CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2019
| Author | Sircar, Sraman |
|---|---|
| Title | The Politics of Celebration: Power, Agency, and Placemaking in a Festival in Delhi |
| Summary | Phool Waalon Ki Sair (Procession of the Florists) is one of the most prominent and oldest festive events in the city of Delhi. Originally established in 1812, it flourished and evolved under both the Mughal Empire and the British colonial regime. Since 1962, the festival is being hosted by the civil society organization named Anjuman Sair-e-Gulfaroshan in collaboration with the government of Delhi. Hosted annually at the Hindu temple of Yogmaya Devi and the Islamic shrine of Bakhtiar Kaki in Mehrauli, one of the oldest neighborhoods of the capital, the festival seeks to promote social parity and communal harmony between Hindus and Muslims of the city. Influenced by the historic turn within anthropology, the analysis presented in the thesis shows that the festival should be viewed as a contentious and dynamic process that constantly shapes, and in turn is impacted by, the agency of its participants and the myriad urban spaces of Delhi where it is staged. Moreover, the thesis explores the manner in which the different polities that have ruled the city (Mughal Empire, British Raj and the postcolonial state in Delhi) have influenced and controlled the festival to serve their specific needs. In the process, it offers a critique of the existing academic literature on festivals and demonstrates that Phool Waalon Ki Sair has less to do with the promotion of inter-religious harmony and more with serving as both the site as well as the medium of the relations of power through which Delhi has been governed over the course of time. Thus, the thesis seeks to highlight that concepts like power, agency, and placemaking are essential to any anthropological study of festivals. |
| Supervisor | Rajaram, Prem Kumar; Bodnar, Judit |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2019/sircar_sraman.pdf |
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