Hindu-Muslim Unity in Athseni and Muradpur: A Study of Blood Lineage, Customs and the Ethics of Coexistence

Abstract

This paper traces Hindu–Muslim genealogical and cultural continuity across Athseni, Muradpur, and Sarurpur in Garhmukteshwar Tehsil and the Simbhaoli area of District Hapur, Uttar Pradesh. Drawing on oral testimony from village informants, supplemented by a 1700 CE family register, a Persian-language plaque, and the memory of a carved two-storey haveli whose mason cut one brick a day while two men fanned him, the study reconstructs a migration chain and social world in which religious conversion separated branches of the same family without severing kinship obligations, customs, and material culture. The founding story reaches back to Kithaval (present-day Kithor, Meerut district), where one of two Pandit brothers moved to the ‘Meerut ke kothe’, faced social ostracism under the term ‘tyag’, and adopted Tyagi as a surname, transforming exclusion into clan identity. His descendants settled successively in Rachhauti and Athseni, before royal patronage by Raja Tejveer of Kuchesar brought them to Muradpur, where they became zamindars of five villages. Three brothers later shaped the village’s internal structure: two converted to Islam while one remained Hindu, their descendants occupying the pattis of Pachhayle and Pohayle, whose names preserve this division in the land’s layout. The Maheshre gotra was independently confirmed by four informants among Muslim Tyagi families of Muradpur and Athseni. The thali custom, allocating wedding-day offerings to both mosque and temple while giving precedence to the ‘other’ community’s milai, provides a distinctive expression of shared belonging. Other lifecycle customs (mandha, bhat, haldi, mehndi, ghudchadi, Salami/Tilak, godbhrai, Chhathi, chhuchak), the role of Rajasthani bhaats as genealogical custodians, and the unresolved identity of Raja Tejveer Singh complete the evidentiary picture.