Hindu, Sufi, or Sikh

Hindu, Sufi, or Sikh

Hindu, Sufi, or Sikh Contested Practices and Identifications of Sindhi Hindus in India and Beyond STEVEN W. RAMEY

HINDU, SUFI, OR SIKH Copyright Steven W. Ramey, 2008. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2008 978-0-230-60832-0 All rights reserved. First published in 2008 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the United States a division of St. Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-37518-9 ISBN 978-0-230-61622-6 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230616226 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ramey, Steven Wesley. Hindu, Sufi, or Sikh : contested practices and identifications of Sindhi Hindus in India and beyond / Steven W. Ramey. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 978-0-230-60832-9 1. Sindhi (South Asian people) India Religion. 2. Sindhi (South Asian people) India Ethnic identity. 3. Hinduism Relations. 4. Hindus Pakistan Sindh Migrations. I. Title. BL2032.S53R36 2008 294.5089991425 dc22 2008004626 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: November 2008 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Terra Ann Rodgers, whose love and support throughout my work has made everything possible

Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments Notes on Quotations, Foreign Terms, and Transliterations ix xi xv Introduction: Differing Understandings 1 1 Placing Sindhis 11 2 Debating Institutions 41 3 Defining Movements 73 4 Presenting Sacred Figures 105 5 Celebrating Heritage 125 6 Personalizing Traditions 153 Conclusion: Understanding Differences 185 Appendix: Glossary of Foreign Terms 195 Notes 201 References 205 Index 213

Figures 2.1 Canopy in the Hari Om Mandir, Lucknow, India 43 2.2 Diagram of the floor plan of the Hari Om Mandir 46 3.1 Diagram of the floor plan of the satsang hall, Shiv Shanti Ashram 77 4.1 Image of Jhule Lal with offerings during Cheti Chand, Lucknow, India, 2002 116

Acknowledgments The support of countless individuals and groups contributed to this project. Foremost, Sindhi Hindus in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India, were very generous toward me during my fieldwork there in 2001 2002, as they welcomed me to their events and spent considerable time responding to my persistent questions about their lives, experiences, and community. Other members of the Sindhi Hindu transnational community have also assisted me greatly, including the leaders of the Sindhi Sabha of Georgia, the Sadhu Vaswani Centers in Atlanta and Singapore, the Sadhu Vaswani Mission in Pune, the Sindhu House in Singapore, the Sindhi Sabha of North and South Carolina, and Sufidar in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, as well as other Sindhis in various places. I am deeply indebted to these communities and individuals for the generous assistance that they have given me. Without their cooperation, this research could not have progressed. Many of these individuals, and the institutions and activities that they formed, appear in the pages that follow. To protect the privacy of the individuals whom I describe, I have created pseudonyms for them and changed certain details. Institutional support and the encouragement of mentors and colleagues at various universities were also vital. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, support from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Religious Studies, as well as a predissertation travel grant from the University Center for International Studies, enabled me to prepare for this project. I conducted the fieldwork in Lucknow in 2001 2002 with the support of a dissertation fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS). More personally, Joanne Punzo Waghorne, as my original advisor, both encouraged and critiqued the development and progress of this project. I particularly appreciate her willingness to continue to contribute after she moved to Syracuse University. Without her insights and support, this project would have been impossible. Carl W. Ernst was also supportive throughout the process, taking on the duties of advisor after Joanne s departure, and other graduate faculty, including Margaret Weiner at the University of North Carolina,

xii Acknowledgments Katherine Pratt Ewing at Duke University, and Paul Courtright at Emory University contributed greatly. In India, Abha Avasthi, professor of sociology at Lucknow University, provided assistance and advice as my official research guide. Purnima Mehta, Pradeep Mehendiratta, and the staff at the AIIS guesthouse in New Delhi also deserve significant appreciation, as they provided special assistance to me and my family through the various trials of conducting fieldwork in the context of global upheavals and personal crises in 2001 2002. The project as it now stands differs considerably from the original dissertation. The support of other institutions and the encouragement and constructive criticism of colleagues have been invaluable for the continued development of this work. While I was teaching at Furman University, I especially benefited from the support of John Shelley, Helen Lee Turner, Claude Stulting, Sam Britt, Jim Leavell, and Savita Nair. The support of the University of North Carolina at Pembroke and my good friends there was similarly invaluable. I especially need to thank Merrill Miller, Joe Miller, David Nickels, Shilpa Pai, and Richard Gay at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. The completion of this manuscript has also benefited from the support of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama, and specifically from my colleagues here, including Russell McCutcheon, Ted Trost, Stephen Jacobs, Tim Murphy, Maha Marouan, Betty Dickey, and Donna Martin, and numerous students in the department. The comments of the anonymous peer reviewers helped me improve the book considerably, and the editorial and production staffs at Palgrave MacMillan and the thorough copy-editors at Newgen Imaging Systems were also instrumental in bringing this project into print. Any credit that is due from this project belongs to all of these mentors and colleagues whose assistance has been so instrumental. I also must acknowledge the courtesy that Brill provided, as portions of my article Challenging Definitions: Human Agency, Diverse Religious Practices, and the Problems of Boundaries that was published by Brill in Numen (54 [2007], 1 27) appear in a revised form in the Introduction and chapter 6. Various other individuals also deserve special mention because of their assistance in this work. Ram Advani, the dear friend of many scholars who have visited Lucknow, was highly supportive of my research and my family. As we settled in Lucknow to conduct fieldwork, the help of our neighbors S. K. Rai, Aunty, Pradeep, Chikki, and Tanu, as well as Ram s assistance, demonstrated to me what it means to be truly hospitable. Deepak Singh and his brother Pankaj provided assistance when I had questions about translating various Hindi materials, confirming and refining my understanding of the Hindi of Lucknow.

Acknowledgments xiii Finally, I must express my deep indebtedness to my family. Terra Rodgers and Raj Ramey-Rodgers supported my research in Lucknow through their presence and love and have continued to provide encouragement and support as I balance my time at the computer with my precious time with them. Our extended families and friends have also provided support and encouragement in innumerable ways, not the least of which being their restrained anxiety as we lived halfway around the world. These few words certainly do not satisfy my debt to colleagues and friends who have contributed in a variety of ways, both those mentioned by name and so many others whom I have failed to mention. The global array of encouraging and generous individuals whom I have had the pleasure to meet has enriched my life significantly. All I can say in response is a humble Thank you.

Notes on Quotations, Foreign Terms, and Transliterations Although many interviewees were more comfortable speaking in English, some of the interviews and newspaper articles that I gathered in Lucknow were in Hindi. When I quote from a Hindi source, the quotes appear in italics and are transliterated according to the 1997 edition of the Library of Congress Romanization Tables for Hindi. The translations of these quotes appear in parentheses, while authorial insertions in English quotes appear in square brackets. Non-English terms outside of the quotes are also italicized, with their meanings in parentheses at their first appearance, but I have omitted the diacritical marks for these terms to simplify the text. Proper nouns in Hindi are not italicized outside of the Hindi quotes. A Glossary of Foreign Terms after the Conclusion can assist those unfamiliar with these terms. To aid in the pronunciation of the transliterated Hindi, a few general principles will help. Most consonants in this transliteration system reflect broadly familiar sounds, with a few exceptions, such as th, which designates an aspirated t, not a th sound, and ś, which designates a sh sound. Several transliterated vowels that appear frequently have a particular pronunciation that differs from English. These are as follows: a pronounced as the u in cup, ā pronounced as the a in father, e pronounced as the a in cake, and ī pronounced as the e in be.