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Embedded Sacred Contours of Punjabi Sufi Shrines
Yogesh Snehi

Summary 
Contrary to the received tropes of Sikh or secular historiography, Punjabi Sufi shrines offer a critical template to understand the in-the-making process of religious formation. Post-partition in 1947, East (Indian) Punjab became pre-dominantly non-Muslim, leading to abandonment of a large spectrum of Sufi shrines by Muslim caretakers. Interestingly, these shrines became alive within a decade after Partition, as rituals and practices were reinstated and expanded. Urs, qawwali (musical gathering), langar (community kitchen), kushti-dangal (wrestling), etc. were crucial in this enterprise. Importantly, there was a continued recognition of these being Sufi shrines. However, during the period of the 1980’s and 1990’s, violent militant movement targeted several of these shrines. Several Muslim and non-Muslim caretakers were killed and some shrines were also bombed. Once the militancy weakened, newer sets of shrines emerged in both the rural and urban landscapes. Known variedly as marhi, dargah, khanqah, nigaha or jatheras, these shrines open up fascinating possibilities to decode the continued existence of Sufi shrines in a non-Muslim landscape. Through a reading of saint shrines in Ghuram, Langiana, Abohar and Makhu, this paper will explore the landscape in which saint shrines exist and how these navigate the pressures of dominant narratives. 

Yogesh Snehi teaches history at the School of Liberal Studies, Ambedkar University Delhi. His major teaching and research interests focus on Punjab and debates on popular religion and its practice. He has been a Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla (2013–15). His recently published monograph Spatializing Popular Sufi Shrines in Punjab: Dreams, Memories, Territoriality (2019, London & New Delhi: Routledge) situates saint veneration practices in the partitioned (Indian) Punjab. Snehi has also jointly edited a volume Modernity and Changing Social Fabric of Punjab and Haryana (2018, New Delhi: Primus). 
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  • Home
  • About
  • Exhibition
    • Dionigi Albera
    • Maria Angel
    • Philippe Antoine Martinez
    • Glenn Bowman >
      • Al-Khadr (series)
      • Sveti Nikola (series)
    • Helen Cornish
    • Susannah Crockford
    • Lene Faust
    • Jackie Feldman
    • Maria Chiara Giorda, Luca Bossi, Daniele Campobenedetto & Equoatelier
    • Emrah Gökdemir
    • Safet HadžiMuhamedović
    • Vanja Hamzić
    • Guy Hayward
    • Jens Kreinath
    • Federica Manfredi
    • Ashim Kumar Manna
    • Reza Masoudi
    • Jason Minton Brown
    • Manoël Pénicaud
    • Marlene Schäfers
    • Jesko Schmoller
    • Tom Selwyn
    • Olga Sicilia
    • Konrad Siekierski
    • Yogesh Snehi
    • Yuri Stoyanov
    • Jill J. Tan
    • Samuel Tettner
  • Symposium
    • About the symposium
    • Yogesh Snehi
    • Glenn Bowman
    • Tom Selwyn
    • Ioan Cozma, Maria Chiara Giorda and Silvia Omenetto
    • Bojan Baskar
    • Dionigi Albera
    • Emrah Gökdemir
    • Yael Navaro
    • Ethel Sara Wolper
    • Yuri Stoyanov
    • Manoël Pénicaud
    • Jens Kreinath
  • Panel
  • Contact
  • Related Projects
    • The Xenia Series
    • CIP Summer School in Inter-Faith Relations
    • Cambridge in Your Classroom
    • Anthropology of Travel, Tourism and Pilgrimage Summer School
    • Bosnian Landscapes