Nurturing Abstractions of the Nation in Religio-Cultural Identity Assertions and Spaces of Generosity in the Sufi Darghas of Karnataka

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International Journal of Interreligious and Intercultural Studies (IJIIS) ISSN: 2654-2706, Volume I, Number 1, October 2018

NURTURING ABSTRACTIONS OF THE NATION IN RELIGIO-CULTURAL IDENTITY ASSERTIONS AND SPACES OF GENEROSITY IN THE SUFI DARGHAS OF KARNATAKA

Amitha Santiago Bishop Cotton Women’s Christian College, Bangalore

‘But why do nations celebrate their hoariness, not their astonishing youth?’1 Benedict Anderson

Socio-political reality is often such discursive practice that brings brought into being through performative into effect communities that nurture acts. To say that religio-cultural identity binarizing abstractions such as what it stakes its claim on the socio-political is to be ‘Indian’, the idea of who is a through performative utterances is to ‘Hindu’ and the notion of nationalism also state that socio-political realities that elects an umbilical connect to the appear as effects of articulated ideology. Hindu Vedic lineage. It has been well acknowledged that It is to understand the processes socio-political ideology presents itself that are involved in the crafting of as if it were offering some ‘deeper, extra these extra political truths of being political truths’ of being and becoming and becoming, to examine whether that are constant. This brings forth a these truths are in fact extra political, believing community, which functions and to come to an understanding of as a stabilizing occurrence for these how he believing communities which ‘deeper, extra political truths’ of being are effected preserve an abstraction of and becoming. Assertions of essential pure national identity that this study religio-cultural identity constitute one engages shared sacred spaces that have been claimed by Hindu right-wing 1 Bhabha, K Homi. in Location of Culture. Pg 141

85 Nurturing Abstractions of the Nation in Religio-Cultural Identity Assertions and Spaces of Generosity in Sufi Darghas of Karnataka assertionists in India. In such an effort, essences as constituting national the juxtaposition-ality of these shared identity is made possible by a return to sacred spaces of grace that harbor a and recovery of pre-colonial narratives substratum of generosity and sharing, involving events and sites that are marks the essentializing procedures sought out as evidence to demonstrate of right wingers and their aggressive the ‘truth’ of these pure identities. These mining for a pure Indianness. Except identities are then exhibited as attaining that the ground they mine is amorphous. feasible political possibilities. Political Located as it is within the terrain because the very procedure of return is of religio-cultural identity studies, an endeavor to create an epistemology this study inevitably focuses on the of everything that revolves around contractual laboring of the historical the category of ‘national’. And this and the political in India. This alliance epistemological project typically points to processes that sustain the extends an Orientalist procedure that articulatory systems that liaison with invests in the essentializing rigors of identity politics. There is in India, selfing and othering. These mutually reminiscent of decolonization times, a enabling processes project a political deafening clamor to describe national possibility of attaining hegemonic identity in terms of a pure, religio- dominance in the socio-political arena, cultural essence that is to deliver a alias, the realm of national politics. historically constituted national identity. It is within this range of In the context of the growing polemic consequential relationships that the on the issue of who is a nationalist and Darghas of Karnataka surface as what comprises the national in India, having an inbuilt ‘juxstaposition- this study attempts to theorize the ality’ viz-a-viz the narratives of ways in which the idea of a nation and purist claim and assertions of pure nationalism has relied on a return to religio-cultural essence propelling the pre-colonial past in order to present definitions of nationalist and nation. answers to questions surrounding the The pre colonial that is accessed by notion of Indianness, what constitutes pure identity assertionists is accessed national identity and how religious using a discourse of exclusion, in identity attaches to these questions. that, it frames identity assertions on Political possibilities emerge, when the basis of evidence that is sifted specific religio-cultural histories are and which is fenced in within a pre traced to flesh out the notion of a colonial temporality. The corpus of united, homogenous nation/national evidence that assertionists tap prompts identity. As stated earlier, often enough, the exclusionary protocol upon which the assertion of pure religio-cultural their identity is imagined as having

