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Jürgen Schaflechner, "Hinglaj Devi: Identity, Change, and Solidification at a Hindu Temple in Pakistan" (Oxford UP, 2018)
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- [00:00]
A
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B
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the New Books Network. My name is Amal Hashim and I am your host today. I have with me here Dr. Jurgen Shaflaknar, the author of Hinglaj Devi, the book in discussion today. Dr. Jurgen is affiliated with the Free University of Berlin, and his book Identity Change and Solidification at Hindu Temple in Pakistan was originally published with a different name in 2018 then. And that was, I think, Oxford University Press, New York, New York.
- [01:40]
C
Yes, correct. Yes.
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B
And then the Oxford University Press in India picked it up in 2019, approximately. And then we have had the chance of having it available to us in Pakistan around 2021 with Oxford University Press, Pakistan publishing it. This is quite a different number of regions that you've published this in available. Then. What's the story behind that?
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C
Right, thanks for having me. The story behind the book is simply that I found it curious that even though it was published in the States easily and very quickly pitched up in India, Pakistan really had no interest. Oxford University Press had no interest from their side. And I myself needed to come then to the new director and sit in his office and explain, you know, the importance of this book, which I think also speaks a little bit about, you know, the topics that we have today. You know, the study of religious minorities, the study Particularly of Pakistani Hindu communities, which is a very new study. And the story of the. Of, you know, this book then being only very late and then only with some intervention published, also shows how much interest or how little interest actually is there, I think, in Pakistan, also with the small community, but also with, you know, different forms of plural traditions within Pakistan, luckily also. So the story of the book also, I think reflects, you know, this general interest, or rather lack of interest into the Pakistani Hindu community thus far, or at least until recently. Now the field is growing, so there are more people now interested in this. But a few years ago, there was almost nothing that we could find on this community. And the community which has substantial numbers, you know, I mean, probably, probably a good estimate would be between 6 and 8 million people in Pakistan. And this is a community which has a thriving tapestry of different rituals and narratives and traditions. And why Hinglaj is so important and why I think the book is also important in general for the study of Pakistani Hindus is that over a very quick period of time, the shrine of Hinglaj, which is located in Balochistan, became a unifying signifier for all different communities and castes. Right. All different from the schedule castes, you know, to the business communities, to the upper castes. Everybody somehow relates to this place because it's one of the few places that we have in Pakistan that has a very solid old tradition and also very solid Sanskrit corpus behind it.
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B
Six to eight million. Wow, that's quite a bit. I think that would be at par with the devotees of Lal Shabaz Kalandar approximately, and of even Pettai in Sindh.
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C
Yeah, I mean, these places in itself are quite curious. Right. The shared shrine tradition in Sindh is something that I always found remarkable and also a certain sense of pride for many Sindhis that I meet that they have this shared tradition, that they have these shrines and they have places where Hindus and Muslims, you know, intermingle and Lalsha, Baskelanda and Pitaya, certainly two of those that need to be named here. But again, you know, what we find is we find ossification, solidification of religious boundaries, which you also see geographically. You also see at the shrines where more and more people claim that this is either a Muslim shrine or this is a Hindu temple or a Hindu shrine. And so Hindus should go here and Muslims should go there. Right. So I think. But this is also generally a more global phenomenon, that these kinds of shared traditions increasingly disappear.
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B
Absolutely, absolutely. And we're seeing that everywhere, like you said, globally, with the rise of right wing sentiments across the Globe. How did you come across this shrine in this temple?
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C
Right, So I need to go back a few years here, but the study on Hing Laj is actually my PhD thesis, which was then later converted into the book. As I said, it was my PhD thesis and my supervisor in those days, William Sachs, pointed me into its direction because he had been working in the Himalayas for many decades and he always heard the reference about this very aloof, mystical place somewhere in Baluchistan, the western most Hindu religious space we could say on the subcontinent. And people of course then in India are telling all of these stories, all of these, as I said, mystical stories from the old times, but also then because of partition, stories that they heard now and now we can say what they are they actually myths because people can not simply travel to Pakistan. So what before kind was kind of was the, the mystic aura around this place because it was so far away now has kind of doubled because of the, the, the border between India and Pakistan. Right. And so there are a lot of people in India, a lot of devotees of, of England who until today actually want to go to this place. So it developed, as I said, from this point of interest that first came from my supervisor and then later on I realized that it's not really a field that has been worked on that much. When I started out, I found one or two books in English that had parts on the Hindu traditions in Pakistan. And now it's growing a little bit more. But still for the fact that there are millions and millions of, you know, Hindus, different kinds of Hinduisms in Pakistan, we are still looking at a small field and there is still a lot of work to be done.
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B
So Hindu studies, you mentioned Hindu studies was a growing discipline in Pakistan. And this has come out after you. You've noticed this change after, after the publication of your book or has there been sort of a growing organic interest in, within Pakistani academia for this?
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C
Yeah, I mean, you know, of course every author wants his or her book to be, you know, the beginning of something new. And, and I doubt that things are monocausal in any way. I think just the confluence of, you know, social media, you know, the opening up of, of Pakistan, you know, after the so called, you know, war on terror and the problems, also the Pakistan haters fighting, quote to quote on the side with the United States. I think after this time, let's maybe date it around 2015. I think that's an interesting year. A lot of things just changed in terms of representation for religious minorities in general. And I think Hindu minorities are a part of this. I mean, you need to see, right, the Kerry Luga Bill, for example, that came up as a support for Pakistan and kind of a pro home for Pakistan, helping the United States head apart in it, where the millions of dollars of AIDS that were supposed to be given to Pakistan were also added with the clause that the religious minorities in Pakistan needed to be protected. So this is, I think, a push that put more emphasis and more interest on religious minorities in Pakistan, because many studies on religious minorities very often come together with a certain kind of geopolitical interest, right? So we have this long period after 2001 where Pakistan was in the limelight, Pakistan was in the news. And then with this, so to say, after this came also this interest into religious minorities. And then first and foremost, of course, Christian minorities, but with them together, I think there was also a growing interest to Hindu minorities as well. And so I think that my book came at the right time then also there, because as far as I know, it is the first at least academic study on this field. But I think it just came at a moment where, you know, people were more interested in cultures, traditions that are outside of majoritarian Sunni Islam, so to say, in this time. And then of course, together with this, we see the coming of social media and then the first time the possibility of Pakistan's religious minorities themselves to represent their own lives to whatever, however imagined kind of audience. And so I think that these things kind of helped to bring a general interest into the different kinds of cultures in Pakistan. And also religious, and then also, of course, the Pakistani six.
- [11:16]
B
Sorry, that last bit got cut off.
