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The Space of Street-side Religiosity

Miniature Shrines in Chennai
Pushkal Shivam

There are two competing theorisations of street-side

religiosity in India. One is process-centric; the other is
event-centric. While the former approach conceptualises
artefacts such as street-side shrines as offering
resistance to the dominant ideological spaces, the latter
seeks to understand the event of their construction
and demolition within the multiple modernities
framework. However, both the approaches take an
instrumental view of these shrines. This view is
reinforced by dualisms such as modernity and religiosity,
local and global, space and place. These shrines
co-construct and constitute an interconnected,
open-ended, autonomous space. This space is shaped
by practices and does not exist prior to the identities.
Both space and identities are perennially under
construction. The autonomy of the space is derived
from its contingent nature.

Solomon Benjamin anchored the development of the arguments

presented here. Sona Prabhakaran, Gayathri Devi and Anju M L
participated in the fieldwork. In particular, Sonas knowledge of both
Tamil and Malayalam saw us through some very crucial moments
during the field visits. I could not have written this paper without them.
In addition, I would like to thank Mathangi Krishnamurthy,
Oviya Govindan, Sneha Annavarapu and Mukesh Manjunath for
their comments.
Pushkal Shivam (pushkalrajsin@gmail.com) is at the Department of
Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras.

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Somehow, from the very beginning, we had a shrewd guess that given
the complicity between modern knowledges and modern regimes of
power, we would forever remain consumers of universal modernity;
never would be taken seriously as its producers. It is for this reason
that we have tried, for over a hundred years, to take our eyes away
from this chimera of universal modernity and clear up a space where
we might become the creators of our own modernity.
Partha Chatterjee, Our Modernity1 (1997)

n the wake of the Karnataka High Courts acquittal of Chief

Minister of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa, in the disproportionate
assets case, the historian A R Venkatachalapathy (2015) wrote:

Is there now a shift in the role of religion in public and political life in
Tamil Nadu that social scientists have not noted? The sheer scale of demonstrative religiosity harnessed to political demands is noteworthy.

He lamented the marriage of high religion and popular

religiosity in the cause of politics before concluding with the
following question:
Tamil Nadu has for long prided itself on its history of emancipatory politics, radical social reform and a secularisation of its culture Will 2015
mark another watershed, albeit a regressive one, in the coming century?

It is a narrative we often encounter and in which the notion of

religiosity acquires prominence when juxtaposed with the process of secularisation and modernisation. Religiosity and associated cultural practices then take on an instrumental value; they
are seen either as furthering a political cause or as a form of resistance to the dominant ideology. Moreover, for Venkatachalapathy, the melding of the great and the little traditions of
Hinduism in Tamil Nadus public life has had regressive consequences. However, could religiosity be secular? What would an
examination of a similar melding of the great and little
traditions in a different realm throw up?
In this paper, I will examine the realm of what we call streetside religiosity and the idea of sacredness represented by it.
Pavement shrines in Chennai are the artefacts that will guide
my analysis. In the literature, the analyses of these shrines are
often framed as flourish of religiosity in the face of economic
modernisation. There are two competing theorisations of these
shrines. One is process-centric, as represented by the work of
Sekine (2006). The other is event-centric, as represented by the
work of Kalpagam (2006). While these shrines become a weapon
of the weak in the process-centric understanding (though there
also are ethnographic accounts detailing their mobilisation by
dominant actors),2 the event-centric argument sees them as
local sites from which people draw meanings of nationhood
and their sense of belonging in cultural terms that are rooted in
local practices (Kalpagam 2006: 4599). We will explore these
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two approaches in light of different theories and frameworks

