81 – Siting Contemporary Garhwal

October 2, 2025
8:30 am
Triplex 1016
The linguistic/cultural region of Garhwal stands in many different respects at the margins of contemporary India. Constituting one half of the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, since Indian Independence in 1947, Garhwal has only fitfully and grudgingly assimilated itself to the modern Indian state. This panel will bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars from fields such as history, anthropology, and development studies to examine the trajectories that have sought to incorporate Garhwal into imperial and state projects at the same time as other forces have generated markers and performances of Garhwali difference. In the nineteenth-century, under British oversight, the centuries-old monarchy that had ruled the Kingdom of Garhwal began to erect the infrastructure for the appropriation of Garhwal’s natural and spiritual resources to the hegemonic aspirations of the modern state. As developments such as mass pilgrimage, forest extraction, and village outmigration altered the regional economy, local deities and rituals supplied Garhwali heritage and cultural revival movements as well as separatist politics with potent symbols for resistance. Today, fabled Himalayan tīrthas like Kedarnath draw ever more pilgrims from across India, spurred by a state heedless of the ecological crisis it invites. Long regarded as “Dev Bhūmi,” the land of the gods, Garhwal thereby sanctifies and authorizes the Indian state just as it supplies its power and water. Meanwhile, in villages and expanding small cities, devīs and devtās animate the ritual and social practices that reflect the antiquity and distinctiveness of Garhwali culture and underscore the region’s dialectical relationship to the Indian state.

Convenor

Brian K. Pennington

Presentations

The Dialectical Relationship of Yatra Tourism and Local Ritual in the Kedarnath Valley
Whitmore Luke - Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Stevens Point, United States
“Kedarnath is everything for us” – Local Belongings to a National Heritage Site
Schwabach Eric - SFB 1070 RessourcenKulturen, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Heidelberg, Germany
Remaking a Hindu King: Authority and Legitimacy in the Early Tehri State
Pennington Brian - Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society, Elon University, Elon, NC, United States
Spiritual and Tourism Supremacy of Garhwal.
Parab Sunil - Sindhu Veda Research Foundation, Sindhu Veda Research Foundation, Sindhudurg, India
The Char Dham as an Imagined Landscape
Lochtefeld James - Carthage College, Carthage College, Kenosha, United States
Venerated and Venomous Village Members: The Nāginīs and Nāgas of Garhwal in a Bigger Picture
Lange Gerrit - Center for Religious Studies, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Germany
Pilgrimage in Garhwal: Char Dham Yatra in French Literature
Bhatt Pankhuri - Department of Romance Studies, University of Graz, Graz, Austria
Infrastructures and Discontent in the Garhwal Himalayas
Lokesh Ohri
Vernacular Mantras in Uttarakhan
SAX WILLIAM - South Asia institute, Heidelberg, heidelberg,