- [11:19]
C
So I think that it's like the confluence of this interest into religious minorities because of the geopolitical developments after the world, after coming with the so called war on terror, and then together with this, the coming of social media and then the possibility of religious minorities to for the first time represent themselves. Right. Before, very often it was, you know, NGOs, journalists, but also academics, you know, in my case, you know, social ecologists who were representing the life of minorities in the global south very often. And now with social media, this has changed. So we are seeing like a new form of self representation of religious minorities on social media. Right now the question then, and I just want to leave this as an open question, the question then, of course is has this then also brought more emancipation to these communities? Because maybe before, under the guise of, you know, framing, journalistic framings, NGO framings, right, Anthropological framings, you could speak of a certain kind of misrepresentation of these religious minorities. And then you could also say with social media this has changed. But then the problem is automatically that social media in itself is its own affordances, like its own kinds of frames for which then the credences of religious minorities are reframed. So what we see somehow, and this I think also then to come back to your question is did to start a new field? I think what we see is like a different form of framing of representation of Pakistani, Hindus and religious minorities as such, because also much of the data that the traditional kind of gatekeepers or the traditional kind of mediators were using, such as going to the field and taking notes, working with people and so on, these kinds of representations have now changed and people very often would use social media data. Also in writing about religious minorities, you.
- [13:30]
B
Spoke of emancipation for religious minorities in how they represent themselves, do you think? And keep in mind traditional thinkings about, about the other generally, how do you think this has changed how they represented in literature specifically social media emancipation, specifically the way people are now writing about minorities within Pakistan? How do you think these representations, have these representations changed in literature or even in the news? Or has it not had an impact? Have they not been humanized as it is?
- [14:19]
C
Yeah, that's much to unpack. So let's speak about emancipation first. I mean, there's of course a certain baggage with this word of emancipation. What kind of emancipation do you understand? You know, what do you understand under emancipation? Is this a form of being able to vote, being able to have a right, you know, to religious expression, Being able to have the right for education? So it's within this term we see a lot of different forms of agencies, you could say, right. And we very often are quite confused about what kind of emancipation, you know, we speak about. And very often also because the term of emancipation is also then misused by geopolitical powers to then intervene, right, that bring so called emancipation to whatever that the, the women in Afghanistan and then this legitimizing, you know, military interventions and so on and so forth. So when I speak about emancipation, and this is like a reference to my upcoming book, emancipation for me means the ability of a body to increase their, their, their field of action, so to say. So the ability, the increasing of the ability to, to act. So it's a very kind of small, confined form of emancipation that I want to speak about. And from there onwards you really look at case by case by case by case. I think a very good example to use here are cases of so called forced conversions and marriage. Right. So Cases of forced conversion and marriage came up. And when I say came up is where it became more visible in journalism nationally and internationally. There were certainly the errands in Oxygen CD newspapers, but they became more a native public concern, let's say around 20. Yeah, around the year 2010. Now, if we look at these cases in more detail, and I started to work on one of these cases of. Called the case of Kasturi Mitia, a Hindu girl from Nanga Parka in those days. And if you follow how these cases were represented, you could definitely make this argument to say, well, forced conversion has actually pushed a community, the Pakistani Hindu community, which was underrepresented in journalism, in international media, more into the forefront. They are definitely more visible. But then the question is, are they visible because of what and under which frame? And so we can say, yeah, the representation of religious minorities has certainly changed, but has the frames for which they are allowed to appear changed? And I think that's quite a crucial question. And again, coming to the cases of force, alleged cases of forced conversion, we again see that while these cases, if they're true or not, have put a limelight on the community, they have mainly put a limelight onto the main paternalistic understanding of what, you know, the community should be, how they should be represented, and most importantly, what women should be allowed and what are they, what they are not allowed to do, right? These are the frames under which we see, you know, these sort of subversions come up. You could easily make this argument and say, well, the coming of social media, the changes of representation in journalism, the interest has certainly made them more visible, but they have also made other parts of the Pakistani Hindu community invisible. That is actually the grievances of the women involved. Because. And that's kind of also the main point. Many cases that are internationally sold as forced conversions are actually cases of female agency where women, and I'm speaking mainly when I speak in this, in this regard of adult women, so, you know, 18 years and above in the. In the province of Sindh, for example, where women, Hindu women would, you know, out of whatever reason, you know, decide to get married across faith borders, you know, whatever, they fall in love with a Muslim neighbor, you know, or whatever the cases are. And then to safe face within the minority community, the Pakistani Hindu community would very often frame these cases as forced conversions, right. As a way to cover over the elopement of one of their daughters and thus save face. Right? Now, this does not mean that forced conversion does not exist. It does, but it throws a very interesting light Onto the question of how are religious minorities allowed to appear? Right. Religious minorities are more visible, but they are more visible under certain frames that they are allowed to appear. And these frames are very often frames of ignorance, frames of agency, frames of female agency basis are very rarely found. And I think that this is something we need to consider when we speak not only about Pakistan's religious minorities, but generally about religious minorities in the so called global South. Is, are these emancipatory movements, are these forms of representation basically just a repetition of the same kind of stereotype that we had for many, many decades? It moved in centuries just on a different kind of media. That is on social media, for example. Right. Or that is, you know, on, you know, online media, that is on, in journalism, in anthropological writing and so on.
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B
That is very interesting to think about because we've been having protests against forced conversion recently in Karachi in a lot of the major cities in Pakistan because there were a couple of cases quite recently and quite honestly, I don't know if anyone knows how to tackle the nuances that you've talked about and you've brought to light, but when you, when you speak about female agency, think Hinglaj Devi. When you say Devi, that means woman, right? Woman of high school.
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C
Yeah.
- [20:41]
B
So when you were, when you were researching Hinglaj Devi, you were researching a female deity, right?
- [20:49]
C
Yes.
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B
And how does that, how does that work then? If, if a female within the Hindu community, who, or the concept of the female within the Hindu community is revered, but everyday women don't have the agency.
- [21:06]
C
Yeah, I get it. Yeah.
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B
If you could talk about that a little. And just the, the, the dissonance, I suppose, if you could talk about that.
