| This thesis is an inquiry into the appropriation of sacred power. It examines sites where sacred power becomes manifest and the practices and relations through which it is engaged. Specifically, I attend to the pursuit of moral legitimacy and cultivation of affect as key mechanisms for mobilizing this power. Focusing on urban shrines in the Punjab region of South Asia, I explore how this hegemonic religious institution performs a key role in the organization, distribution, consolidation, and appropriation of power. These shrines offer a vantage point for analyzing sacred power because they are situated at the intersection of a number of social and cognitive networks in urban Punjab. While the vast majority of individuals and groups that make up this social world belong to the subaltern classes, there is significant diversity among them in terms of ethnic, linguistic, urban/rural, caste, religious, sectarian, and gender affiliations. Furthermore, their practices draw from a large repertoire of religious and cultural traditions. This heterogeneity of the shrine form demonstrates its openness and flexibility -- qualities, which are crucial to understanding the complexity of sacred power in modernity. Thus, as existing literature demonstrates, shrines can serve as a site for the symbolic politics of the state and the political machinations of the elite (Philippon 2012, Eaton 1984, Ansari 1992, Gilmartin 1988, Ewing 1983). However, it is also possible to glimpse the creative ways in which the marginalized take up institutional space, dominant religious discourses and ritual practices and make them their own. This study thus takes the implication of the sacred in projects of domination into account but also focuses on the ways in which the powerless inhabit sacred power to pursue their own agendas. Methodologically, I explore the pursuit of moral legitimacy and cultivation of affect by: 1) analyzing sacred rituals, 2) examining religious narratives about saints and devotees and 3) tracing the networks of social relations in which shrines are embedded. Such an approach is designed to investigate the operation of sacred power in shrines and highlight their unique position in the milieu of Punjabi society and politics from multiple vantage points. |