86 Amitha Santiago national imperatives. Therefore, the to Swami Dattatreya at the temple that pre colonial evidence that is presented exists alongside the cave. The Hindu as the building material for purist self right wing in India commonly known assertions, reveals excluded evidence of as the Sangh Parivar has disrupted this a large terrain of hybridities, ambivalent coexistence of Hindu-Muslim religious identities and shared sacred spaces. One practices consistently, leading to the such terrain is the shared spaces of the communalization of the site. One of the Darghas of Karnataka. Within these performatives that has brought about a spaces, land, practices, pilgrimages, believing community of Hindus in the devotion and deities unfold within a nearby town of Chikmagalur at the base resourceful generosity that defies the of the Baba Budan hills is the festival vulgar binaries of purist selfing and of Dattatreya Jayanti or the birthday of othering. Swami Dattatreya that has never been One of the most disputed sacred celebrated by Hindus before the Sangh sites in Karnataka’s recent history is that Parivar took to communalizing the of Baba Budan Giri Swami Dattatreya region. Peeta, in Chikamagalur district. It Sudha Sitaraman in her working has attained the dubious status of a paper on the Baba Budan Giri Dargha2 disputed site in recent years due to the attributes the significance of the site ideological utterances of the Hindu for both Muslims and Hindus to the right that persist in presenting the site fact that “Dada Hayath Qalandar, as stolen from Hindus by Muslim the founder of the Qalandar order is rulers. It has been reconstructed in believed to be one of the three-and-half the popular imagination as belonging Qalandar masters who visited South originally to worshippers of the Hindu Asia, the other two being Lal Shahbaz deity Dattatreya. This claim attempts to Qalandar of Sehwan (Sind) and Bu Ali erase the history of Baba Budan Swamy Shah Qalandar of Panipat (Harayana).” Dattatreya Peeta as it has been known Sitaraman goes on to state that: for centuries in Chikmagalur district of Muslims as well as many non- Karnataka. Muslims participate in some form of Atop a scenic hill range the saint worship, a model that is centered khanqah or hospice of Dada Hayath on the belief that the divine blessing Qalander is a sacred site of pilgrimage. of the saint does not disappear after The devotees of both Hindu and Muslim religions have regularly offered prayers 2 Sitaraman, Sudha. “Conflict over Worship: A Study of the Shree Guru Dattatreya Baba Budan Giri Dargha at both the cave that Baba Budan in South India.” © 2010, Copyright Reserved. The is known to have meditated in and Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore. Working Paper 239. ISBN 81-7791-195-3. http:// broken coconuts and conducted pujas www.isec.ac.in/WP%20239%20-%20%20Sudha%20 Sitharaman.pdf

87 Nurturing Abstractions of the Nation in Religio-Cultural Identity Assertions and Spaces of Generosity in Sufi Darghas of Karnataka death but is transferred to the chillah/ an item of their clothing in a symbolic dargah and the living descendants of the gesture of getting rid of the unclean and silsila (spiritual pedigree). For Muslims impure and retaining the pure within saint worship is an integral part of their the self. This done, they enter the orthodoxy, which holds that the barakat shrine to offer prayers or to do the puja (spiritual blessing) of the saint was depending on whether one is Muslim transferred to his living descendants and or Hindu. The supplicants make an is concentrated in certain individuals, offering of coins, incense sticks, chador, the custodians of the shrines, who are and food to the deity. These offerings also the representatives of the saint on usually follow the fulfillment of a vow earth, the sajjadah nashins.3 taken by the devotee.5 She goes on to describe: The celebration of Urs at Baba The practice of wearing amulets Budan Giri Dargha has representatives and curing diseases remain at the center belonging to the Qalandari and fuqara of ritual and religious mediations of of four orders who hold Dada Hayat many Darghas. The power of their in high esteem. On the morning of spirituality, known as barakat, and their the first day of Urs fuqara from these ardent devotion to God it is believed orders parade through the streets of gave Sufi saints powers to perform Chikmagalur with the green flag that miracles. Karamat, which refers to the is to be hoisted at the Dargha. They miracles displayed by the ‘friends of walk 32 kilometeres up to the point God’or ‘auliya’ made up an integral part of Dada Hayat’s hospice where the of the faith practices of Sufis. Sitaraman sajjadah nashin formally heads the notes that devotees who visit the Dargha procession leading the gathering to the often offer supplications and prayers shrine’s entrance to hoist the flag. Three with regard to “the curing of diseases, flags are hoisted- one, at the hospice, levitation, and prayer for rain, bountiful a second at the mazar of Sayyed Shah crops, controlling of demons, and the Jamaluddin Maghribi and a third at the presence of the saint in more than one entrance of the cave. This done du’a or place simultaneously”.4 prayer is offered. A procession is then Sitaraman reports in her study of taken bare foot to Attigunde, a village, the Baba Budan Giri Dargha, that on a little more than eight kilometers away, any ordinary day, pilgrims and devotees where a sacred pot of sandalwood paste visiting the Dargha routinely walk to wrapped in a green cloth is carried the natural spring at Manikyadhara. The by a mendicant on his head, while ritualistic bathing involves discarding another accompanies him, holding a richly embroidered protective umbrella 3 Sitaraman, p.6 4 Ibid 5 Ibid

