Qawwali and Pasmanda Muslim outreach in North Indian Sufi shrines

Abstract

In the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in 2024, the Hindutva^[1]-Affiliate Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) mobilised the Sufi Samvaad Maha Abhiyaan SSMA (Sufi Dialogue Grand Campaign) across Uttar Pradesh. As a major Pasmanda (backward) Muslim^[2] outreach campaign, this event consisted of qawwali mehfils ‘(qawwali music assemblies’) which were organised by the BJP minority wing in major Sufi shrines across Western Uttar Pradesh in North India. Qawwalis traditionally performed in a dargah (‘Sufi shrine’) to a great degree annotate largely ideas of pluralism, inclusivity, and equality centered on an ideal Beloved. The qawwalis as part of the SSMA, circulating across the widening physical and digital realms of the dargahs, melas (‘village fairs’), muqabla (‘musical context’), and YouTube respectively, relay ideas of obedience, pride and belonging centered on an ideal (BJP) patriarch. These new patriotic qawwalis in the Hindi-heartland states of North India are covalent with increased Islamophobia and a decade of state-sponsored violence against minorities in the country. This presentation will use digital and multiperspectival ethnographic analysis to uncover the logic of transmission and circulation of Desh-Bhakti qawwali repertoire in UP to uncover this unique conundrum whereby a song of love in praise of an ideal Beloved may be imbricated in a political project which harnesses a Muslim voter only to otherise a Muslim citizen.