Sacred thread that stitches together Hindus, Muslims

Allahabad (Uttar Pradesh) - Worn by Hindus, made by Muslims. Dipped in vibrant reds and yellows, 'kalawas' made in this corner of the country are more than just the sacred Hindu thread tied around the wrist; they are the strands that interweave religions, stringing together generations in a syncretic bond.

About 500 Muslims in the twin villages of Aalhadganj and Khanjenpur on the outskirts of Allahabad, about 200 km from the state capital Lucknow, earn their livelihood making the kalawas, worn during auspicious occasions, rituals and religious ceremonies.

"It's true that a kalawa represents a religion, but more than a thread it's also a means of binding Hindus and Muslims and spreading the message of communal harmony," Israr Ahmad, whose family has been making kalawas for 50 years, told IANS.

"Our work may not promise high returns or instant gains, but the best part of our job is that with the help of our Hindu brothers it gets blessed with the almighty every time kalawas made by us are offered to a deity," added Ahmad, 45, who lives Khanjenpur.

http://www.indiavision.com/news/article/national/214643/sacred-thread-that-stitches-together-hindus-muslims/

It's a job that involves starting the day at 3 a.m. and painstakingly following each step of the procedure - from raw material segregation to dyeing and drying and finally dispatching to wholesalers.

The raw material mainly comprises waste from power looms of Maharashtra's city Bhiwandi, also known as the jungle of power looms.

"In our local dialect, we call the raw material `naara'. We start our job with segregation of the naara. The job is primarily done by women, who have to form different bundles out of the naara," said Rehana Khatoon, whose grandchildren are also involved in the trade.

"Once the bundles are formed, they are dipped in hot drums containing red and yellow colours. After the threads get coated in colours, they are left on ropes in the fields for drying, and thereafter, they are dispatched to wholesalers," she added.

regardless of religious differences until the British came along with the divide-and-conquer policies

of mass killings taking many millions of lives under ruling classes before the British came.

Yes I did mean just your average villagers but now I'm curious what specifically you're referring to. And also to clarify, I was just referring to religious violence as opposed to territory wars though I suppose it works either way since those were also the ruling classes

Will Durant, the famous historian summed it up like this:
"The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex of order and freedom, culture and peace, can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within."


"K.S. Lal estimates that about 60 to 80 million people died in India between 1000 and 1525 as a result of the Islamic invasion of India."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_Muslim_Population_in_Medieval_India

Thanks! I knew about that bit didn't know it was so deadly. Anyway, that was indeed the sort of thing I was trying to exclude. What I meant was that later the Muslim villagers got along just fine with the Hindu villagers. In fact, many areas have shared saints that they revere (usually because they stood up against the oppressive rulers and sometimes the priestly class)

their religious practices were a mixture of Hinduism, Islam, and other native cultures. When Aurangzeb took over in the mid-17th century, he imposed Sharia Law, and the blood began to flow again, as it had in the conquest, into the 18th century. The rulers after Aurangzeb were considerably weaker, and that is the period I think you are referring to, up to the time of the British takeover.