88 Amitha Santiago to shade him. The procession steps Hindu devotees) while the mujawar out of the house, with the mendicants recites the fatiha. Pilgrims collect mud singing and playing their tambourines, in little packets from a recess near and then returns to the cave of Dada Mama Jigni’s chillah. This is believed Hayath. As the procession reaches the to possess special medicinal properties. hospice, the gathered devotees and When they emerge from the cave they pilgrims comprising Muslims and break one or more coconuts on a black Hindus, reach out to touch the pot of stone at the entrance to the shrine.7 This sandalwood paste. Within the cave concludes the ritual ceremonies of the the sajjadah nashin washes the sacred first day of Urs. For the rest of the day, seats and graves. The sajjadah nashin the mendicants gather at the faqirchowk recites the opening prayer and invokes offering advice and counseling to the blessings of the saint Dada Hayath and pilgrims converging on them. Three his disciples. He and the mendicants days of Urs are celebrated with the smear sandalwood paste on the new next two days seeing a flood of fakirs sheets to be used as a covering. This is and mendicants and pilgrims flocking the ‘sandal ceremony’.6 to the hilltop cave and temple seeking After this ceremony, devotees and blessings and making vows and pilgrims are allowed entrance into the offerings.”8 cave where the saint meditated. They The Hindu devotees who visit the first approach the ‘chillah’ (a spiritual shrine have for centuries worshipped practice including penance and solitude Baba Budan/ Dada Hayat as the avatar within a solitary cell) of Dada Hayath, of Swami Dattatreya. Represented have a glimpse of the portal and the in the Puranas (the sacred books of lamps that he used as well as of a Vedic Hindus) as having three faces, silver replica of his slippers, and are namely those of Brahma, Vishnu and then given holy water to drink by the Siva, Dattatreya is known to have been sajjadah nashin or his representative. born to Anusuya as the incarnation Thereafter, Sitaraman notes, “they place of the Hindu triune God in one body. flowers and sprinkle rose water on Four dogs sit beside him signifying the tombs of Dada Hayath’s disciples the Vedas. He is also worshipped as (Jan Pak Shahid, Malik Tijar Faruqi, the presiding deity for the undertaking Malik Wazir Isfahani and Abu Turab of yoga. The saint disciple of Baba Shirazi) and the seat of Mama Jigni Budan, Mama Jigni whose tomb is also (who was a disciple of Dada Hayat, held sacred and resides in the cave of and who is worshipped as Anusuya by meditation is worshipped by Hindus as

6 Sudha Sitaraman records the rituals that accompany Urs celebrations in great detail in her 7 Sitaraman, p.9 working paper cited earlier. 8 Ibid