- [21:19]
C
Right, okay. So it does, it's the same in, in India as well. Right. Doesn't mean if you have, you know, deities that are gendered, that have a, you know, a female gender and you have a community that worships or rears this, this deity doesn't mean that anything for women changes. Why? Ce. Because there are different understandings of, of responsibilities and rights of women, you know, in pre modern times than today. And very often, you know, religious worship does not then catch up with more progressive or liberal understandings of female agency. So there's no dissonance in many communities between, on the one hand, the worship of a female deity, deity and then on the other end, you know, ill treatment of women, so to say. Right. And I also think it's very hard to compare both of these because they come out of different kinds of time periods and time scales. That does not mean, however, that you cannot use religion, you cannot use your goddess council to say, also to argue for more rights for women and for more emancipation. Right? But there's no necessary link between the tradition of worshiping a female deity and so to say a more equal treatment between men and women. Because this idea of equal treatment is just not a central piece, right? It's just a completely different understanding of responsibilities and duties between the genders. So that's number one, Number two to Hinglaj's tradition and why I think this is very interesting in Pakistan is simply you have a very old pilgrimage place in the desert of Madochistan that is very well documented in the Sanskrit sources, right? So compared to a lot of other local shrines, compared to, for example, you know, in Tandu Alayarama pier pilgrimage site, Hinglaji is a, so to say, Sanskritic or, you know, for the lack of better word, Brahmanic kind of legitimized religious place and thus has been revered and respected and visited by a broad range of different kinds of communities. And that's quite interesting, right? And this is maybe to bring the discussion also a little bit to Hinglaj. This is what fascinated me at this place. Because within no time, within only a few years, the Hinglaj place became kind of a unifying signifier for all different people in Pakistan who identified with the broader Hindu tradition. So to say, from the lower castes to the upper castes, right? From the devi worshippers to the Krishna worshipers, all somehow had a certain kind of relationship to this place because it has old tradition within the Sanskritic sources. When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom 60th. And never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more@WhatsApp.com this episode is brought to you by Jack Daniels. Jack Daniels and music are made for each other. They share a rhythm in the craft of making something timeless while being a part of legendary nights. From backyard jams to sold out arenas, there's a song in every toast. Please drink responsibly. Responsibility.org Jack Daniels and old number seven are registered trademarks. Tennessee whiskey, 40% alcohol by volume. Jack Daniel Distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee. The holidays have arrived at the Home Depot and we're here to Help bring the excitement with decor for every part of your home. Check out our wide assortment of easy to assemble pre lit trees so you can spend less time setting up and more time celebrating. And bring your holiday spirit outdoors with unique decor like one of our Santa in of front inflatables. Whatever your style, find the right pieces at the right prices this holiday season at the Home Depot.
- [25:59]
B
Within the book you also mention how this site has been. Is revered also by Muslims of the of the local region. Can you explain on that a little while expanding to other. There is for example speculation that one of the most famous shrines in Saint Lal Shabaskalandar is actually the site of a Buddhist monk. So we do have evidence of or speculated evidence of sites of Gumu or Buddhist religious significance being appropriated by Muslims on Muslim communities.
- [26:34]
C
Yeah, I don't think that's speculation Raihood. Right. I mean Lal Shabazzi, you know, French research group has done a lot of work on and I think not necessarily Buddhist that could also be but the further back you go, the more difficult it is. But I think it's also, I don't think it's a very surprising thing to think that you know, certain religious sites had been one religion before and then were, you know, another religion after that also because probably the shifts between the religions in the pre modern time were much easier than we consider them today. Right. Particularly with, you know, religious nationalism and the increasing kind of fortification of religious borders. So I for example myself saw in Durranisha, also in Baluchistan that within the cave there is what is considered to be a stone which is considered to be the camel of Ali, which to my understanding it looks very similar to also Shivalinga. So I'm, I cannot confirm this myself but what I know from other scholars who have been working on this field, I don't think that this is very surprising thing that religious sites, particularly when the very old had different layers and different kinds of religious palaces over each other to. And then you know, to become what we see in them right now. Now coming to Hinglaj again, what. And Hinglaj is so unique in so many different, on so many different levels. And one of these levels is that whilst we have seen that a lot of, of Hindu places in what is today Pakistan have very often become Sufi shrines have been taken over, you know, by more Muslim interpretations. But we see in large it is the opposite direction. Right. So there is a very strong, and I'm showing this in my book, a very strong evidence that in large looked like a Muslim grave just a few decades before and then has, with the coming of the Hinglaj Siva Mandali with so a temple organization that took over most of the. The construction at the site, but also the pilgrimage and also then the authority to interpret what we see there in Large. So also the discourses and the narrators of the rituals. So I think there's very good evidence that in Large used to look more like a grave than a temple. And then particularly the shape that it has today is the shape of these typical, you know, two faces that we see in Large now. So for example, I found from a pilgrim who was there from Jodhpur in the 1990s, a black and white picture that he took, where it's pretty clear that what we are seeing here, it actually looks like an oblong stone which is on top of grave. And this would very much fit to the Muslim interpretation, or we have to say the secret Muslim interpretation of this place, which says it's Nani Kihaj. So it is basically the graveyard of alternatively, you know, the many of Hasrat Ali, you know, or other members related to the Prophet's family. And in all the sources, and I'm speaking now about colonial sources, for example, by Kirk Hart and others, in all of these sources you find repeatedly that local oral narratives would point out certain parts of the landscape, certain formations, stone formations, certain rivers, and associate them with a sacred geography of Islam. Right? The stone that has been split into, for example, by the sword of Hassan Ali would be one example. Now why is this unique? Because this interpretation of the large, this Muslim interpretation, has increasingly disappeared over the last years. And even when I stopped, like my regular research, I'm still going to leave Arch when I have time. And I often see in awe what kind of changes are happening there on a yearly basis. But even when I stopped in 2015 to go regularly, so much has changed in this short period of time because also the. The festival which is in. In April, and the date of this festival was set, you know, not according to the Hindu calendar. Now the. It has been changed, but in the time when I did my research, the date was done because the river, the Hingol in front of the. The valley had just low water. That would be the nature, right? And so people could cross over and actually see the shrine. And now with the bridge that has been built, the date has also been now shifted to. To adopted more to ind. So what I want to say here is, and this is also why the term solidification is in the title, what we are Witnessing with In Large is how within a short period of time, a certain kind of religious and ritual tradition clustered, ossified, solidified around Hindlarch. And during my research period, I could see, you know, how different narratives suddenly were solidified into one, different pilgrimage routes were suddenly solidified into one route. Right. And on top of this, and this is then to come back to the beginning of your questions, on top of this was a slow progress of kind of erasing much of the Muslim history at the shrine.
- [32:37]
B
Why should that need to happen? And the solidification that you're talking about, is that a result of, do you think, social media and the emancipation that has come about or more politically aware audience that is working on this?