that they draw upon.
Subjects as the Object of Analysis

Common to both the approaches are members of the working

class/subordinate groups/dominated actors as the object of
analysis associated with the roadside shrines. The processcentric understanding of the pavement shrine is grounded in a
theoretical tradition that deals with resistance/subversion in
relation to the dominant ideology. Michel de Certeaus (1984)
concept of strategies and tactics is a landmark contribution to
this tradition. Strategies refer to the mechanism through
which the governing institutional framework is laid. Tactics,
on the other hand, are conceived by those subjected to the governing framework to gradually erode and displace it.
Sekine (2006) mobilises this framework to suggest that
sacredness produced by the pavement-shrines undermines
dominant ideological social space. According to a survey conducted by Sekine and Subbiah of Madras University in 2000,
the number of pavement shrines in Chennai is estimated to be
around 1,600. A third of those shrines came into existence
after 1985, around the same time as India witnessed economic
liberalisation. As the impulses of globalisation and economic
liberalisation spread through the city, the construction of
these small shrines is viewed as a reflection of the emerging
revitalisation of traditions and cultural heritage, undertaken
by those at the margins (Sekine 2006: 82).
In this narrative, there are two principal actorsthe municipal authorities and the urban poorwith different standpoints. Sacrality, produced at the boundary of the dominant
ideological social space in the form of these shrines, then represents the power of resistance against the authorities. It is
hard to escape a certain element of fixity in this narrative. The
clear demarcation of the legal and the illegal, and of two main
actors, obscures the multifaceted interactions that produce
sacred spaces. As the literature on legal pluralism suggests,
there are multiple, uncoordinated, coexisting or overlapping
bodies of law and there is diversity even amongst them
(Tamanaha 2008: 375). They may make competing claims of
authority; they may impose conflicting demands or norms;
they may have different styles and orientations. This potential
conflict can generate uncertainty or jeopardy for individuals and
groups in society, who cannot be sure in advance which legal
regime will be applied to their situation (Tamanaha 2008: 375).
In addition, even a non-human entity like the roadside
shrines could be an actor as we are dealing with a dense network of power within which alliances are formed in accordance with particular interests.
The sole focus on two principal actors also underemphasises the
role of cultural practices. Different rituals performed at these
shrines, spirit possession, processions, beliefs and associated practices, could be read as a dialogue with power in a political space
where both domination or defiance could never be complete. As
James C Scott (1990: 137) observed, The realities of power for
subordinate groups mean that much of their political action
requires interpretation precisely because it is intended to be
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cryptic and opaque. Building on Sekines (2006) argument, one

could see the cultural practices associated with roadside shrines
as a strategy to insinuate resistance into the public transcript.
Furthermore, we could ask, how do we understand the
changes in cultural practices with regard to domination and
resistance? Aihwa Ong (1987: 2) has studied cultural change in
an industrialising (read modernising) society in a situation of
shifting, complementary and contradictory meanings, avoiding a segmented analysis of cultural traditions. Ongs analysis
of women employed in factories in Malaysia owned by transnational corporations shows that domination also involves
changes in how subordinate groups come to see themselves.
The subordinate groups resist the imposition of certain images
on them by constructing their own images. In the case of factory
women working in transnational corporations in Malaysia, the
reworking of the subjectivity imposed by the capitalist discipline happens through acts like spirit possession. The spirits
seized these women in spaces like locker room or prayer room
that serve as a refuge from work discipline. The spirits were
believed to attack workers when they ventured into their sacred
dwellings. Constant attacks did not only enforce a sense of dislocation, but also induced the need for spiritual vigilance.
In what seems like a very subtle departure from the way
contestation bet ween the dominating groups and subordinate
groups is framed, Ong does not interpret spirit possession as
resistance to capitalism or the state. Instead, the spirit imageries of filth and violation speak out against male oppression as
well as a deep sense of moral decentering, insisting on an
ancient equality rooted in common (ungendered) humanity
(Ong 1987: 213). Thus, dislocation occurring in conjunction
with modernisation (Ong consciously avoids ascribing deterministic logic to this) requires construction of new identities.
This in turn may create a collective consciousness that will
transcend particularistic bonds, Ong says. This argument
could merge well with the event-centric approach to understanding roadside shrines which treats them as sites from
which people derive a sense of belonging to the nation
(Kalpagam 2006: 4599). However, in the interim, let us look at
another way in which these small shrines become a weapon,
though in the hands of a violent, homogenising force.
In his ethnographic study of miniature temples in
Ahmedabad, Ghassem-Fachandi (2012) notes that ever since
the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in central
Gujarat in the 1990s, such temples have mushroomed:
Recently, in the eastern expanses of the city, a series of identical Hindu
structures, always rectangular, have been placed strategically in communal border areas in fast succession to one another. Many of these
replicas are patronised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (with its purported goal to further Hindu culture). They are frequently built with
walls and doors, grills and platforms all at once, displaying a more aggressive colored presence these square structures signal a generalized Hindu presence in urban space. During the 2002 violence, such
structures on Gita Mandir road became gathering places for armed
killers, who stopped Muslim ambulances or individual vehicles on a
major eastwest city axis (Ghassem-Fachandi 2012: 16).