89 Nurturing Abstractions of the Nation in Religio-Cultural Identity Assertions and Spaces of Generosity in Sufi Darghas of Karnataka the mother of Datttreya, Anusuya.9 demand was made for the Hindu However, all these elaborate shared worship practices to be introduced spiritual and ritual practices have been and a Hindu priest be given charge of increasingly disrupted since 1991 and the ceremonies rather than the present the infamous fall of the Babri Masjid.10 practice of a mujawar conducting the The Datta Peetha Samvardhana Samiti worship at the site says Sitaraman. a Hindu right wing association has Today, the Samiti has successfully successfully demanded the flying of the instituted three annual festivities, which Hindu saffron flag (Bhagavadhwaja) at were not in existence since pre colonial the flag post of the sacred site alongside times. One is the Datta Mala Abhinaya, the green flag that announces a Dargha Shobha Yatre and Anasuya Yatre that at the ‘Dattatreya temple’, accompanied has been set in place to recognize the by the singing of bhajans or devotional Hindu origins of the space. The word hymns. Sitaraman documents that in Dargha was seen as detrimental to response to the demand, “the District the identity of the devotees who were Commissioner, citing the earlier court positioned as truth bearers of Indian order had “requested” that no new identity. The recasting of roadways rituals be introduced. However, these and maps followed with disputes over demands have become tradition now.”11 the naming of the Dargha. The recent In 1997, five Rath Yatras, a Hindu demand has been that the District form of pilgrimage hitherto unheard of administration must permit the Samiti were undertaken by the Datta Peetha to receive a half of the proceeds that Samvardhana Samiti. The objective of flows in during the Urs of Dada Hayat the yatras was the demolition of Dada since they claim the site was originally Hayat’s chilla. The Samiti was selling a temple and therefore partially belongs the narrative that the idol of Swami to the Hindus of the region.12 Datta Treya lay buried under the chilla Sitaraman records that in the ever since the construction of the Hinduization of this sacred space: Dargha by the Muslims who had razed “… the district administration has also the original construction to the ground: played a proactive role in converting the mosque into an office and proposes a Dattatreya temple. A subsequent to remodel the tombs on either side of 9 https://www.frontline.in/the-nation/a-battlefront- the pathway to the cave into a garden. in-the-south/article10074157.ece. The Nation. The khanqah’s langarkhana, faqirchowk, BabaBudangiri: A Battlefront in the South.Vikhar chillahkhana and dhunna have all been Ahmad Sayeed. Print Edition: March 02, 2018. razed to the ground by the district 10 https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/when- administration. The role these spaces the-last-dome-fell-a-first-person-account-of-the-babri- played in the daily and annual rituals has, masjid-demolition/article21273367.ece “When the last dome fell: a first-person account of the Babri Masjid therefore, been completely altered. As the demolition.” Sajeda Momin. December 06,2017 11:55 khanqah has been razed to the ground, IST. 11 Sitaraman, p.14 12 Sitaraman, p.14

90 Amitha Santiago the loban that was being traditionally and to be checkmated. This is the carried to the shrine is now being carried dynamic that we see at work at the from the makeshift room adjacent to the courtyard; as the administrative powers site of Baba Budan Giri. A dynamic now rest with the Committee, the victuals that has ruptured the shared terrain of that were distributed as part of the daily ritual have now been abandoned; the chador inter culturality and inter religiosity to on the chillah of Dada Hayath has been establish in its stead a purist rendition permanently removed; the flag-post that of what India comprises. This idea of kept the flag nishani( ) stands empty.”13 India as a nation that was originally In keeping with the narrative Hindu and must be revoked as such of pure religio-cultural identities as mobilizes communities like the Samiti enabling a pure essential Hindu Indian has to claim spaces, deities and worship identity, the Samiti members and the protocols by way of a return to a Vedic ideologues of the Hindu right ascribed sacred narrative. In other words, the pure origins on to erstwhile shared historicization of pure Indian origins sacred religio-cultural sites. Pure and the assertion of Hindu Vedic origins identities were fleshed out in Hindu as the core of being and becoming deities, idols and devotees. Indian is performed into being. The The diachronic unfolding of Indian performative utterances in the form of history tracing the emergence of people ‘yatres’ and ‘jayantis’, flag hoistings and from primitive understandings of sloganeering brings a community into themselves to the more civilizational/ consensus. The recovery of Vedic Hindu modern understanding of identity evidence to frame the idea of India and as being the effect of the nation Indianness exerts certain inclusions and as constructed for purposes of exclusions that are driven by the Hindu decolonization, presents a contrived Right’s desire to harness the nation narrative. It produces spheres of for itself. This can be done only when differential reality due to the ensign-like it is claimed as already always being marking of a center that a community part of its origins, and this claim is then rallies around. Within this demonstrated by utterances that provide dynamic, religio-cultural essences are tangible evidence. crafted and circulated in an attempt This is contradictorily seen when to establish fixed, impermeable a closer study of Darghas extant as pre national identities that are imaged and colonial sites of worship and pilgrimage represented as authentic and original. reveal a decided lack of pure identity. Any community or site or experience Instead, there is a definite give and take that renders this identity porous is of religious myths, practices and spaces perceived as threatening and disruptive and a ‘coevalness’ that defies the Hindu nationalist assertions of pure religious 13 Ibid

