“Dalit-Hindu” Belonging in Pakistan: Migration, Pilgrimage, and Ideological Circulation across Borders

Abstract

Partition and bordering had a marked effect on previously non-communal, trans-local Sufi and Bhakti traditions. Nationalist demands, linking notions of citizenship to religious belonging, gradually caused processes of religious standardization and solidification of religious practice and identification, forcing previously shared, hybrid spiritual practices into communal and sectarian “straitjackets”. Against these odds, my fieldwork among Pakistani Meghwal “Dalit-Hindus”, a former nomadic community from the desert of Cholistan, unearthed subaltern voices, norms, and practices challenging such hegemonic standardization. Inspired by Sufi ethics and folklore, my interlocutors cling to fluid forms of hybrid religious practice, while rejecting religious discrimination in the guise of Brahminism and Islamic orthodoxy. However, transformations are underway: My interlocutors’ sense of longing for lost and undivided homelands, places of worship and ritual across the border is informed by an increasing transnational exposure to both standardized notions of “Hinduism” and an emerging “Dalit” consciousness. These are determined by social media communication and movement across the border in terms of travel, pilgrimage and permanent migration. Assessing the effects of ideological flows on Meghwal world-making, my presentation will concentrate on the social life of categories such as “Dalits”, “Hindus” and “Muslims” and their contested meanings for my interlocutors.