This strategy unfolds not just at communal fault lines. These

structures also appear in front of buildings associated with
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activists and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) who

oppose the goals of the extremist Hindu right-wing organisations like the VHP.
However, Ghassem-Fachandi cautions us against reducing
analysis of these structures to just political or communal designs, suggesting that these structures often have a will of
their own (2012: 13). This is linked to another argument in
the context of Bengaluru. These miniature shrines could be
seen as part of the urban performative complex, defined as
a multi-centred network of sites of locational sacrality and
the sacrality of urban sprawl that links spatial arenas, social
constituencies, and civic history on a number of axes through
the performance and mediation of sacred power (Srinivas
2001: 67). The urban performative complex creates a terrain
that operates independently of the grid of the urban planner.
To return to the second major strand in the literature, the
event of the construction and demolition of roadside temples
in urban India is understood within the framework of a sociology of tradition and modernization (Kalpagam 2006: 4596).
Again, the modernityreligiosity dualism remains intact. The
resurgence of religious sensibility is posed against the construction of the modern Indian with a secular subjectivity
(Kalpagam 2006: 4595). In fact, this dualism is the building
block of the multiple modernities framework that guides
Kalpagams ethnographic fieldwork. But what is meant by an
oxymoronic term like multiple modernities?
The multiple modernities framework differentiates itself
from the modernisation theory by pointing out that its claims of
convergence were not borne out by the experiences of modernising societies. There are three main implications of the framework. One of the most important implications of the term
multiple modernities is that modernity and Westernisation are
not identical; Western patterns of modernity are not the only
authentic modernities (Eisenstadt 2000a: 23). Second,
such multiple modernities crystallised across the nation state
boundaries. Third, such modernities are constantly changing
and it is within the framework of such transformations that the
upsurge and reconstruction of the religious dimension in the
contemporary era is best understood (Eisenstadt 2000b: 593).
Subsuming Everything under Culture

However, while referring to plurality of modernity, what notion

of modernity is being referred to? A major critique of the framework is that while it distances itself from the controversial aspects
of modernisation theory, it fails to offer an alternative as it does
not contribute to our understanding of modernity (Schmidt 2006).
While the modernisation theory takes into account changes in
the entire structure of society, the literature on multiple modernities is seen as ascribing an overly deterministic role to cultural
factors. Another critique of multiple modernities literature posits
that it confuses all that is contemporaneous with all that is modern, implying whatever one sees today is an illustration of modernity and a carrier of its message (Gupta 2013). However, it
is important to note that these critiques attempt to rescue modernisation theory rather than pointing out the totalising tendencies inherent in the multiple modernities frame.
58

Indeed, the language of multiple modernities approach is as

totalising as that of modernisation as it subsumes everything under the category of culture. The collectivities formed across nation
state boundaries flatten certain differences in much the same way
as boundaries engendered by modernity do. The binary of local
and global employed in Kalpagams argument is an example of
the same. The roadside shrines become a local site in relation to
globalisation of Hinduism and represented by growth of diasporic
Hinduism. What this privileging of cultural practices associated
with roadside temples as the local does is that it ignores the fact
that they could be part of transnational spaces. This is illustrated
in Kenneth Deans work in the context of China (2015).
The event-centric understanding of these shrines thus renders them as sites that allow people to draw meanings of
nationhood and their sense of belonging:
The construction of a national and local identity in and through the
activities of Chennai's roadside temples is neither exclusive nor chauvinistic, but derived from infusing a sense of meaning and purpose
to localities around which the everyday life of the working class and
others veer. More importantly, it has clearly indicated the process of
multiple modernities at work in urban India and of how a collective
modern secular subjectivity, is being constructed without at the same
time displacing the religious subjectivity although transforming it in
many ways (Kalpagam 2006: 4600).