91 Nurturing Abstractions of the Nation in Religio-Cultural Identity Assertions and Spaces of Generosity in Sufi Darghas of Karnataka identities. appropriation of Jain spaces of worship. The sacred site of the Yellamma The Elamma temple at Suandatti temple at Saundatti too has a long many local people say was one such history of gracious exchange between appropriation of Jain space by the rising the Muslim and Hindu communities Brahminization of regions. Sikand who have celebrated Urs at the Dargha records that the Gazetteer of India and performed the Yellamma festivities documents that the cult of Elamma side by side since pre colonial times. is defined by its lower caste devotees Yoginder Sikand in his book Sacred and is a blend of Mahayana Buddhist Spaces: Exploring Traditions of and Nath Shaivite traditions, both Shared Faith in India14 in travelogue of which began as anti- Brahminical style presents the case of the Elamma movements.15 He also cites Elmore, community of Saudatti. one of the few scholars to have studied In Saudatti, in Northern Karnataka, the Elamma religious space, and who the temple belonging to Elamma, a identifies the origins of the goddess in lower caste goddess is today being post the original form of ‘Mathamma’, the scribed as having Brahmin lineage. patron goddess of the Madiga Dalits, The deity who has for centuries been who have been noted as the lowest of worshipped by the Dalits of Karnataka the lower castes in the local hierarchy of because of the myth that accompanies castes.16 her reincarnation as a woman with the Sikand records a booklet written head of a Dalit, Matangi, and the body by a Brahmin scholar who claimed that of a Brahmin, now is being vehemently “Elamma is a form of Shakti Herself”. denied her Dalit pedigree. A little must ‘The Goddess appeared in the form be said in this regard to process the of Renuka in the sat yug, the age of method of erasure that is mobilized by truth; as Draupadi, the wife of the five the heresies of dominant discourses that Pandavas in the dvapar or second era; seek to gain hegemonic dominance. as Janaki in the tretha , the third era; Yoginder Sikand, in his revelatory and in this evil age of kali yug, she has book, records the Brahminization of assumed the form of Elamma to redeem narratives from as early as the ninth the world’.17 He notes the fact that century in Karnataka. He states that by Elammma of Saudatti was attracting the ninth century a Brahminical revival increasing numbers of pilgrims spurred of sorts led to a massive genocide the Brahmin community into taking of Jain monks and the destruction control of the temple, its proceedings of Jain temples, and more often the 15 Sikand. p. 72. 14 Sikand, Yoginder. Sacred Spaces: Exploring Traditions of Shared Faith in India. Penguin Books, 16 Ibid Delhi. 2003 17 Ibid

92 Amitha Santiago and the goddess. Just as the erasure of Brahminization and Sanskritization of the Dalit origins of Elamma has been sacred spaces. afoot to reinstate the Goddess to her Considering the ways in which rightful pedigree as Brahmin deity, so the idea of the nation and national also, Elamma’s Sufi connections are identity have been crafted we find that relatively unknown. the identity of a nation is constituted Almost anyone who knows of walking backwards, that is to say Elamma Devi thinks of Saudatti as a historically, so that it follows that the Hindu sacred space, but not many know making of a nation is an epistemological of her links to a Sufi saint in Saudatti, procedure. Making the nation known Baba Bhaure Shah, a well noted saint to its consumers therefore extends an within the village of Saudatti. Sikand Orientalist discursive practice that is documents the locals question to him: ironically what colonialism survived on How can you expect to get the full and heavily invested in. The nation is blessings of the sister if you don’t meet thus involved in essentializing processes the brother?18 According to the local of selfing and othering, the very same legend, Elamma was suffering from operative that the decolonization leprosy when Baba pitied her took her process contested and apparently as his disciple, cured her miraculously ousted, only to be reinstated for other and gave her a special spot for her to masters to be served. meditate on the hill. And this is the Across the length and breadth of spot upon which Elamma’s temple Karnataka communities from Hindu stands. This community therefore and Muslim religio-cultural spaces have on the day of the full moon, when crossed over to enrich religio cultural Elamma is supposed to have lost her identity formulations. The case of the husband, special food is cooked by founder of the Bahmani dynasty Sultan her Hindu followers and sent across to Hasan Gangoh is another such.20 Baba’s shrine. The local people stated Sikand documents that he is said that earlier those who travelled to the to have been blessed by a Brahmin Elamma temple they visited Baba’s priest who saw the orphaned child tomb as well. But with the recasting Hasan asleep under the protection of of Elamma into a Brahmin deity, this a hooded cobra that stood over him practice has stopped.19 The erasure guarding him from the scorching sun. of tradition and rituals of worship The Brahmin then prophesied that he in Saundatti are a classic case of the would be a ruler of a kingdom. When deliberate forgetting that is imposed by this prophecy came true many years later, Sultan Hasan as King of Gulbarga 18 Sikand. Sacred Spaces. p.73 19 Sikand. Sacred Spaces. p.74 20 Sikand.p.82-83

