In some of the country's Muslim pockets, the appointing of a woman as the custodian of a large religious trust would probably provoke not just raised eyebrows but loud disapproval. For a woman to oversee, even if in a strictly administrative sense, the doings of imams, muezzins and dargah-keepers and to supervise the upkeep of mosques and communal graveyards is far from common. The striking fact about Muslim Bhopal, traditional though it is in many ways, is how little unease there is at the idea of a woman becoming the naib mutawalli (deputy custodian) of the Auqaf-e-Shahi, which manages Bhopal's princely waqf properties, scattered in and around the city.
The trust, set up by the former royals of Bhopal - the family's current head, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, is its mutawalli (custodian) - is no hole-in-the-wall outfit. Under its umbrella are the city's main mosque, the impressive Jama Masjid, at least a dozen other mosques, a dargah, graveyards, agricultural land, shops and commercial spaces, and acres of prime land in the city centre. The trust also matters to Bhopal's Muslims for its role in facilitating the free stay of the city's Haj pilgrims in rest houses built by the Bhopal state's rulers in Mecca and Medina. For public tolerance and acceptance of her appointment, the woman in question, Pataudi's 31-year old daughter Saba Ali Khan, probably has to thank her ancestors, the formidable Begums of Bhopal. Sadly, they do not occupy much public wall space, or even, perhaps, mind space in a saffron city full of large hoardings of leaders of Madhya Pradesh's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. But the four Begums, Qudsia, Sikandar , Shahjehan and Sultan Jahan, who ruled between 1819 and 1926, in the face of staunch opposition from male claimants and powerful neighbours, have indelibly altered perceptions of what a Muslim woman can or cannot do, in this city. "Saba's appointment is not an issue. The present mutawalli is legally entitled to depute her as the naib mutawalli, and the Madhya Pradesh Waqf Act states that a woman can be a mutawalli. So we will permit it," says Ghufran Azam, president of Madhya Pradesh's Waqf Board. "Jab hukumat auraton ki thi, to waqf chalane mein kya dhikkat hai?" (When women ruled, what is the problem with them running waqf trusts?) asks BJP leader Anwar Mohammed Khan, chairman of the MP Minorities Commission.
The Begums are not the only reason why Saba's new role is not, in principle, objectionable to Bhopal's Muslims. The other B-factor is Bollywood. Saba's elder brother, actor Saif, would have been the obvious candidate for the job, but as a family acquaintance here put it, "Saif mian ghair auraton ke sath nachte hai, voh mutawalli kaise ban sakte hai." (You can't make a man who dances with strange women the custodian of a religious trust.) Saif's dad, chatting, in his laconic way, in his Delhi drawing room, put it differently: "My son is too busy and has no desire to leave Mumbai. My daughter is suitable for the job, and inclined to take it up.". Pressed to explain "suitable", the former cricketing hero tossed off a few phrases: "reasonably educated", "inclined towards religion", "fasts during Ramzan", and prays, even if "not five times a day". He was not looking for a successor in Saba, he added carefully, only a helper (though others suggest, that at nearly 70, he is clearly grooming her to inherit his ancestral obligations). Will she have to change herself for the job? "I didn't change," replied Pataudi, "why should she?" She would, he conceded, need to keep form. For example, wearing jeans in Delhi's Khan Market is alright, but not in Bhopal, where, he says, Saba would be expected to dress decorously, and perhaps even cover her head.
Stories of Saba's head-covered piety might surprise avid consumers of page three, who only know the jewellery designer as an adjunct to her glamorous parents and siblings, but they go down well in Bhopal. "She seems like a sweet, simple girl, and more religious-minded than her brother and sister; we expect her to do a good job," says Rifat Khan, a descendant of Bhopal's nobility who lives in a sprawling haveli in the old city; and who met Saba on one of her brief visits to the city.But it's a little more complex than that. When it comes to Bhopal, the Pataudis are insider-outsiders. They are insiders by virtue of their lineage (Pataudi's mother, Sajida Sultan, was the heir of the last nawab of Bhopal, Hamidullah Khan), but are largely perceived as outsiders because of a lack of engagement with the place. Rather than trying to preserve the best of their vast inheritance, they allowed it to fall into the hands of encroachers or sold it off, bit by bit, Bhopalis point out. (All the family owns now is a vaguely colonial-looking house, and that too is under litigation.)The religious trust is the family's only solid connection with a Bhopali past, but, say Pataudi's critics, he has largely preferred to run it by committee, rather than get involved in a tangible, hands-on way. The Pataudi children are strangers, even to remnants of the Bhopal nobility. "I have had a longer conversation with you today than I've ever had with any of them," said a relative of the former ruling family."Saba," observes Arif Hasan, executive editor of the city's respected Urdu paper, Daily Nadeem, "is a non-resident Bhopali". Running a trust that is currently besieged by encroachments, litigation and other controversies is a full-time job, he points out. "We are happy that she wants to do it, but she has to prove her credibility." Adds his wife, Rana Wali, who hails from the Muslim aristocracy, "When Nawab Pataudi took over from his mother as mutawalli, no choice was given, no questions were raised about how he should perform his role. But in a media age, questions will be asked. People have expectations."
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