What unites the two approaches to conceptualising sacredness is the instrumental role ascribed to the roadside shrines.
With regard to members of the working class/subordinate
groups/dominated actors that these approaches take as their
subjects, the narratives inevitably take an instrumental hue. The
binaries like modernity and religiosity, global and local, further
reinforce this sense of instrumentality. These spaces figure either
as a tool of resistance against the dominant ideology or as a site
mobilised to infuse a sense of meaning to localities in the context
of modernisation. This leads us to ask, what alternative conceptualisation may enable us to avoid the quagmire of instrumentality?
How do we break dualisms like modernity and religiosity?
To sum up, the different approaches to conceptualising roadside shrines and practices associated with them have been
reviewed. First, the approach that looks at these shrines as representing resistance to dominant ideological space and the
associated theoretical tradition was evaluated. This was followed
by the multiple modernities approach to conceptualising sacredness. Our analysis of the literature led us to two main questions concerning the instrumental view of these shrines and the
role of certain binaries in reinforcing them. These are some of the
questions sought to be addressed in the fieldwork that followed.
I have looked at street-side temples in Adyar, Guindy, Saidapet and Meenambakkam areas of Chennai in MarchApril 2015.
These were miniature shrines located on pavements, sometimes jutting out onto the road. In all cases, these shrines were
located under a neem tree or a banyan tree (even a teak tree,
in one case). Additionally, I also looked at bigger temples that
once had all the characteristics of the former case but grew bigger in size as the surrounding landscape changed. The particular landscapes were those that are typical of the experience of
modernity. Examples include the temple located within the
premises of the Chennai airport infrastructure and the cluster
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of roadside miniature temples near the metro rail construction

site in Saidapet area. However, I did not restrict my focus to
these sites for that would entail the same binary that I was seeking
to critique. I looked at diverse locations, including those along
small lanes as well as those along broad roads like Anna Salai.
Bodyguard Munisvaran 3

A thick stream of traffic flowed haltingly on Sardar Patel Road

near the IITM (Indian Institute of Technology Madras) campus, uninhibited by the presence of a small temple right on the
edge of the carriageway. Both pedestrians and motorists
veered treacherously around this busy juncture. Meanwhile, a
bunch of people smoked and sipped coffee in the space
between the temple and the adjoining shop.
Why do you want to disturb the deity? the shop owner
asked as my fellow fieldworkers and I introduced ourselves as
researchers from the IITM. Pachiammal, an old flower seller
from across the road who has been around for over 20 years,
had told us about Chandra Annachi, the 69-year-old owner
of the temple. T Chandran moved to Chennai around 40 years
ago under desperate circumstances, and it was his faith in his
kuladevam (clan deity), now presiding in the pavement temple,
that helped him turn around his fortune over the years. Today
he owns all the shops located at the street corner and is considered to be a very powerful and influential person in the area.
He is even known for his association with the Congress Party.
You are standing where Kamaraj and Rajiv Gandhi stood
when they visited this area years ago, Chandran said as he
offered us a cold drink from his shop. His mouth was covered
by a piece of white cloth. Pachiammal and other flower sellers
on the street had told us that Chandra Annachi suffered from
throat cancer and it was his faith in the temple deity that had
helped him survive despite the fact that the doctors had given
up on him. It is not just Chandran; a number of cancer patients
visiting an old hospital in Adyar used to frequent the temple
and contribute money towards the upkeep of the temple.
The temple is believed to have been constructed about 35
years ago. It is located under conjoined neem and banyan trees.
It is believed that a koil4 should be built where neem and banyan trees are joined together. If not a temple, stones (senggal
kal) are placed at the spot and worshipped. However, there are
contesting accounts of what came firstthe temple or the tree.
Pachiammal contested Chandrans locally recognised claim to
the koil on the ground that it existed prior to when he moved to
the area and that he merely gave it a concrete shape. Although
Chandran performs the rituals at the koil himself, anyone in the
community is allowed to do puja.5 In troubled times, families
often approach Pachiammal to intercede with the deity. She
performs puja and makes offering to appease the deity on their
behalf. Prayers, however, have not helped her. One of her grandsons recently committed suicide. Her alcoholic son abuses her
frequently, which is why she is forced to live with her relatives
nearby. But these incidents have not eroded her faith in the deity.
This shrine is the bodyguard of the village, said Chandran,
referring to the Pallipattu village that existed prior to the time
when the IIT campus was carved out of the adjoining forest.
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Today we would call the area a low-income neighbourhood or

