Nizamuddin shrine and popular visual culture

This shrine, like many other dargahs, has its own unique practices of visuals, printed literature and images, attracting and supplementing the religious experience of the pilgrims. In general, these visuals and printed material are either (1) items of utility required for prayers and rituals including prayer books and copies of the Qur’an, (2) literature of moral reforms, biographies of saints and chapbooks of devotional songs, or (3) images in the form of posters, calendars, announcements, and street banners. While there may be grey areas between these 3 categories, each of these plays a different role for the buyers, as well as for the manufacturers and sellers.

Since it is a small locality with a large and fast growing population, the use of space for homes, markets and mosques (including many historical monuments) is quite chaotic, often making it impossible to distinguish between institution buildings or shops selling/promoting material for different ideologies. In fact, some shops do not differentiate between the ephemera they sell for either of the institutions. A shop near the Sufi centre for instance sells the sermon CDs of the Indian TV-orator Dr.Zakir Naik (who actually speaks against the Sufi shrines), while a shop near the tableeghi mosque sells CDs of Sufi miracles, and so on. But some shopkeepers are certainly aware of the ideological difference, and strictly promote literature of only their sect. Some materials such as prayers mats, caps, and beads etc. are in any case common utility items required by all irrespective of their differences.

Some of the following materials are usually seen on the walls or shops all the time, and especially around the time of special occasions such as Urs:

Lamps, clocks, show-pieces and electronic items with religious images
Taweez (amulet) and similar items with printed duas (supplications) or Quranic ayat (excerpts)
Useful items like tasbeeh (rosary), caps, prayer mats with modern printed art
Books, booklets (chapbooks) of devotional songs, stories, biographies of saints and the Prophet
Religious literature, with titles such as ‘How to pray’, ‘How to be a good Muslim wife’ etc.
Literature of religious propaganda such as tableeghi, Wahhabi ideology
Audio cassettes and CDs of Sufi saints and dargahs
Audio cassettes and CDs of reform (speeches of maulvis)
New media of religious reform and folklore
Posters and announcements pasted on the walls
Posters of dargahs and saints, Mecca/Medina etc.
Small framed images (of the above)
Calendars (with both Islamic and Hindu/Christian dates

While it is not essential to purchase or collect all the above items for this study, some samples are being collected, especially of the posters, chapbooks, video CDs and other items that feature a religious discourse reflecting for instance the shifting asymmetries of cultural flows. In fact, more important that the mere objects are the overall visual context or juxtapositions within which these items are arranged in shop windows to attract the buyers. Thus photographs or videos showing such visual milieu and the interaction of buyers/pilgrims with the market would be important tools in this study. The posters announcing different local events are a very important source of our finding the inter-regional connections of cultural flows. Since these posters are not available for sale and are only stuck on the walls (torn or damaged in most cases), it is not possible for us to physically collect all of them. Hence we are recording their digital pictures. It would be surprising to note that besides the announcements about the religious events in Delhi, the walls of the Nizamuddin region also have posters about events happening in places as far as Bidar (Karnataka) with some text in Kannada, and a seminar on Sufism being held in Karachi, Pakistan!