- [32:52]
C
Yeah, I mean, you're asking the really big questions and struggling to answer these very hard, very important questions. So now first you said the soul. Okay, the solidification, because it has to do with social media. Yes. But also no, because in the time when I did my research in 2004, starting from 2009 to 2015, social media was not really a big thing there. I mean, remember when I went to India in 2011 and I had been at enlarged, really umpteen times, and I had some pictures and some recordings that the pilgrims in India were so grateful to be able to see the Mata, they got the Darshan, as people would say. And people would, could be overjoyed to be able to do that because they could suddenly see a picture of the Goddess. And this is just a few years ago. Right. Not so long ago. So the processes of solidification, I mean, I think solidification is a general kind of phenomenon that we see in many places. I think In Large was just a very good example because I had so much time to spend. Its solidification doesn't need necessarily social media, but social media certainly intensifies it or exacerbates it, even if you want to say so. Now, what do I mean by this? Let's say first with enlarged, so the solidification processing large. You need to imagine like this, the place is located in the desert of Kaluchistan. Nobody really knew for a long time where it is, but everybody knew that it's important and that it is there. And you have this oral histories, but also these journey reports of people who come there and who see the Goddess, you know, in front of their eyes and who are overjoyed and who come back and have their atma, their soul purified. People know it's important where people don't know where it is. And people have no kind of guiding Authority. So different traditions write about this place. So you have a Bengali tradition that writes about this place, you have a Hindi tradition that writes about this place, you have a Sindhi tradition that writes about this place, a Gujarati tradition or Marwari tradition. And all of them, you know, kind of work within their language fields, but they do not necessarily, even though they might communicate about other things, but about this, they do not really communicate that much. So very often what I did is when I looked at the discourse of who writes about what, we found that Sindhi authors very often called Sindhi authors and Hindi authors. Hindi authors, Bengali authors. Bengali authors, but they would not communicate. Now, in 2001, when the macro and coastal highway was built, suddenly everybody was able to go there. And then the Hinglaj Seva Mandali, the temple committee, made this annual meeting there within the beginning, 40,000 people, and now even over 100,000 people coming. And. And people suddenly, suddenly would start to meet, mingle, talk, and figure out they have all of these different understandings of what has happened or what should happen in this tradition. And. And people were confused. They were what is the real Assal, the real tradition at this. At this place, so to say. And they very often turn to the Hinglaj Seva Mandel. Now, the Hindlad Seva Mandl is an organization that by chance, so to say, took over this, this shrine, you know, and the authority to interpret the shrine simply because the community, which mainly consists of Lohana Hindus, lived close to the shrine, so they knew where it is, they could guide people there. And then, of course, they were the local authorities. So Piu asked them. So interestingly, what we see or what I try to explain as solidification of the shrine is the solidifying of one narrative out of this many, many, many narratives that came together after the changes, the mile and then the taking over of the Lahana community as the main guiding authority in interpreting which tradition is right and which is not right, because people could not accept this plurality of interpretations. And we're always searching for the real, the proper right, the real thing. How do I really worship? And this is then what I described, the solidification and didn't this, I think also then connects to your second question. Why does it have to be, why can't we not allow these shared traditions? And again, there's not one answer to this, of course. Certainly one answer is that with modernity, of course, and also with colonialism and the fortification of religious boundaries through the census of the Brits and so on and so forth, there is this Process of increasing kind of antagonization between the traditions, fortifications of traditions and so on. And this idea of a shared religious place more and more disappears. And now the third part of your question as I understand it, and how does social media play into this? Social media now has just put this development on steroids. It has just made it even faster, even harder, even clearer. Because if I, if you remember in 2009 when I started working on Hinglaj, people would never speak in Shuddhi. People who say inshallah would say Mashallah Hindus, sorry, my Hindu interlocutors would not speak in Shuddhimu. And the last time when I came from Pakistan, this is in this year, I was surprised about how many youngsters are actually using shoot Hindi when they speak to me. They would intentionally turn away from Urdu and would really try to use as many sans criticisms as possible. And then why is this? Well, this is because of social media. This is because of, for example the influence of the eastcon which has a huge outreach and the influence of various, you know, Sibi traditions and local religious authorities in Ulhasnagar, for example, where many of the Sidi diaspora also went, who are still connections to the Hindus. So social media is basically now more and more separating this because you don't need the geographical proximity anymore because you have social media so you can connect, so to say to your religious skin in whatever India, in the United States, you know, in Europe or whatever, wherever it is. And so I think with social media we see a very new version of this, the fast paced version of these kinds of solidification processes. And then that's the last thing that I want to add to this also. We cannot overlook when we speak about Pakistani English, the influence of Hindutva, the Modi government, you know, the outreach, you know, the social narrations, you know, of, of a right wing Hindu propaganda that then very often is exacted, perpetuated, posted, reposted also by Hindus in Pakistan and worldwide. Right.
- [40:12]
B
I was just going to ask you about the influence of BJP and Hindutva on this side of the border and how that has impacted community.
- [40:25]
C
So even though, you know, we're jumping a little bit between topics, let me come back to the of force conversion here. Right. And maybe also not running the danger of being of, of, of perpetuating conspiracy theories myself. Now I found it always a very interesting social, interesting timing. Okay, now I found the words an interesting timing that the coming of the, you know, which as we know is a conspiracy theory of love Jihad, which means there is A orchestrated effort by Muslim men to marry non Muslim women to spread Islam. Right. This is, this idea of there is kind of intention. A conspiracy is what we could call a conspiracy theory. And I was very curious about the fact that the coming up of this conspiracy theory of love Jihad, which we know is around since 2005 and originally started out with the idea that Christians would be involved in this, which then of course goes back into the colonial tribes. But this theory came upward at around 2005, but really became famous and prominent around 2009, 2010 also the very time when cases of forced conversion started to become more and more visible in Pakistan. Now what does this mean and how do I interpret this? I do not interpret this as saying, you know, these are conspiracy theories and forced conversions don't happen. This is how I'm, I very often misunderstood forced conversions do that. But the idea of, you know, orchestrated effect with a certain kind of religious seal behind is just not, it's just not happening. And I think that here we can see, you know, the influence of social media, the BGP and this right wing Hindu narratives that of course when they are in Hindi are so spread everywhere and easily then also consumed and found on the other side of the border. Let me just say one more sentence to cases of forced conversion just because this is a point that very often people misunderstand. So cases of forced conversion are interesting and extremely ambivalent simply because on the one hand they have really put a community that has been overlooked for many, many decades, has been invisible in Pakistan for many, many decades into the limelight. So there is an advantage. And then also, you know, the coming of the Hindu Marriage act in 2017 has helped this kind of inactivatory process of the Pakistani Hindu community. And this limelight that then made this change of the law was not thinkable without this, this attention. Two cases of so called forced conversion, first and foremost, Rinke Kumari was then again, you know, very well off, relatively well off woman notes from the so called lower castes, Choti communities as I like to call them, or schedule castes at her case, then push kind of this interest into these cases and then also led to this certainly emancipatory push of Hindus being gaining more rights as citizens in Pakistan. On the other hand, however, and that's kind of the curious part that we need to think about when we even think about how we can present religious minorities on a broader, the broader scale of things. On the other hand, they repeat, you know, the trope of the damsel in distress, the trope you know, of the. Of the, you know, the innocent woman who needs to be supported and helped, you know, by the. By. By the male religious counterparts and eventually is, so to say, forced conversionist. And also, Edward Randolph of Community Affects for Men again. Right. So it has these pulls into two directions at the first time. And I think that this is the only way in which we can understand activism online activism online, which I would like to call affectivism, because it is an activism that needs to use the affordances of social media and usually does this in a very emotionally or affectively charged way. So I think that this form of activism is the only way that certain communities from subaltern backgrounds can make themselves visible. Right. So affectivism is a form of activism where you kind of need to play into the already established sedimented frames of how you are represented to get a certain visibility that you then later on in the second step can use to actually make emancipatory clouds. Right. And that's, I think, the curious thing about force conversion. So forced conversion has emancipatory and confining movements at the same time, and it unfolds right in front of our axe. Right.
