Thapar also writes that the mystic and poet, Kabir and the saint and founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak belonged to that category of the Bhakti movement which was influenced by Islam, and later went on to create their ‘new’ religious movements.

So the Hindu Bhakti schools by themselves were “self-abnegating,” “retreating” from the world and “motivated by purely religious feelings,” essentially tracing their origin to experiences like ‘hysterical trance’. They made no deeper impact on social ideas, Thapar claims.

The Sufism, on the other hand, was rooted in “democratic and egalitarian principles” and which even created leaders for peasants and reflected rationalism, as their mysticism was not always ‘religious escapism’.

This stereotyping of the Indic tradition as escapist and Islamic as egalitarian can be traced back to the Marxist-Colonial bias for Islamic monotheism as inherently superior to the perceived Hindu ‘polytheism’.

MN Roy, one of the founding fathers of the Marxist movement in India, had expressed his belief of the superiority of the monotheistic Islam over polytheistic Hinduism.

Vaishnavite ‘Spiritual Egalitarianism’ precedes Islam

A closer look at historical facts falsifies Marxist historiography on this matter.

First, the Bhakti monks of North India have consistently claimed their origin to be the Ramanuja-Ramananda tradition. One of the early figures of colonial Indology, Francis Buchanan, records the tradition of associating Ramananda, a monk from South India in the lineage of Ramanuja, to the North Indian Bhakti monks.

Ramanuja tradition, in turn, can be traced back to the tradition of Azhwars – the mystic devotees of Vishnu who saw themselves as presenting the essence of Vedic tradition. The hymns and everyday lives of Azhwars express devotion for the personal Deity and a voice for social emancipation based on spiritual oneness. Centuries before the arrival of Islam, either through trade or invasions, Azhwars had raised their voice against social stagnation. Their voice evolved into a full-blown Vedantic philosophy and a people’s movement, thanks to Sri Ramanuja, and was later taken to North India by Ramananda. Traditionally, Kabir is placed within this Ramananda tradition.

Even Chaitanya, whom Romila Thapar categorises as being ‘purely religious’, had performed acts which would be considered ‘radical’ for his times (or even today). His highly venerated disciples included Rupa, Sanatana and Jiva, all of whom were marginalised either as untouchables or stigmatised in society. They went on to become highly venerated theorists and Acharyas. Marxist historiography fails to grasp this socio-cultural Indic reality.

Contrary to claims, Sufis were not ‘progressive’ as a whole. During the Islamic rule in North India, many Sufis became power centres and aligned themselves with the rulers. They also advocated a tough stand against the Hindus.

For instance, Mir Muhammad (1372 CE-1489 CE) arrived in Kashmir and influenced Sultan Sikander to impose jizya, a yearly tax that Islamic rulers imposed on non-Muslims, for the first time in Kashmir. He prevented Hindus from applying a tilak on their foreheads. He also catalysed the destruction of the Hindu temples at Pompur, Mortand, Vijabror, Anantnag and Baramulla.

Shaikh Muzaffar (circa 1400 CE), another prominent Sufi, advocated for Sultans to not give high government posts to the Hindus. Another one of the most prominent medieval Sufis, Ahmad Sirhindi (1564-1624) created the Mujaddidiyya movement for revitalising Sufism. He wrote that the Muslim government should “humiliate the Hindus mercilessly imposing on them Jizya and treating them like dogs and by the slaughtering of cows.”

Of course, Sufis were a mixed bag. Many Sufis advocated Hindu-Muslim syncretism. Sufi saint Mia Abdullah of Ajodhan stood against Sultan Sikandar Lodi when the latter tried to massacre Hindus assembled at Kurukshetra. There were others too, like Bule Shah, Ibrahim Ras Khan and so on.

In South India, the Islamic mystic tradition was, remarkably, nearly free of association with Islamist imperialism, and almost became a branch of Yoga-Vedanta streams.