(Book Review, Book Reviewed: Sacred Spaces, Exploring Traditions of Shared Faith in India by Yoginder Sikand, Penguin, Delhi, 2003, Pages 273, Rs.250)

Last decade and a half has seen violence in the name of religion bursting to the seems. Horrendous acts of inhumanity are being passed off as a glory to the religion. What dominates the social scene is the focus on differences between religions, the exclusivity of different norms of religions. In this scenario the book under review comes as a breath of fresh air. This moving account of different shrines written as a travelogue highlights the deep meaning of the syncretic traditions of these sacred spaces. One wonders how can such contrast exist in society, on one hand a divisive presentation of religion and on the other religious symbols fusing themselves effortlessly in the practices of the average people. In these sacred spaces what matters is not the origin or the affiliation but the mere fact that some rishi or pir exists who is benevolent. The same place will have Shrine of a Hindu god while the holy person from a Mosque will be blessing them on the way. Many an interactions have become so mixed up in the popular memory that it is difficult to determine the religion of the seer as such. Sikand has presented the descriptions in a lucid and captivating style, avoiding the preaching style he has let the traditions speak for their own beauty and appeal and that is no mean achievement by itself.

This travelogue cum work of scholarship on syncretic culture of India is amongst the few works of its type. Sikand deserves all the praise for taking up this subject for detailed attention. His methodology of understanding, which he generously shares with the readers, is very simple. Join the group of devotees traveling to the sacred shrine, mix with theme, talk to many identify the knowledgeable amongst the devotees for the details of the place. His empathy with humanism ingrained in these places makes his job easier and he is able to extract the best from the sources who are in full and authentic know of the past. He does supplement it with the available material on the place and also gleans from the available scholarly works to make the thorough presentation of the particular shrine. Despite the meticulous approach to a particular place the logic of selection of these is missing. No doubt he has selected the most prominent one’s, the one’s which have been in news or have been drawing hoards of devotees. He does pick up Baba Budan Giri, Charar-e-Sharif, Deendar Channabaseshwara, which have been in news for wrong reasons and also picks up Ayyappa shrine and Shirdi, which are extremely popular currently. But surely the omissions like Haji Malang, or Haji Ali have their own story to tell, which gets missed out in Sikand’s otherwise comprehensive presentation.

Sikand makes a very significant observation, “Scores of communities scattered across this vast subcontinent still refuse to be neatly categorized as ‘Hindu’ or ‘Muslim’ or whatever, freely borrowing from diverse traditions to create their own way of understanding the world.’ (P. 3) This debunks the base of Religion based politics for which theses two are monolithic communities in constant antagonism to each other. This observation of his also explains as to how the people from both these communities can throng the same place of worship. It is interesting to note that as conversions to Islam took place mainly from the low caste, they brought along with them many of the traditions to Islam. Two traditions of religion, the elite, centered around the Brahmin and Mullahs and in turn close to the landlords on one hand and the traditions of Kabir and Naank who were close to the down trodden on the other, emerges from the understanding of the shared traditions. Kabir and Nanak, both insisted that they are neither Hindu nor Muslim. This tradition defied the authority of Mullah and Brahmin both without negating the humanism ingrained in the respective religions. These Bhakti and Sufi saints transcended the man made differences of caste and community, challenged the thesis of Hindu-Muslim rivalry and shared a new cultural synthesis. This explains the mass popularity of such shared sacred spaces.

With time many a traditions are going on with some modifications while in some of these the communal influence is seeping in. While the places like Ayyappa temple of Sabrimala and Blessed Virgin Mary of Vialakanni remain marginally affected, the places like Baba Budan Giri in Karnataka gets politicized and efforts are on to convert it into Ayodhya of the south. While the Shrine Siababa of Shirdi is getting subtly brahminised, the Nund Rishi Dargah (Charar-e-Sharif) has faced the cross fire between the Kashmiri militants and the Indian army. Communal politics has not left these spiritually pure places unaffected. This may be one of the weak points of the book. The book of this nature should have specifically brought out the point about the effect of rising sectarianism on the syncretic traditions. Also a book dealing with this could not have afforded to omit the selective targeting of Dargahs by Hindutva goons in Gujarat carnage. Why more of such places came under the battering ram of the onslaught of Moditva needed to be recounted. That also reminds one of the tombs of Wali Dakani (Gujarati) in Ahmadabad that needed an obituary in the work of this type.

As such Sikand is at his brilliant best in recounting his experiences with the pirs and devotees. He is meticulous in his observations and nothing escapes his minute attention, be it the Swami prefix to the Muslim Waver at Ayyapa shrine or the architectural strengths of some of these places, or the meaning of very nomenclature of the places, they all find a suitable elaboration. In the current scenario where one is groping to find the mechanisms to create bridges between communities as a guarantee to prevent sectarian violence, the foundations of shared traditions may be a beacon light. The challenge is to preserve the syncretic nature of these places and also to nurture the core humanism ingrained in these traditions which may help in laying the foundations of harmony in society.