a slum. The koil is seen as demarcating the boundary between
the Pallipattu village and the city. Anyone entering the small
lane leading to Pallipattu is greeted by the shrine. However,
Chandran did not claim to be the owner of the shrine, though
he is the one who performs puja every day and abhishekam on
Fridays. The villagers placed senggal kal underneath the tree
and performed puja years before he intervened. With the passing of time, the stones took the form of a rudimentary shrine.
As the authorities widened and raised the level of the road, it
risked being buried. At this point Chandra got involved and
raised the height of the structure and gave it a concrete shape.
The belief seems to be rooted in Shakti6 associated with
the deity and not the particular location of the shrine. Chandran and others in the community said that they are willing to
relocate the koil if they are given land elsewhere. Why dont
you at IIT give us some land so that we can move the koil inside
the campus, Chandrans son said to us. Chandran added,
The government can erect statues of political leaders in the middle of
the road, but when we erect shrines on pavements there are problems.
Why demolish structures people believe in when the government has
so much land? Why does a small group of people at IIT need so much
land? People who study there take up jobs abroad and dont serve the
country. We are the ones who serve our community.

It was evident to us that this conversation was now closed.

Further queries were not going to help our cause. We had been
told about the advantages of brand IIT when we joined the institute. In this case, our association with IIT closed doors for us.
If You Have Faith in God, You Go the Right Way

We had been looking for Sabari when an auto driver offered to

take us to his house. An old fruit seller had told us about the
boy who conducts puja at the Muthumariyamman koil (dedicated to Ammanmother goddess), the youngest of the three
roadside shrines located across a metro rail construction site
along Anna Salai in Saidapet. The other two miniature temples
house Vinayaka/Ganesha. One was established in 1963, the other
a few decades later. Sabaris temple, however, is just 15 years
old. Along with the younger Vinayaka temple, it is situated
outside a government hospital and the patients form a major
chunk of the devotees. The cycle-rickshaw stand in the vicinity
when the first Vinayaka temple was established gradually
turned into a taxi stand and then into an autorickshaw stand.
The late G Mohan, a popular taxi driver, constructed the
Amman koil. Sabari is his son. The auto snaked its way through
a narrow street; we could peep into the houses on either side.
He built the temple because he could sense swamishakti
(power of the deity). He would get possessed and dance on the
streets often (swamiadal), the auto driver S Das told us. Finally
we were outside Sabaris house.
Mohans wife Yogeswari narrated the story of the temple.
Saidapet is the familys native place. There used to be a snake
pit (pambu pothu) under a banyan tree in the area. One day
Mohan spotted a snake while he was at the taxi stand. This
snake later appeared in his dream and asked him to build a
temple near the pambu pothu. Ever since the temple was built,
the family conducts Thiruvizha every year. It is a grand ritual
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usually performed at bigger temples during which the deity is

