Presenter
Whitmore Luke - Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Stevens Point, United StatesPanel
81 – Siting Contemporary GarhwalAbstract
The local worlds of the Kedarnath valley exist in the shadow of the yatra tourism generated by the Char Dham Yatra, notably yatra to Kedarnath itself. In these local worlds one finds a synthesis of transregional puranic and upapuranic religion with local and regional forms of Garhwali religion that inflect in close relationship to specific place-embedded divine agents. Many of these local divine agents display particular connections to defined territory and/or natural features such as rivers, trees, rocks, and mountain that are ritualized, often in ways that connect to traditional Garhwali subsistence agriculture. I argue that the recent (post-2013 floods) recovery and rapid growth of yatra tourism in Uttarakhand function in a dialectical relationship with traditional place-based forms of Garhwali religion: this growth allows more Garhwalis (especially men) to stay in their home region rather than outmigrating for work while at the same time lessening the involvements with and knowledge of local cultural forms that often display connection to subsistence agriculture and/or knowledge of the local bioregion. This increasing distance in turn produces a kind of reterritorializing nostalgia that can be seen in partially de-ritualized cultural performances. These trends further correlate to the increasing popularity of the BJP in the area.
