Carving out a White Marble Deity from a Rugged Black Stone?: Hindutva Rehabilitates Ramayan’s Shabari in a Temple

Abstract

In the contemporary context of communal politics in India, Hinduism and Hindutva, despite their semantic similarity, are often treated as two distinct categories. While Hinduism broadly represents a plural, diverse and inclusive universe, Hindutva manifests a narrow, monolithic and exclusivist political Hinduism, also commonly called Hindu nationalism. While the former may be seen as a kind of accommodating faith or mosaic of faiths, the latter is identified as an intolerant and aggressive political ideology (Nandy, Trivedy, May aram, and Yagnik 1995: 56-99). V. D. Savarkar, who had conceptualized and defined Hindutva in the 1920s, consciously distinguished it from Hinduism, even making the latter subservient to the former. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its "family" - the Sangh Parivar - have vociferously carried Savarkar' s legacy forward. At the same time, while orchestrating Hindutva the Sangh Parivar has often conflated it with Hinduism, as it finds the rich resources of Hindu religious traditions extremely useful for mobilizing Hindus and constructing a unified Hindu identity. Thus, the Sangh Parivar portrays Hindu myths and folklores as Hindu history, selectively reinventing Hindu sacred spaces and symbols and resurrecting Hindu mythical and historical figures, gods and goddesses, traditions and customs.1 This paper explores why and how the Sangh Parivar reinvented Shabari, a marginal Adivasi woman in Ramayan, adding her to the Hindu pantheon of goddesses and rehabilitating her in a majestic temple in a tribal locality of Gujarat. The first section of the paper contextualizes the site, the Dangs District, analyzing its community profile, religious and cultural traditions, and, more importantly, competing religiosity and conflicts. The second section focuses on the strategy and efforts of a Hindutva missionary, Aseemanand, in the making of the Shabari temple, critically reflecting on iconography and representation. The third section shows how the Sangh consecrated this temple by organizing a grand spectacle called Shabari Kumbh in 2006, going beyond the four Kumbhs sanctioned by Hindu traditions. Finally, it shows how this temple has become a center for the dissemination of