taken on a tour of the area. However, the small size of the
shrine precludes the possibility of doing the same in this case.
It was Mohans long-cherished wish to build a bigger temple,
and so he petitioned the local authorities to get land for this
purpose from the adjoining government hospital. His wish
was fulfilled just before he died as the local corporation
officials have agreed to allow the temple to be moved inside the
hospital premises, Yogeswari said. At this time, the 15-year-old
Sabari appeared. We did not have a question for him.
When we returned to the location the next day, we had to
look for Robert, a Christian priest who looked after the
Vinayaka temple outside the Panagal Maligai building that
houses offices of various departments of Tamil Nadu government. The temple gets electricity from this building and the
officials from the different government departments contribute money towards the maintenance of the shrine. When Robert is not serving as a priest at a Hindu temple, he sells nimbu
pani (lemonade). He has been looking after the temple for 10
years. Before him, it was his father who used to do the same.
There used to be a rickshaw stand at this location and the rickshaw-pullers collectively decided to build this temple in 1963.
This story contrasts with that of the other Vinayaka temple
situated further down the street.
The roadside temple is owned by the 64-year-old Haridas. It
is located across his restaurant. His father moved from their
native place Thalassery in Kerala to Saidapet about 60 years ago
and started the restaurant business that he inherited. Haridas is
also a joint secretary of the Congress Party in Tamil Nadu, and
has been to jail five times for the party. Though he has appointed
a priest to perform the rituals, anybody can do puja at the temple
as long as they are purehe referred to dehashuddhi (purity of
the body) and manashuddhi (purity of the mind).
Several decades ago, he planted a teak tree across his restaurant with the strictly material objective in mind in that it could
be used in the future. However, the locals placed stones (senggal kal) beneath the tree and started worshipping it. This
miffed Haridas. The stones were placed there by a drunkard
and I felt that if an alcoholic can do so much for the deity, why
cant I. So I took it upon myself to build this temple 15 years
ago, he said referring to a particular person. He provides
electricity to the shrine from his own house located across the
street. Celebrations are held during Vinayaka Chaturthi.
Thiruvizha and Annadanam are also performed every year.
Haridas bears the costs of these festivals.
Over the years, he has witnessed two positive changes in the
area. One positive change has been that the people are more
educated so they are more civil. And so people in the adjoining
slum area are more civilised now. The second positive
change is that belief in god has increased. Faith and education are related. If you have faith in god, you go the right way,
he said.
Has there been any intervention by the municipal corporation or any other local authority when it comes to the construction of these shrines? According to Haridas, the corporation
has never intervened. But local fruit sellers said that the
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corporation wanted to demolish these structures and even put

up notices on the shrines, but it did not take any action.
If I would have known that the government will build a footpath, I would not have constructed the temple, he had said earlier. However, at the same time, he wants to build a bigger
temple and wants to relocate his temple inside the adjoining
hospital premises. But will he get the land? All you need is
political power and contacts and you can get the land, he said.
Airport Goddess

