A Drama of Saintly Devotion Performing Ecstasy and Status at the Shaam-E-Qalandar Festival in Pakistan Amen Jaffer
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A Drama of Saintly Devotion Performing Ecstasy and Status at the Shaam-e-Qalandar Festival in Pakistan Amen Jaffer Figure 1. Dancing the dhama\l in Sehwan in front of Shahbaz Qalandar’s tomb, 7 February 2011. (Photo by Saad Hassan Khan) On the evening of 16 February 2017, the dhamal\ 1 ritual at the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan, Pakistan, was tragically cut short when a powerful bomb ripped through a crowd of devotees, killing 83 and injuring hundreds (Khan and Akbar 2017).2 Seven years prior, in January 2010, I was witness to another dhama\l performance in the same courtyard of this 13th- century Sufi saint’s shrine (fig. 2). On that evening, the courtyard, which faces Qalandar’s tomb, 1. Dhama\l is a ritualized expression of love, desire, and connection with a saint as well as a celebration of the saint’s powers and miracles. It can take the form of dance or music. For treatments of the ritual sensibilities of this genre see Frembgen (2012) and Abbas (2002:33–35). For an analysis of its musical form and style see Wolf (2006). 2. Sehwan is a small city in the southeast province of Sindh that is best known as the site for Shahbaz Qalandar’s tomb and shrine. TDR: The Drama Review 62:4 (T240) Winter 2018. ©2018 New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 23 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00791 by guest on 24 September 2021 was also crowded with human bodies — but those bodies were very much alive. In fact, they had just been born anew. Their exhausted, crumpled forms were a testament to the frenzy and passion they had just unleashed to celebrate Qalandar through dhama\l (fig. 1). As Latif,3 a life- long Qalandar devotee, proudly proclaims: “You have to give from your core to be a part of Qalandar. You have to be pos- sessed by his rhythm.” And these exhausted women and men con- tinued to give every drop of their energy until the insistent beat of Figure 2. The courtyard in front of Shahbaz Qalandar’s tomb in Sehwan, the drum faded away. 7 February 2011. (Photo by Saad Hassan Khan) Even though I never got an opportunity to witness another dhama\l in Sehwan, I have since attended a number of Qalandar celebrations in Lahore. I draw upon these events to analyze the dynamics of Qalandar devotion in contemporary Pakistan. While Sehwan serves as the headquarters of this saint, he is invoked every day by millions of mostly underprivileged Pakistanis across the country. Qalandar represents the collective energy of the millions of Pakistanis who are renewed in their devotion to him — through their invo- cations of his name and his spirit. Qalandar is the love of Maeen Meedaan, who picks recycla- ble scraps from Lahore’s trash the entire day so that she can put aside five rupees (less than US 5 cents) every night for her annual pilgrimage to Sehwan. Qalandar is the pain felt by Maryam, who refuses to wear shoes on her long annual journey from Lahore to Sehwan until she has bowed before her saint. Qalandar is the joy of Jamal Saeen, who constantly faces eviction from the small plot of land he lives on with his family but forgets these troubles at the thought of meeting Qalandar. Qalandar is the freedom felt by Pyaari, a sex worker from the khwaja sara (the third gender in Pakistan) community, when she is dancing for Qalandar and feels him fly- ing above and acknowledging her body’s rhythm. My first experience of the dhama\l convinced me that Qalandar symbolizes the collective hopes, aspirations, and spirit of the marginalized of this land. The dhama\l is an opportunity for them to express themselves free from inhibition. As Pakistanis are forced to cede even the little control they have over their lives to the rapidly encroaching market and an increasingly author- itarian state, Qalandar becomes ever more important. I saw the joy and meaning it seemed to bring to their lives, allowing participants to break through many of the boundaries that divide 3. In order to protect the privacy of their beliefs, I am using pseudonyms for all the Qalandar devotees mentioned in this article. Unless otherwise stated, all the quotations of devotees are from fieldwork interviews conducted between February and October 2013. Amen Jaffer is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. His current research focuses on the links between social organization, culture, and politics in Lahore’s lower- income neighborhoods. Previously, he has investigated the nature of sacred power in contemporary South Asia by examining everyday life in urban Sufi shrines in the Punjab region. He has a PhD in Sociology from the New School for Social Research, New