New Books in Indian Religions · Marshall Poe

Jürgen Schaflechner, "Hinglaj Devi: Identity, Change, and Solidification at a Hindu Temple in Pakistan" (Oxford UP, 2018)

·1 hr 27 min·5 clips

How did a remote shrine in Balochistan unify Pakistan's Hindu castes through ancient Sanskrit texts?

This episode features an interview with Dr. Jürgen Schaflechner about his book on the Hinglaj Devi temple in Balochistan, Pakistan. Host Amal Hashim speaks with Schaflechner, a scholar affiliated with the Free University of Berlin. The book's publication history itself reveals a lack of initial interest in Pakistan regarding the study of its Hindu minority. Schaflechner estimates Pakistan's Hindu community numbers between six and eight million people. The Hinglaj shrine serves as a rare, ancient, and unifying sacred site for Hindus across caste lines within Pakistan. The site is documented in old Sanskrit texts, giving it a Brahmanic legitimacy. Historically, the shrine may have resembled a Muslim grave, linked to local narratives about Hazrat Ali. Colonial sources recorded local oral traditions associating the landscape with Islamic sacred geography. A key process Schaflechner documents is the "solidification" of one specific Hindu narrative at Hinglaj, erasing its Muslim interpretive layers. This shift accelerated after the construction of the Makran Coastal Highway around 2001, making the site more accessible. The Hinglaj Seva Mandal, a Lohana community organization, became the authoritative body controlling rituals and interpretations at the shrine. The annual pilgrimage there now draws over 100,000 people. Schaflechner connects this solidification to broader global trends of hardening religious boundaries. He notes that shared shrine traditions, like those at Lal Shahbaz Qalandar or Udero Lal, are increasingly claimed by single religious identities. Social media has intensified this process by allowing Pakistani Hindus to connect with co-religionists in India and beyond, independent of geography. He observes young Pakistani Hindus now intentionally using more Sanskritized Hindi instead of Urdu. The conversation explores the complex representation of religious minorities, using alleged cases of forced conversion as an example. Schaflechner argues these cases brought visibility and led to legal gains like the Hindu Marriage Act of 2017. He also suggests some cases labeled as forced conversions might involve adult women exercising agency to marry across faith lines. This creates a paradox where visibility is achieved through frames of victimhood, potentially obscuring female agency. The tone is academic and conversational, delving into nuanced anthropological and political analysis. It is educational, focusing on the intersection of religion, identity, media, and minority rights. Listeners interested in South Asian religions, post-Partition studies, or the sociology of minority communities will find this episode deeply engaging. Those seeking a simple historical narrative or devotional content about the goddess might find the academic discussion too dense.

As heard by us

A careful study of how a shrine, a pilgrimage, and a tradition become more fixed over time.

Jürgen Schaflechner's book conversation keeps coming back to the Hinglaj Devi temple in Pakistan as a place where devotion, travel, and interpretation stay in motion.

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Want a conversation about how a shrine's meaning gets settled through travel, authority, and competing interpretations?

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