93 Nurturing Abstractions of the Nation in Religio-Cultural Identity Assertions and Spaces of Generosity in Sufi Darghas of Karnataka in north Karnataka, included the name The three sites detailed above are Bahmani, a distortion of ‘brahmin’ in some of several such sites that predate his dynastic title, to demonstrate his the birth of the Indian nation. These thankfulness for the blessing. When sites and practices speak for integrated, his son Sultan Ahmed ascended the fluid religio-cultural identities that have throne after him he is recorded to have been resilient in several parts of India brought rain to his people by merely since pre colonial times, Karnataka lifting his hands to God in supplication being an example of the same. when the rains had failed in that part of I cut to an incisive analysis of Karnataka. He is thereafter known as how events and spaces are historicized ‘Wali’ (dear to the Lord) by his Muslim either as memory or as forgetting by subjects and is identified by the Hindu Shahid Amin. Amin, talking about the and Lingayat subjects of his kingdom Chauri Chaura event in the making of as the incarnation of Allama Prabhu the Indian nation state suggests that the twelfth century, Shaivite Lingayat the peasant rebellion was at its core a leader and poet-saint, renowned for his celebration of Gandhian nationalism anti caste-class-patriarchal songs and albeit a violent nationalism.22 The discourses across India. His Dargha curiosity of this case is relevant here is even today a pilgrimage site for for us to understand the fraught nature Muslim, Lingayat and Hindu devotees. of what is performed as nationalist/ Sadly, the bond between Muslim, nationalism. Amin brings out the Hindu and Lingayats has been contradictions within nationalisms systematically obliterated as the in India during the time of Gandhi Lingayats of the region are more and noting that while Gandhi’s call was more appropriated into Hinduism for non violent defiance of the Raj that and the Muslim Sultan’s Dargha has was possible with a cultivation and been now converted into a Wodeyar deployment of spiritual performatives caste temple. But even so, during Urs such as sathyagraha or non violent a Muslim is asked to read the ‘fatiha’ civil disobedience, the peasants who (opening prayer) before the performance were instrumental in making Gandhi of the Hindu ‘puja’s (worship of the into a ‘mahatma’ sent up a triumphant deity) at the temple. The minarets still cry of ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki Jai’ after stand atop the Hinduized temple that the gutting of the Chauri Chaura was once a dargha, preserving the police station, and the slaughter of the history of a coevalness between these policemen in the police chowki. communities around these religio- The question that surfaces from cultural sites.21 22 Amin, Shahid. Event, Metaphor, Memory: Chauri Chaura 1922-1992. University of California Press. 21 Sikand. p.83 Berkley, Los Angeles. Oxford University Press. 1995.

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Amin reading of this event is as of the community of that region. That regards the way in which this violent it evacuated the kind of nationalism protest is turned into an incident that that Gandhi was calling for – that of is remembered only so as to forget it. civil disobedience– uncovers the plural Since the incident did not coincide with fissures through which a community the master narrative of a decolonization may stain the homogenizing fabric of endeavor that was radically non that which is presented as an Indian violent and spiritual, but was on the nationalism.23 other hand, a violent, revenging of the In a contradictory parallel, the pre people on the British use of force at colonial temporality that is accessed the Jalianwala Bagh massacre, it was in order to develop the idea of a treated as an aberration. However, this homogenous Hindu Indian pure identity very ‘aberration’ reveals something of is ruptured and rendered false by the the nature of nationalism. That in fact, multiple fissures through which grace, it is a restless force that will not be generosity and sharing overflow the contained within a singular, structured homogenizing, essentializing fabric performative. of purist assertions of Indian ness that The Chauri Chaura incident of nurture Vedic abstractions of nationalist 1922 is a case in point that brought practice, identity and what constitutes peasants together to perform the idea of Indian ness.[] nation that had taken shape in the minds

23 Amin, Shaid. “The Crime of Chauri Chaura” in Event, Metaphor, Memory: Chauri Chaura 1922-1992. University of California Press. Berkley, Los Angeles. Oxford University Press. 1995.