- [45:42]
B
That's very interesting because we've been. I think something similar is happening on the other side of the border. And I don't like the term the other side of the border, but that brings me to. To my next question or observation. There are so many, as you said, traditions about and around Hinglaj Devi and Hinglaj Mata, you mentioned, at least, I think five. Bengali, Gujarati. Yeah. And then the plurality of these, of these traditions, the fact that there's so many different ones, that in itself is a signifier of the ability of religions to exist with different interpretations or different understandings. But now that you have this solidification of a tradition, what happens and what is the impact on all these local vernacular traditions, as it were? Or will these be local vernacular traditions or will this be erased?
- [46:36]
C
That a great but very difficult question. But I think here we can be a little bit. We can dare to be a little bit straightforward. They disappear. I think they disappear because, see, I mean, this is not a situation as it actually happened, but there are very situation. A lot of situations that I witnessed which were directly happening at the Shriven, which, you know, brought me to this kind of. Of anthropological conclusion. When people came from the Chati communities, the smaller communities, the Bhil, the Megvarg or Charan, a lot of people came to the shrine and had little idea. And if they had an idea for example, you know, they would bring. And that's the example that I wanted to. To. To bring up. It would bring a coconut, come up to the place, you know, come up to the Pujari Sukhopal Maharaj, I hope, still there. And then they would smash a coconut, right, as an offering for the goddess. Because they. This is how they heard they should do it. Gopal, for example. So don't do it like this. This is. This is not a real tradition. So he would, so to say, educate them on their own perception. Now, this is a very interesting anthropological moment because this would be. Even as I said, this is not a business story about it. I just use as an example. This would be the anthropological moment where this vernacular tradition would disappear or this oral tradition would disappear, because let's say the community of collies or Iguires that we are making up here in this scenario would come. They would have heard it for many, many generations that you come to enlarge, you bring a coconut, you smash it, right? And even though this would be legit, what we call gray knowledge, nevertheless legitimate kind of knowledge, it would be in this moment, then cleared up, so to say, it would be a pedagogical moment and a solidifying moment, because then this community would then the next time, they can't not smash the coconut anymore, right? And that's. This is. And this is so interesting to be a part of. And I was really in such a lucky and privileged position to come at this time to study this shrine because in 2009, nothing was really like, so set in stone, all these different stories. Even Gopal Maharaj, with whom I spent a lot of time, the Bujari there. So the priest there, he also changed his stories, right? When I come, when I came, when I came, when I came, it's always a different story, which just showed me that there were these loose associated narratives which then solidified into a more kind of, maybe not completely solid, but into a more kind of a tangible kind of meta of traditional discourse. And so to. To answer your question, I think that these oral traditions would disappear simply because Pakistani Hindus for a very long time have been considering themselves to not have any kind of proper Hindu knowledge. And that was true, right? Think about the Hindu scare of the time of Ayu Khan, where India, you know, and the Hindus were a threat. Or then after the war and parts of Sindh and the Sindhi Hindus that lived there were considered maybe also enemies or working together with the enemies. So there was a lot of suspicion towards the Hindus for a long Time, which luckily now has changed. But what I mean with this is from the 60s, 70s onwards, even though the 60s, until, let's say until 65, there was still the Bhagavad Gita, for example, played on Radio Pakistan, as the records of Radio Pakistan show. But from that time onwards there was kind of putting a veil over the tradition, over the Pakistani, the tradition. There's little written, there's little to be found in the newspapers. The community themselves didn't really publish a boat. And then in the 80s, something really interesting happened during the time of Sia, because there was so little Hindu tradition, Hindu religious education, Hindu religious knowledge came to Pakistan in the 80s, this void was filled by none other than the goras, the ISKCON goras. So you have people, you know, such as, you know, Kirtananda, AMU Kriladas from the United States, who are members of the Hare Krishna movement, who would then come to Pakistan, live in places such as Narayanpura, for example, in Karachi, or work with Sindhi Hindus and then would teach them Hinduism or would teach them basically, you know, iskcon, Hinduism. But people would accept this as the proper form of Hinduism. So here you also have a form of solidification which was taken on by a lot of people from the Choti communities, so from the. The low caste communities, because a ISKCON was spoken with of the abolishment of caste relations. And of course they from a lower caste were suffering from those b. ISKCON from the beginning brought in Sanskrit texts and AMU Giladar, so the man from California and others translated them to Urbu. So for the first time you have the Bhagavad Gita then translated into Urdu, which maybe people have not read, right? Or not so many people have read. But it was an important symbolic moment because the ISKCON translated this real quote to quote Sanskrit texts, right? And then of course, what you cannot forget is the fascination with the white man, right? The fascination of somebody, as one of my interlocutors said, whom I interviewed, who was there, and one of the first devotees of ISKCON in Karachi, he said, well, if a white man comes from so far away from the United States to teach us the Maha mantra. So that's Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare, this mantra. Then she said, then we believed that there must be something there, right? So these three points, religious texts, the promise of abolishing caste, and then also this kind of, of libidinal investment into the gora helped then in the 80s, ISKCON to spread and to Explain people, quote to quote, what religion, what Hinduism actually is. And this actually is the most interesting word for me, all of these analysis. Because actually can be everything. And why do we know that? Well, because 30 years later, 20 years later, this actually was interpreted in a different way. And this actually was interpreted now in Hinglaj by the Hinglaj Seva Mandali as their own interpretation of what Hinduism is. And so the example with the coconut would then help here again, right? The actual way to celebrate, sorry, to worship 18 Laj is not to break the coconut, but to actually give the coconut to the Goddess, not break it, and then just move on and go about your day. Now, last thing I promise that I say to this, but this is a great anecdote. Why is this the case so many temples all over South Asia? You go, you bring a coconut, you break the coconut in front of the deity, you offer it as a prasad. Why is this not the case in Lhatch? Well, coconuts are really hard to come by in the desert, right? And so what actually happened is there is. And that's the great, a great part of the story. There is a parallel economy run by the local Sigri Muslim community. See, this is where they, they come back and this parallel economy sells coconuts at the Swami Narayan 10 or in Karachit, the pilgrims take these coconuts from whatever, you know, wherever they buy, it's at different places. But for example, in Swami Narayan, they do this. Bring it to him large, offer it there, don't crack it, just give it to the pujari. The pujari puts it into a bag and the coconut travels back to Puji and is resold, right? So this is, and this is Amal. The interesting part of living religion, when you look at religion, any, any tradition, any tradition close up, you see that it is always the confluence of economic interests, of social, economic interests, of caste, of gender. All of these things come together and they could use what the actual in tradition is. The actual, the asal tradition. What's the real thing? And that's kind of what solidification is about. Solidification is about what is the real thing, right? What do we understand as the real thing.
