Book review: Yogesh Snehi. Spatialising Popular Sufi Shrines in Punjab: Dreams,Memories,Territoriality

This book is an attempt to analyse the growth and development of a popular culture in post-partition Indian Punjab. It not only explores the survival of the popular Muslim Sufi shrines in a pre-dominantly Hindu and Sikh Punjab, but also grapples with the question as to how, in spite of political and religious divides, the popular practices reconfigured themselves in the post-partition era.

The author uses a wide array of sources encompassing popular tracts, booklets, propaganda materials such as posters and CDs as well as drawings, sketches and illustrations housed not only in well-known repositories like the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, but also in various Gurudwaras across Punjab. According to the author, an analysis of the images from the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century amply illustrate the ways in which ‘the heatedly debated periphery was secured and redefined’ following the campaigns for excluding perceived alien elements by the Khalsa movement and Arya Samaj. The author makes use not only of historical anthropology, but also visual studies and ethnography to provide us with a better understanding of the issues at stake.

The book itself brings out the common mystical antecedents of Punjab, where the influence of Sufism was by no means confined only to Muslims. He pursues a background study of the Nath Yogis, Sufis and other Bhakti traditions in Punjab and the historical traditions of mutual exchanges. To him these shrines reflect a shared piety of all these traditions which have survived in spite of the religious exclusivity of the present age.

Along with an Introduction and an Epilogue, the book contains four chapters. The first chapter starts with the history of some sacred shrines, situating them amidst the processes of Sanskritisation and Islamisation. The author uses certain case studies to enable us to see the atmosphere in which the shrines have flourished or survived. The second chapter details the story of survival in Indian Punjab after the Partition and shows how after a brief hiatus there was a revival of venerations of the shrines. The continued concept of Wilayat (or territorial jurisdiction) of each shrine is noted here. In the third chapter, we are furnished with an argument that these shrines are not just centres of veneration but also reflection of ‘dissent’ from the dominant religious discourse. They present an alternative expression of caste mobility and ‘interweave’ the liberal discourse of the Chishtis with the Nath and Bhakti traditions. The last chapter takes up the study of popular religious art and the circulation and visualisation of the space of the shrines in Indian Punjab. The author takes us from posters to the observances of saints’ deaths (urs), when fairly popular fairs are held.

Throughout the book, the author uses religion as a fluid category: we see it refashioning itself across time and space. Through offering an analysis of the peripheral shrines and their place in popular imagination the book makes us aware of a shared philosophy and tradition which cannot be simply wished away in the face of the communal surge of the present day. The book does well to trace one aspect of how simple humanity revived again after the most inhuman deeds had been performed in that very land in 1947–1948.