Book review: Time, Islam, and Ecological Thought in the Medieval Ruins of Delhi

In and around the dark recesses of the ruins of a fourteenth-century palace in Delhi, Anand Vivek Taneja finds a counterculture to the demands of today’s India. In Taneja’s view, this world of jinn veneration is more inclusive and less judgmental than the outside world and hearkens back to a fast slipping past, with elements from before colonialism and modernity. Jinn veneration turns out to be a great lens through which to explore many aspects of North Indian society today, from the experience of love, legal consciousness, and the relationship between communities, to ecology, the role of history, and protection (or lack thereof) of monuments. 

Anand Vivek Taneja, Jinnealogy: Time, Islam, and Ecological Thought in the Medieval Ruins of Delhi. Reviewed by Gijs Kruijtzer

The book is also a testament of hope. The author argues forcefully that we can take hope from precolonial India. But is the North Indian precolonial past as a whole indeed a good foundation for hope? Over the years 2007 to 2014, Taneja spent time talking to people and immersing himself in what he calls the “ethics of nameless intimacy” at the Firuz Shah Kotla ruins (p. 91). He also photographed in situ some of the letters that people have addressed to the jinn-saints and have hung on the walls or inserted in the crevices in the alcoves where candles are lit for the various jinn-saints. In addition, he picked some of the letters from the trash—for workers of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) periodically sweep them into piles before burning them. 

All in all, his sample of letters numbers around two hundred. Taneja also received two weeks of access to the ASI record room, but due to its ill organization he can only describe his research there as “random access” (p. 31). This was enough to reveal, however, that contrary to the claims of some of his interlocutors, the veneration of saints at Firuz Shah Kotla does go back further than the 1970s...

Popular posts from this blog

Third degree torture used on Maruti workers: Rights body

Haruki Murakami: On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning

The Almond Trees by Albert Camus (1940)

Satyagraha - An answer to modern nihilism

Rudyard Kipling: critical essay by George Orwell (1942)

Three Versions of Judas: Jorge Luis Borges

Goodbye Sadiq al-Azm, lone Syrian Marxist against the Assad regime