- [55:50]
B
But then the real thing isn't just limited to ritual actions, right? Because you mentioned that the Bhagavad Gita, its translation into Urdu was a foundational moment. It gave access of understanding to so many people. But now the descendants of those that had read the Bhagavad Gita in Urdu are rejecting Urdu. So it's not just that solidification is moving a step further, would you say?
- [56:18]
C
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, see, solidification is the fight about. About, as I said, you know, what's the real tradition, what's the real thing? And the real thing changes because we live in a world that is full of becoming. We live in a world where everything changes from. From day to day. But what we really love is investing into things that are presumably quite old because they give us conf. Right. And so think Large also has this unbelievably long history of pilgrimages, you know, like my own setup. So I think that you can. We can at least date this pilgrimage to the 13th century. That is unbelievably old. I mean, imagine how old this. This is that people actually from all parts of the subcontinent have been going to this place. It's unbelievable. But it also doesn't mean, you know, that it is the same pilgrimage as today. It might be completely different. The idea of Yatra or S. Yarat might also be a completely different understanding of what it is today, of what. Of what it has become in modernity. So the point that I'm trying to make is that since everything is in this becoming, we very often invest into the history of things because history gives us certain kind of comfort. And then particularly if you find something that is allegedly very old, then of course it must be real. However, the interpretation of this place is never of the same interpretation as it used to be at a particular moment in time, 600, 700 years ago or whatever, because we can only look at this place from the lens of the present moment. Every history can only be interpreted from the present moment, right? So the genealogy of things always needs to be understand from the present moment. Now, the present moment in Pakistan, in South Asia, in terms of religion and Hindu religion and nationalism is that we live in a world that is separated by so many different traditions, but two of the main separations are Muslim and Hindu. And so we look at the lens of this through the lens of this to understand all of this phenomena, very often ignoring that, you know, before you know, the moment of modernity, it might have not been this separation that is important. It might have been the separation of money that is important or class. You know, if you want to, for example, read it for a Marxist lens, which means if you are a rich prince, doesn't matter if you're maharaja, you know, of a Muslim, the Azidr ruler, you would be much closer than, for example, you know, a Hindu prince and a Hindu farmer, right? So these separations are extremely arbitrary. And what we see in Hindlarch today is the attempt to purify, to Hinduize, a tradition that has been shared and shaped by so many different kinds of traditions of over the many, many hundred years that it exists. Right. Because it needs to fit, it needs to fit into our understanding of how we understand real religion, real Hinduism, to now in, you know, this moment, the.
- [59:40]
B
Year 2025, this tradition that is shared, it is still shared, but it's shared by a different set of people. It's shared by those that are able to access it, by those that are able to still perform some form, form of the Yatra. Right. Those that don't have access to that pilgrimage route, for instance, or to the texts that are coming out, they don't have that. They don't share in that tradition anymore. I'm talking about specifically those that have been impacted by partition, not the diaspora, which still has some form of access, but those that are just across the border but can no longer perform the Yatra, can no longer act. That's all of these tests, for instance.
- [60:25]
C
Yeah, you're absolutely right. And, and you know, since I'm an anthropologist and we work with stories, I have a good story again for this. In 2011, after two years of doing research in Pakistan and on large, I went to, to India to speak about some of the, the pilgrims who had been there. One of them I mentioned before, who had been anything large in the 90s, and the funny thing is one of the pilgrims from Jodhpur, Rajaseen, he told this very, very, I think he put it so succinctly when he spoke about the pilgrimage from the Indian perspective after the building of the Makran coastal highway. Because in Pakistan you sit in Karachi, you hire a car or bus, you know, some people even go by motorbike. In a few hours you're there in India, that's impossible. Particularly now with the, again, you know, the rekindling of the tensions now pilgrims from India can't though. And so he said, you know, in those days it was really hard. And he said it in, in those days you would not be able to go there to walk through the desert. But now you cannot go there because the border is there. And so he said that the Rakshas, the demons, the problems with the border and everything, you know, is now transformed. And the Rakshas that would have haunted you in the desert night, right? Somewhere in Baluchist and another Rakshas who sit in the visa office and refuse to give you the stain, right? But the tradition is the Same. And so in, in this very curious way, Henglaj has still remained elitist, elite to a certain extent on the other side of the border. Because not so many people can come. I mean, you know, you know, when you, in the old days when you came from Englaj, you were called the Himlaji. And in many traditions you were considered as an elevated being. We would have. Parts of your atma would have become elevated, you know, and you would have be purified. And in society you would also be treated like this. Right. In Gujarat especially, this is. I've seen this with my own eyes that this tradition is mostly alive. And why is it still alive? Well, because of the poor you live in, you know, I don't know, in Samaro, in Slamkot, in Miti and wherever. If you go to him large and you come back to your village, everybody's like, yeah, whatever, right. We go tomorrow. So nobody's going to treat you in any special way. And valid India is still the case. So it's very curious, you know, when you speak about, you know, the, you know, how such traditions slip into modernity, how, you know, these traditions are changed by roads, how they are changed by borders. Right. And how, so to say the core of the tradition somehow still is alive and somehow still remains. Still alive until today.
- [63:30]
B
It remains alive, but it is, it is exclusive. Now. Would that be the right.
- [63:35]
C
Yeah, I mean, exclusive. Because Indians cannot go. I would say Pakistanis can. So I think that exclusiveness of Englaj remains on the other side of the border more than here. Here it has become very easy for. And, and over the years I've. I remember I. When I started out, it was quite something special to meet somebody who was in large. But now over the years when I talk to Hindu friends and interlocutors, oh, almost everybody has gone now. Right. So this exclusivity has gone, but is what also has gone. I mean, if we want to go to a different kind of tradition is, you know, the Sigri interpretation. So this, this part of the tradition certainly has gone. Yeah, that has disappeared. Even though I even. It's one of my first films. I even have an interview with a secret gentleman at he lodge who came there with his own family. And so at least if you know, and I'm pretty sure it is still alive also today. But 10, 15 years ago, Siegfried Kildim still went to Himraj.
