The construction of the Makran Coastal Highway (MCH) in Pakistan not only gave quicker road access to Gwadar from Karachi but also made the traditionally arduous journey to the temple of the Goddess Hinglaj, located in Baluchistan Province, safer and easier. How the construction of the MCH has changed the contours of Hindu identity, pilgrimage, and the temple are the main subjects of Jürgen Schaflechner's book Hinglaj Devi. In this much-needed work of scholarship on Hindus and Hindu cultural practices in postcolonial Pakistan, Schaflechner studies how the infrastructure and sociopolitical realities that have emerged around the temple are resulting in the “solidification” (p. 36) of the annual pilgrimage of Hinglaj Devi.
In a fascinating introduction, Schaflechner masterfully unpacks the conundrum of being a Hindu in Pakistan, a condition that contradicts the two-nation theory that forms the ideological foundation of the Pakistani state. The two-nation theory promoted the division of British India by contending that Hindus and Muslims were two different nations and therefore unable to coexist. He comments on Pakistani nationalism by showing how India and Hindus are routinely corelated and demonized in Pakistani textbooks (p. 9). He also analyzes Pakistani Urdu pulp fiction, wherein Hindus are presented as power-hungry villains with evil magical powers, whereas Muslims are shown as pious saviors and forces of good (pp. 9–12). Despite this othering of Hindus at an ideological level, Schaflechner found a vibrant Hindu community and a thriving Hindu culture in Pakistan.
The temple of Hinglaj—to which Schaflechner keeps referring interchangeably as a temple and a shrine—serves in this book as a launching pad into the study of Hindu culture in postcolonial Pakistan. He argues that, over a period of three decades since the construction of the MCH, the temple has become an important center of Hindu religious practice in Pakistan. As a result, not only is the narrative about the Devi getting redefined by her devotees, but also the easy accessibility to the temple has given rise to a struggle over the hegemonic interpretation of tradition as well as over the politics of exclusion among the Devi's devotees. Schaflechner's fundamental argument is that the pilgrimage to Hinglaj has been institutionalized and solidified by the Hinglaj Seva Mandali and after the construction of the MCH. As a consequence of this institutionalization, many ritual practices have undergone reinterpretation (pp. 12, 138).
In chapter 1, Schaflechner explains the diversity of narratives found at Hinglaj with the help of post-foundationalism, a social theory that rejects the idea of there being one ultimate, undisputed, and singular foundation of society. He thus establishes a philosophical explanation for the multiplicity of truth claims about the Goddess. Ultimately, there is no single Hinglaj, despite the many actors who aim to establish the one true Goddess and practice (p. 26).
In the second chapter, he presents three strains of the Goddess's history, corresponding to the three main historical discourses that shape contemporary representations of Hinglaj. The first draws on the ancient Sanskrit sources that mention Hinglaj and link her to the myth of Goddess Sati. The second comprises caste genealogies to describe how Hinglaj became the clan/caste deity of the Charan, Brahmakshatriya, and Kapri castes (p. 13). The third involves the claim that the shrine's Zikri-Muslim history has transformed the Goddess into a representative of Hindu-Muslim harmony in modern Sindh (p. 13). This chapter also offers an overview of recent infrastructural and other developments around the temple, including the emergence of the Lasi-Lohana caste as a powerful actor controlling the narrative on Hinglaj.
In chapter 3, Schaflechner turns to the academic study of pilgrimage in Hinduism and sacred geographies in South Asia, and he details the history of the ritual journey linked to Hinglaj. He skillfully provides a comparative analysis of this ritual journey from various sources, mainly novels and travelogues, available in Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Sindhi, and Urdu sources. He shows that the focus of the older texts was “spiritual” and the focus of the newer ones (those published in India) was political (p. 14).
Schaflechner focuses on specific groups in the next three chapters. Chapter 4 uses case studies of Pakistani and Indian pilgrims to elaborate current conditions faced by the yatris. Chapter 5 describes the gradual “Hinduization” of the main image of the Goddess as it has been physically manipulated by Hindu renovators and the Zikri-Muslim visual impressions have been reduced. Chapter 6 shows how the local Lasi-Lohana community's versions of Hinduism and of the goddess have overtaken the others, especially by discontinuing the practice of animal sacrifice (bali, pp. 15–16) and the opposition of Lasi-Lohana version of Hinduism among the lower-caste Hindus of Karachi (pp. 291–98).
The strongest aspect of Schaflechner's book is his reading of historical and textual sources establishing the tradition of a ritual journey to the temple. However, there are two major issues with this work. One, the book is replete with unnecessary literature review; this breaks the flow of reading. Two, the book's structure in itself makes it a difficult read. He claims that Hinglaj Devi aims to understand “Pakistani Hinduism,” but the scope of the book definitely extends beyond Pakistan, while being, at the same time, limited to only one tradition located within Pakistan. Although he conducted laborious fieldwork in India as well as in Pakistan, the book downplays the transnational character of pilgrimage to the temple—this despite the fact that the communities and the tradition he discusses in the book are still connected to both sides of the India-Pakistan border. Again, if Schaflechner's aim was to explore Pakistani Hindu identity, then citing Indian sources on Indian Charan and Khatri communities, for example, confuses the reader. There is no mention of the Pakistani Charan community, who claim to be the sons of the Goddess Sati, who in turn is linked with the Goddess Hinglaj.
At the beginning of Hinglaj Devi, Schaflechner explains the complex relationship between Pakistan and Pakistani Hindus, but as the book progresses we do not learn anything further about the relationship of the state or nationalism to the Hinglaj tradition. We do not learn, for example, whether the tradition has defied the political boundary introduced in 1947 and has continued to exist despite political hardships, nor do we learn if the state took into consideration the temple site at the time of construction of the MCH. Similarly, he discusses Pakistani and Sindhi nationalisms but does not engage with the intersectionality of these nationalisms.
One can imagine the difficulties Schaflechner must have experienced while conducting his fieldwork in Pakistan. These must have been primarily due to security concerns because of the then-ongoing “war on terror” in the country. Nonetheless, this is an ambitious attempt to write in one volume about both “Pakistani Hinduism” and the Hinglaj pilgrimage.