At a little distance from the Caf Coffee Day stall near the
domestic terminal at the Chennai airport, Abu Bakr sells mallipu,
sweets, vermillion, incense sticks, coconuts, etc. However, he
does not have to pay taxes. His shop is located inside the Sandhi Amman temple, and while within the small structure, one is
likely to get the impression that the Chennai airport has grown
around it. People visiting this temple comprise his customer base.
In recent times, Abu Bakr has had to hop from one spot in the
airport premises to another. When the pillars for the upper level
of the airport were being constructed, he had to relocate. Subsequently, a taxi stand for private cab operators came up at his
new location, and he was forced to move to the entrance of the
temple. Last week, he took shelter within the temple walls. When
the government decided to expand the airport, they wanted the
temple to be removed. Then the goddess appeared in the dreams
of some of the airport officials and asked them not to demolish
the temple but build the airport around it. They did so and as a
result they prospered in life and became wealthy, he told us.
As we spoke, we saw men wearing the AAI (Airports Authority
of India) badges halt their bikes, pay obeisance to the deity and
apply the vermilion mark on their heads before riding away. The
temple appears to be placed on a raised platform, directly facing the terminal. It is possible that the temple existed in a miniature form (just as the previous cases) prior to the expansion
of the airport. The deity is believed to be the protector of 14 villages, including Meenambakkam, Tirusulam and Pallavaram.
Srinivasan, who is from Meenambakkam and has been conducting puja at the temple for over 30 years, apprised us of the
wrath of Amman.
Over 100 years ago, the story goes that during a festival,
Amman was taken to the nearby river (said to be across the
airport today). After the puja was done, the villagers left Amman
by the riverside and returned to their homes. This act incurred
the wrath of the deity and she appeared in their dreams
expressing her rage. The day the villagers left Amman by the
river witnessed heavy rains and thunderstorms. To pacify the
deity, people decided to conduct different rituals at a location
outside the village. Eventually, they succeeded in pacifying
the deity and they continued conducting puja daily at the same
location. The place where these rituals were performed is said
to be the current Sandhi Amman temple.
Srinivasan recounted the same story that Bakr told us. In
1978, when the government sought to undertake a major
expansion of the airport, the deity appeared in the dreams of
officials and instructed them to build the airport around the
temple, and not demolish it. Today the dispute does not
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concern the existence of the shrine. That issue seems to be settled. The officials did paperwork in such a way that nobody
could demolish the temple, Srinivasan said. Instead the battle
is on between the temple trust run by Sukumar (whose father
is believed to have built the shrine in its current form), also
known as dharmakarta on the one hand and the government
on the other over the control of the temple. The premises of
the temple were unlike any other that we visited. Numerous
CCTV cameras are installed even within such a small place.
There is a water pump in one corner of the temple. The adjacent government powerhouse provides electricity.
People from the surrounding villages flock the temple in the
month of Adi. They visit the temple, cook pongal in the premises
and distribute it. Strategic access has been provided to the temple
regardless of whether one walks or drives a vehicle to the place.
Some of the provisions exist outside the realm of the legal.
Parking fees for a four-wheeler at the Chennai airport could extend up to Rs 200 for 10 minutes. However, Srinivasan said that
those coming to the airport just to visit this temple are exempted
from paying the parking fee. But how does one distinguish between those visiting the terminal and those visiting the temple?
Devotees have tilak on their forehead and they dont have luggage. In fact, two-wheelers were parked in the small area between
the temple and the barriers separating it from the terminal road.
As we spoke, a group of journalist arrived on their bikes perhaps to catch a VIP exiting the terminal. They parked right outside the temple on the terminal road exactly over a sign that
read No Parking. The goddess is very powerful and people
believe in Shakti. She fulfils peoples wishes, Srinivasan said.
However, there is one restriction. When people get possessed
they are not allowed inside the temple although it is considered
auspicious. A possessed person is seen as the goddess herself.
Therefore, there is a possibility that people may pretend to be
possessed and misuse that power. But this is not a concern anymore. Incidents of possession have decreased and we hardly
witness them these days.
As we tried to probe further into the history of the Sandhi
Amman temple, Srinivasan inverted the relationship bet ween
the internet and field visit. He said, Google it!
Co-constructing Interconnected and Autonomous Space

Here I draw upon Doreen Masseys (2005) propositions on

space. First, space is recognised as the product of interrelations. Second, multiplicity and space are coconstitutive: we
understand space as the sphere of the possibility of the existence of multiplicity in the sense of contemporaneous plurality
(Massey 2005: 9). Third, space is perennially under construction. However, before I build on these propositions, a look at
some other theorisations of place and space.
Giddens (1990) equates place with the idea of locale or physical setting of the social setting. In premodern societies, he says,
place was the same as space. But the advance of modernity
cleaved space and place. This understanding is fraught with
problems though. In his research on place identity in China,
Oakes (1993)7 has challenged the presumed unity of space and
place in the past. The linear periodisation by Giddens is also
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questionable. Moreover, the cleavage between space and place