- [64:45]
B
And so in 2015, when you went back, were they still going?
- [64:51]
C
The seagrass, you mean? Yeah, the sea grace. See, for a long time these actually were in charge of the place because their village is just around in large. So this also has contributed. I'm sure you've heard this. Sorry if I have like an old grandpa repeating stories here, but I mean, that's such a good story that it can't be talked over and over. You know, one of the colonial officers, Bricks, wrote this story that since Hindu pilgrims would go to L and then would get the tikka, so the, not the, the dot or the sacred stripe, at times those forehead from a female Muslim priest as Rick bites, they would be in this moment converted into Muslims. Right, so you go to Hilaj, mention the situation, right? Whenever you come from Bombay, you go to Hilaj, you're like, yeah, we're going to H. And then you, you reach here at this, at this place, and a Muslim priestess puts this, this tika onto you and you convert it into a Muslim. And then you go back the whole coast and through Sindh to Gujarat. And then in Gujarat there is a temple, a Shiva temple, where you then get reconverted to a Hindu. Right, that's. As I said, it's such a fantastic story that it needs to be retold. But it probably says more about, you know, the perceptions of the, of the British colonial offices onto the plurality, you know, of religious diversity in South Asia than the actual facts on the ground. But interestingly, a part of the story is that as a proof that you have been reconverted to a Hindu, right, you actually needed to get a stamp of a Shiva linga, burned it to your forehead. And when I went to this temple in 2011, it was actually really there, of course, that I asked about this tradition. They did not know about the story anymore. Right. But anyway, I mean, it's, it's, it's curious. And coming back to what you said, you know, the Sigurds actually lived there in this village for many, many years. There presence at the shrine is still felt, but they are mainly in the capacity of workers. So they do kitchen stuff. In my time, in 2009, when I went Nick, Mohammed was leading me up to Chorasi and told me stories, you know, about Gorakhnath and about Hassarat Ali. So he was still doing the tours through the mountains up to the second pond. That is, let's say, an hour and a half or walk, maybe two hours away. So the Sigris are more in this kind of capacity still present at the shrine and then also, to some extent, also employed by the Hinglaj Seva Mandali. But they are not like Experts or ritual experts also, because, you know, also with the, you know, with the development that Islam, you know, developed into, let's say, just in the last 80 years in Pakistan, you know, Sigri, Islam also does not have such a prominent place anymore. Right. This interpretation would be seen as more heterodox. Also, their stories would somehow disappear because outside of the communities, they wouldn't find anyone to be really interested into these stories.
- [68:15]
B
I want to focus on your process of data collection and your sources or your choice of sources when you had so many different traditions to look at. Must have been, it must have been slightly overwhelming as well.
- [68:35]
C
Yeah.
- [68:35]
B
And I mean, the expanse, just the geographical expanse, not to mention the time, if you're mentioning, you're talking about the tradition being alive since at least the 13th century, that's a very vast time frame as well. So how did you, how did you narrow it down? Or, or choose, for instance. And yeah, this is for, for those of us listening in who are early career researchers and who really want to learn more about the process of research in anthropology as well.
- [69:10]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay, so I give you a short and, you know, slightly also, you know, humoristic answer than the longer, more, I think, proper answer. So the short answer is like this. It always. Every project that I've done thus far, be it a film, be it an article, be it a book, every process is, you have an idea, you're super excited about this idea, you write a few things down, you get a resources, you panic, you have no idea how to organize it to run into a wall, right? And then, and then suddenly, somehow you find an in, I always call it, you find an in into your own text and then you, you 80% there. Right? And this is an interesting kind of, of process that I've seen in my doctoral students that I've seen in me. And that I think that's just a part of anthropological writing, right? Because you need this kind of ground theory. You need to then collect your material and then you need to have the. I don't want to call it courage, but let's call it the courage. The courage to take your initial idea and be like, yeah, that was not really bad, but the changing company and recursively work in our. Right. And so this is, this is exactly what happened with Lizard. So most of the main significant contributions that I made to the field were done, composed, thought of in the last three months of combining the manuscript. And I think that's a very, very important kind of piece of advice that I can give to Certainly to my students and to you and to others, you need to know your material so well that you also need to know what kind of questions you ask your antilocrities and you need to have, you need to have read, you know, so much that interval, so much that you build a little mountain from where do you then kind of look over the tree line and you see the topography of the landscape finally. And then you can make this the real contributions to the field. And this is very frustrating in the beginning for everyone because you always feel like this is, you know, this is more like a, like an advice for my, as a supervisor, because people very often feel like they're not good enough, they cannot do a PhD and there's too much to think about and they're overwhelmed and whatnot. But it is a part of the process, every project that from then onwards that you have, be it the PhD in the book, whatever it is, will have this moment of confusion. It's part of, of, of, of doing it right. So that's my like kind of half, you know, also little humor is. You need to have humor in mostly pursuit.
- [72:04]
B
That's very important.
- [72:06]
C
But the more, the more serious kind of how did I do it in hindlage? And that it also, I also did a lot of, of of walked into a lot of wrong directions. Particularly in the first two years, you know, you, you meet your interlocutors, you write everything down. If you're like, if you want to be a good, meticulous anthropologist, you transcribe your interviews that you have noted and you're like listening to certain parts again and so on. But I think the actual material, the actual thing that we as anthropologists can contribute is not to be found in interviews anymore. At a certain point you just need to put the voice recorder and the pen maybe aside, and you just need to realize the surroundings into which these interviews are embedded, so to say. And that's then very down the line in your process because I think, as I said, we are not journalists. So I think the most interesting thing that we as social influence all just can contribute are precisely the themes that cannot be expressed in interviews. And then it gets really interesting and then it gets, I think, really, really, really good material. And then of course, you know, ethical questions then in this moment also come in, you know, because immediately you need to, to think about, are you in the worst case psychoanalyzing? Right? There's also a stream of this metrology. Are you, you know, looking at hobby, at the hobby tools of people or in sense or Are you so to say, putting yourself above and beyond, you know, of what your, what your interlocutor say? And I always say, no, that's not the point. But you are basically embedding what people say into their life words. And then in the best case, then talk about this again with them, reflect with them on these situations. Right. And then the last thing to tie this, to enlarge. There was a long and grooming process that was a long and grueling process because the, the scriptures and the oral traditions are very often extremely different, difficult to separate. And I have a good anecdote. Again, I tell you one, one last story. Okay, If I may. Yeah. This is exactly, this is precisely the, the, the, the, the conundrum of the anthropologist who's interested in, or just seeing Michael Train. It's very important. Interlocutor from Hikiya, with whom I remained on the pilgrimage of Karmi mata, which is 42 km in the desert of Rajasthan, someone Jodhpur. And you do it in one night. It's a crazy, wonderful experience. You start at the, you know, in the evening, you walk through the break of dawn, you walk, you basically circle the temple. Um, and I set out with him and he was one of the most knowledgeable people in Daesh. Many of the things I know, I know from him and many of the things that I, I, I learned from him I put in in the book. And he was very interested into Divata Shastri's book Agnayatirtahinglaj that I have been referencing quite often. And I had then made a printout for him and I gave it to him on this journey to Carni Mater, to this pilgrimage. When we sat in the train and he read the book, that took me, I don't know, like three days to read like this two hour train ride. And then to my chagrin, when I started talking to him again about him, Large, he kept referencing the Spotlight book because he said, you know, I, he said sentences like, you know, I always thought that, but you know, Viva Tapaski learned it so well in his book. And then he quoted the book. And I kind of found myself in this, in this conundrum where I knew the book, I had referenced the book. I wanted to have his oral tradition, his oral tradition, so to say, his understanding. But he now understood that all, everything that he knew was actually not really right, was somehow wrong simply because it was not written in the same way as Devata Shastri had published it in the 50s. Right. And so this is kind of the endless conundrum that we're stuck in, which has been even more, you know, complicated now with social media and. Yeah. Or. Yeah, right. I think this is what I want to say. So to sum this up, every kind of artistic process has this I have hit a wall moment. And this sometimes makes you doubt everything. Your PhD, your, your mind, your sanity, your life choices. But it is a part of, it's a part of the writing process. Yeah. Pakistani.
