Pakistani journalist Reema Abbasi, who was born in the Netherlands, deserves full credit for tackling in her book, 'Historic Temples in Pakistan: A Call to Conscience', one of the most sensitive issues in South Asia. As the title suggests, the riveting work is an attempt "to record in pictures the history of an Islamic country’s Hindu past", where she contrasts incidents of desecration of temples because of a backlash or land disputes with local popularity of some shrines that represent a harmonious confluence of all religions.
Published by Niyogi Books, the book takes us mainly through four Pakistani provinces, namely Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh. Reema offers meticulous details about the landscape, local poupulations, various kinds of devotees flocking to the places of worship and how the temples are preserved and guarded. In fact, the anecdotes about doting devotees, belonging to both Hindu and Muslim communities, bear testimony to "pluralistic" practices in our neighbouring country, an aspect which has perhaps been frugally dealt with in political, social and cultural discourses involving India and Pakistan.
Reema's evocative desciption is perfectly complemented by about 400 photographs taken by her close associate, Madiha Aijaz, who accompanied her to the all the sites she visited for her book. Addressing a select gathering at Victoria Memorial during the Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival in Kolkata recently, Reema said that the book was conceived as a "guerrilla project". Carrying lenses, tripods and other essentials, they would just walk for long stretches to visit the shrines hidden in caves or nestled in pictureque mountainous nooks. Reema stressed that they didn't face any obstacle from either political circles or locals to entering the temples just because they were women.
Some of the sites described in the book include Hinglaj located in the rugged Baloch terrain - the Hinglaj Mata temple, is known as Bibi Nani to the local population. Among the other temples described in the book are Katas Raj in Punjab's Salt Range hills, the 1500-year-old Panchmukhi Hanuman Mandir in Karachi, and Gor Khattree, dedicated to Gorakhnath in Peshawar, that was vandalised a few years ago. In fact, the author talks about how some temples in Pakistan suffered mob rage in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition. Reema, who would prefer the term, "spriritrualism", while describing her own belief system, comes down heavily on hardliners from all communities who destroy places of worship. After all, Reema feels there's a great deal of history and architectural value attached to religious shrines.
Reema, a columnist with The Daily Mail, Mail Today and an independent contributor with Dawn and The Indian Express, further told the lit fest gathering that Hindu temples are well-maintained in Pakistan and that the government there is looking after them.
All in all, the book shows love and conviction on the author's part while painstakingly documenting the temples in our neighbouring country. As she herself puts it, her book is all about making a difference to how the two countries see each other.
Photographs: Source: The Times of India Group, Copyright (c) 2016, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd, All rights reserved