York, and a Masters in Sociology from the London School of Economics and Political Science. [email protected] Amen Jaffer 24 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00791 by guest on 24 September 2021 Pakistanis. The event acted as a cosmopolitan canopy (Anderson 2011) under which Pakistan’s many ethnic and religious groups — Punjabis, Pashtuns, Sindhis, Balochis, Muhajirs, Shias, Sunnis, Christians, Hindus — all gathered. And they were all there after the dhama\l I witnessed in 2010, helping each other up, massaging each others’ limbs, urging each other onward. That evening, the Qalandaris slowly collected themselves, exhausted but glowing after the dhama\l, eager to thank Qalandar for this renewal. Those who view the performance of dhama\l as bida’a, a heretic innovation in Islam, have resorted to extreme violence to interrupt the devotion of the Qalandaris. They have, how- ever, largely failed in this endeavor and even desperate measures have been unable to stem the rapidly expanding culture of Qalandar. The day after the gruesome bombing in 2017, images of devotees lining up by the hundreds to perform the dhama\l in the same courtyard that had been bombed less than 20 hours before, sent a loud message: the lovers of Qalandar will not be deterred by violence.4 Instead of spreading fear, the bombing seemed to have spurred devotees to demonstrate even more enthusiasm for their saint. Celebrating Qalandar The Urs Festival The celebration of Qalandar reaches its apogee every year on the occasion of his urs. In the South Asian Sufi tradition, the urs — annual death anniversary — of a Sufi saint is an occa- sion for mass celebrations in which saints are remembered and invoked through rituals and other performative practices. The urs is designed to celebrate the memory of the saints and provides an occasion to establish or renew a connection with them and seek their miracu- lous powers. Devotees believe that their saints do not die; instead their souls pass into a paral- lel realm where they are united with God. The urs is thus understood as a commemoration of this marriage with the Divine; many of its rituals, such as applying henna to the saint’s grave, are derived from marriage ceremonies. So rather than mourning death, the urs is an occasion for celebration. Besides serving as a repository of cultural memory, the urs is also organized as a festival or mela. Derived from Sanskrit, the word “mela” refers to the act of meeting.5 Melas are not solely connected to urs. They are also, for example, celebrated during the wheat harvest. However, the biggest melas in contemporary Pakistan are organized on the annual urs of Sufi saints, with the largest arranged for Lal Shahbaz Qalandar. This festival has steadily grown in the last few decades to become not only the largest but also the most cosmopolitan mela in Pakistan. In 2017, an estimated 2.2 million people participated over just the first two days of the three- day festival at the shrine of Qalandar in the city of Sehwan (SAMAA 2017). These included Muslims belonging to both Shia and Sunni sects as well as many Hindus and Christians. Sufis and malangs (holy renunciants) associated with nearly all the different silsilas (Sufi schools or networks) were also prominent among the attendees. It is only the “modernists” — whether Islamist or Western secular — and those belonging to the upper classes that are thinly repre- sented in this mela. While certain activities, such as the ritual dhama\l music and dance, have become synony- mous with Qalandar celebrations, devotees actually perform a wide variety of practices to com- memorate and connect with Shahbaz Qalandar. Besides the dhama\l, followers recite Islamic prayers, perform ritual self-flagellation, cook and distribute food, and lay flowers at the tomb, Shaam-e-Qalandar 4. Some of these images can be viewed at: http://dunyanews.tv/en/Pakistan/375547-Undeterred-devotees-perform -dhamal-at-Lal-Shahbaz-. 5. Throughout South Asia there are numerousmelas celebrated by Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and others. These cos- mopolitan festivals include a number of activities, sacred and profane, and attract diverse audience members who participate for many different reasons. 25 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00791 by guest on 24 September 2021 among a number of other actions. Saeen Khokhar, a devotee who regularly participates in this urs, explained that all followers have their own way to connect with Qalandar — some engage in ritual Islamic prayers to call out to him while others will smoke hashish in his name to feel his presence. This flexibility allows a bewildering assortment of activities and experiences to come together and create an eclectic festival, more so than at any other mela.