- [77:10]
B
Absolutely. Absolutely. And we're seeing that everywhere, like you said, globally, with the rise of right wing sentiments across the globe. Hinglaj Devi is such an exciting book and you've had, you've had, you've been working on it. You said you came here in 2009 and you've been visiting Hinglaj Devi since. And finally the culmination was 2018. And then for Pakistan, for Pakistani audience, it was 2021. What do we expect to see next? What are you working on next?
- [77:50]
C
Yeah, that is a very curious question simply because the book that I now submitted and that's going to come is going to be forthcoming with Columbia University Press, deals with various religious minorities in Pakistan. And it's called what Can a Minority Body Do? Non Muslim Becoming in Pakistan. It's the, the tentative title and I really hope that my editor is also going to stick with this title because what I, I do in this book I show how the discourse of religious minorities was always a discourse of victimization, always a discourse of victimhood, always a paternalistic discourse, somehow. And in my recent work where I have been going quite regularly to Pakistan starting from 2019 and I finished actually in this year and I went the last time in spring. So within this period I worked with Christian communities, I worked with Hindu communities, I worked with Jewish communities. So the book is going to be one of the first books to actually talk about Pakistan's Jewish history and also the revitalization of Jewish communities in Pakistan and where this comes from and how people, various communities, Christian communities, but here and there also Muslims decide to want to convert to Judaism in this time. So I speak about this, but I also speak about, partly about people becoming non Muslim. Right. So I have one part in the book where I have been working for many years with so called ex Muslims. So these are converts and these are people who have been embracing bad Karna, have been accepted, right. Played allegiance to Mirza Ghulam Ahmed. So they became Ahmadis even though they were before, you know, Brilvis or the Obandis. So as I work with these communities and I document how Muslims from the majority community themselves can become non Muslims and then are also under certain forms of confinement and even threats, as you know, because of apostasy and because of the blasphemy laws. So, so the book basically wants to show how wide varied the traditions are that are outside of majoritarian Islamic and how people are extremely witty and are extremely capable even to live, you know, their life, their religious identity, to move between religions right under the surface, so to say. And I think that these are stories that need to be told in a time. I mean, Pakistan is, the representation of Pakistan is certainly changing and it has changed over the last, let's say 10 years. But for a long time Pakistan was considered as a country, you know, which was a breeding ground for, you know, extremism, terrorism, extreme interpretations of Islam and so on. And so this idea of Pakistan is only Islam is precisely this idea that I want to pry open a little bit with this book. And I want to show that there are a lot of, so to say non Muslim or non majoritarian Muslim communities and they are thriving. Right. And they have a variety of communities and social movements, they're politically active, they're visible on social media. And so this is. So the book tries to kind of bring together these last, well, 15 years of research and in particular this focus of like long time ethnographic work in Pakistan from 2019, to show that Pakistan is much more in terms of, you know, religious traditions than simply, you know, Sunni Islam or Shia Islam, the prelvis or theophantis.
- [81:49]
B
That's very interesting. So can I just ask, are you going to be looking at. For me, one of the most interesting aspects from Hingnaj Devi was its solidification, was the solidification of the tradition over the years. So is that going to, is that phenomena going to play a part in your carbon free search or your.
- [82:13]
C
Absolutely, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm kind of not getting away from, from this very fascinating dynamics, I think. Right. But since the book is written and also conceptualized in, let's say post, not post social, but post introduction of social media, period. Right. The form of solidification that I'm looking at now is a form that needs to be understood also through the changes of social media, through the fact that even in the most remote villages you have in families, at least one found that people would huddle around, you know, and would engage with. So there's like a completely different form of understanding one's identity, understanding one's connection to the world that came with social media. And even though I don't want to kind of give away parts of the book and steal my own thunder. One chapter deals with what I call YouTube Judaism. What has, you know, I inspired by the work of Ari Greenspan, which basically looks at how not only in Pakistan, but in many parts of the global south, we have seen a revitalization, a spreading of communities that believe that they are a part of the so called lost Jewish tribes. Right. So the story goes that 2,700 years ago that these communities were attacked in Jerusalem and needed to flee. And so they spread all over the world and now suddenly they are awakening to their real Jewish roots all over the globe. So this is a narrative that has been spread through, you know, the outreach of religious Zionism, for example, but also through the confluence in Pakistan now with religious nationalism and its investment in everything that has to do with, you know, Jewish traditions with Israel, you know, with conspiracy theories and so on. And so it's a very interesting kind of development that we see not only in Pakistan, but I think it's exceptionally interesting in Pakistan because we are dealing with the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, which is one of the few countries that has not accepted Israel. And there's a very particular understanding to Israel, politics, the state of Israel. And then in this country you find communities, individuals who suddenly start to identify themselves as Jewish. And I think that this gives the story that is a global story, you know, the awakening of the lost tribes, the idea that people have visions, be they Muslim, be they Christian, you know, but they wake up and they identify themselves as Jewish. So this happens globally, but I think in Pakistan it's particularly interesting.
- [85:08]
B
Definitely. And I think we're all going to be waiting for your book quite eagerly. Thank you so much, Dr. Schaflachner. And we'll be waiting to read the next book.
- [85:26]
C
Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you for giving me the time.
- [85:29]
B
Thank you.
- [85:44]
C
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B
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C
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B
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- [86:10]
C
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