Kashmir’s Sacred Feminine Legacy: How Hindu Pilgrimage Networks and Colonial Legacies Shape Religious Identity and Geopolitical Tensions
Original framing: “Bala Devi to Sharada Peeth” — bing news
The pilgrimage routes in Kashmir were not always framed through a Hindu-centric lens; they evolved over centuries as part of a pluralistic religious landscape where Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamic traditions coexisted. British colonial rule, however, systematically categorized and compartmentalized religious spaces to facilitate administrative control, often pitting communities against one another. Post-independence, the Indian state further instrumentalized these routes to assert cultural hegemony, particularly after the 1989 insurgency, when religious tourism became a tool to counter separatist narratives. The article ignores these historical layers, presenting the pilgrimage as a timeless tradition rather than a politically charged construct shaped by colonialism and nationalism.
Text: The framing of Kashmir’s pilgrimage from Bala Devi to Sharada Peeth as a civilisational reconnection obscures the deeper systemic mechanisms at play: colonial legacies, state-sponsored religious tourism, and the erasure of marginalized voices.
Historically, these routes were part of a pluralistic religious landscape, but British and post-colonial administrations repurposed them to assert cultural hegemony, particularly after the 1989 insurgency. The omission of indigenous knowledge—such as the ecological and spiritual ties between sacred sites and natural landscapes—reduces Kashmir’s cultural heritage to a tool of nationalist rhetoric. Meanwhile, the voices of Kashmiri Pandit women, Dalits, and displaced communities are silenced, as their experiences of exclusion and trauma are replaced with a narrative of unity. A trickster reading reveals the absurdity of this framing, where pilgrimage is both a site of resistance and a mechanism of control. To address these issues, decentralized governance, interfaith dialogue, eco-spiritual pilgrimages, and truth commissions offer pathways forward, rooted in historical precedents and marginalized perspectives. The key insight is that sacred spaces in Kashmir are not neutral; they are battlegrounds for cultural sovereignty, and their future depends on reclaiming them as sites of collective healing and pluralistic identity.