is illustrative of the project of modernity in terms of ways of
thinking. Other conceptualisations of space and place have
followed the same track.
According to Casey (2001: 683),8 space is the volumetric
void in which things (including human beings) are positioned. Place, on the other hand, is the immediate environment of the lived bodyan arena of action that is at once
physical and historical, social and cultural. A similar understanding seems to have led to the privileging of artefacts such
as the one we are studying in this paper as local sites (read
local place). To extend the argument, the notion of religiosity
then gets embedded in these local sites within the space of
modernity (in the sense space and place are referred to above).
This is exactly the reading that lends itself to instrumental
conceptualisation of the roadside shrines.
The site of roadside shrines then constitutes cultural constructions through which people derive a sense of belonging
to the nation, a sense of belonging that often interweaves and
collapses the feeling of belonging to the family, the neighbourhood, the community, the city, the nation, caste and religion
and so on (Kalpagam 2006: 4599). However, the terrain of
identity in the city is constantly shifting. What this primacy to
the sense of belonging to the nation leads to is illustrated by
Chandrans accounts. His sense of belonging to the nation
involves a direct conflict with his sense of belonging to Pallipattu
village and his community which is antagonistic towards the
IIT. If different identities collapsed into a singular sense of
belonging to the nation, he would not be antagonistic to the IIT
which holds a key place in the national imagination. The
process-centric approach reifies identity in a similar manner.
People assume the singular identity of urban poor who resist
the dominant ideological space of the city planners. How does
the question of identity relate to space then?
Drawing on Massey (2005) and Hall (2000), I argue that
roadside shrines as an artefact, along with identities, coconstruct space. This space is autonomous and constantly
shaped by practices. It does not exist prior to the identities and
both space and identities are perennially under construction.
The autonomy of this space is derived from its contingency. As
the cases explored here illustrate, the emotional attachment of
the people is tied to the notion of devashakti, and not the physical locality of the shrine. Furthermore, devashakti is rooted in
the community living near the shrine (due to the shared belief) and not the structure of the shrine itself. It is no surprise
then that Chandran, Mohans family and Haridas are all
willing to shift the shrines to another location if they are provided land. The notion of devashakti constitutes both the
space and its contingent nature.9 Therefore, the roadside
shrines themselves do not seem to assume instrumental roles,
either in facilitating resistance or infusing a sense of meaning
into the locality in the context of modernisation.
However, this discussion would remain incomplete without
examining the spaces such as that of the Chennai airport that
operate through the logic of exclusion. It is the space of neoliberal development that constantly seeks consumers. This
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space conflicts with the space constituted by artefacts such as

shrines. In the case of the Chennai airport, we saw that access
is provided to those visiting the Sandhi Amman temple outside
the realm of the legal. The devotees (and others familiar
with the terrain) know how to avoid the exorbitant parking
charges. It is these practices that allow the latter of the two
spaces we looked at to acquire autonomy.10 Shared belief (rooted in the notion of Shakti) facilitates a set of practices which
allow for the shrine to exist and be worshipped. Autonomy is
then constructed by practices.
Exclusion also has consequences for identity. The modalities
of power are found in the process of exclusion:
Precisely because identities are constructed within, not outside,
discourse, we need to understand them as produced in specific historical and institutional sites within specific discursive formations,
practices, by specific enunciative strategies. Moreover, they emerge
within the play of difference and exclusion, than they are the sign
of an identical, naturally constituted unityan identity in its traditional meaning (Hall 2000: 17).

Identity is the process through which people resist or fall in

line with regard to subjectification. However, thinking of subject
and discursive practices together requires us to deal with the
concept of identification. It is a continuous process that yields
fixed positions at certain times though these positions are
entirely contingent in nature. In light of these two concepts,
Hall (2000:19) defines identity as:
the meeting point, the point of suture, between, on the one hand,
the discourses and practices which attempt to interpellate, speak to
us or hail us into place as the social subjects of particular discourses,
and on the other hand, the processes which produce subjectivities,
which construct us as subjects which can be spoken. Identities are
thus points of temporary attachment to the subject positions which
discursive practices construct for us.

Could this suturing account for the attachment to shrines

on two conflicting bases: emotional and material? On one
NOTES
1

A passage from the Srijnan Halder Memorial

Lecture delivered by Partha Chatterjee in
Bengali in Calcutta on 3 September 1994.
2 For example, see Ghassem-Fachandi (2012).
3 An avatar of the Hindu deity Shiva.
4 Tamil word for temple/shrine.
5 The act of worship.
6 Divine power.
7 Cited in Massey (2005: 66).
8 Cited in Baindur (2014: 3536).
9 This is also an example of how the spaces constituted by street-side shrines are open-ended.
10 This is also an example of interconnection of
spaces. The space of the Sandhi Amman temple is
then simultaneously local and transnational.

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