delegation meeting the villagers in Guha.
It is ironic that Maharashtra has a law and a policy that makes social and economic boycott a criminal act. The policy is called Tanta Mukta Gaon (Dispute-Free Village). The law was promulgated by the Devendra Fadnavis government during his first stint as chief minister. The policy was promulgated by the late RR Patil, former deputy chief minister, to encourage villagers to settle disputes by dialogue rather than conflict. Villages that became tanta-mukt got cash awards and tax exemptions. Yet, neither the law nor the policy is implemented in Guha. That’s because the sympathies of the state government lie with the radicals.
The way forward is for secular forces and Gandhi Jan to unite and conduct the Gandhian experiment of self-reliance and peaceful coexistence, make it a success and make Guha an example of how Hindutva can be eradicated from the secular, socialist, inclusive, equal, just and Constitution-practising India. A successful experiment in Guha will show an alternative to an India increasingly addicted to bulldozer injustice.
All pictures: Hum Bharat Ke Log.
Tushar Gandhi, great grandson of the Mahatma, is an activist, author and president of the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation. Reach him here: gandhitushar.a@gmail.com.
