"Ye Insaaf Ki Jagah Hai": The Djinns of Firoz Shah Kotla
This week in Daak:
Our returning intern, Fiza Mishra, pens a powerful piece on how faith comes to replace governance, and the importance of public spaces even (and especially) in our modern, disconnected world.
Also, carry a bit of art, poetry and nostalgia with our wearable collection.
And finally, check out Daak Recommends for some rare delights.
1. "Ye Insaaf Ki Jagah Hai": The Djinns of Firoz Shah Kotla
The wreckage of Firoz Shah Tughlaq’s palace is a far cry from the bright, marbled dargahs that dot the city of Delhi. Devotees throng its alcove every Thursday, searching for the djinns that are believed to reside there. They write them letters deposited in little niches across the grounds, leaving behind endless archives of their hopes, dreams and despair. These letters are usually photocopied and left in multiple places with a return address, voter ID and photograph, quite like petitions demanding justice from a democratic state.
When the British decided to build New Delhi as their new imperial capital in 1911, they wanted the medieval remains of the city to serve as an aesthetic ruinscape. The ‘squalor’ of the village disturbed the order of the city, and it was decided that the landscape had to be isolated from the rituals, excursions and ecology that animated it. A fence was constructed around the area, and the years that followed saw the growth of an obsessive culture of surveillance in the medieval mosques and shrines in the custody of the state, which, by virtue of secularizing them, pronounced them “dead”.
Firoz Shah Kotla only became a thriving religious site in 1977, after the end of the twenty-month long Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi. The worst affected were the lower classes of Muslims and Dalits, who were the preferred targets of police brutality and forced relocations. As a result, they started flocking to the fort.
Legend claims that a saint called Laddu Shah started living there too. He told his followers about the creatures of smokeless fire, or djinns, that had been lurking around the abandoned grounds of the shrine for centuries. His devotees found a refuge in the ruins of the ancient palace, and detailed their grievances to the djinns in ways that were similar to the shikwa, a Perso-Islamic legal form of addressing the sovereign, a practice that is rooted in the political customs of the Delhi Sultanate. “Ye insaaf ki jagah hai” (this is a place of justice), they have been overheard saying.
The continuity of this tradition points us towards the use of public spaces as a safe haven — these are the spaces where tired women with tiring families catch a moment to breathe, and couples find a refuge for their secret romances. The persistent swarm of devotees at the site and the letters they leave behind are testament to the wonderful ways in which suffering finds channels of expression through faith, kindness and the spiritual resources generated by communities. The djinns of Firoz Shah Kotla perform that very function by filling the glaring void left by the state — through ritual and prayer, the devotees redirect their faith to an authority that is characterized by care and intimacy, as opposed to the inaccessibility of real-world governance. The djinns live on, and the ruins are anything but dead.
By Fiza Mishra
The primary source for this essay is Anand Vivek Taneja’s book Jinnealogy: Time, Islam, and Ecological Thought in the Medieval Ruins of Delhi
2. Carry a Bit of Art, Poetry and Nostalgia With You
Have you seen our collection of wearables made in collaboration with SayItWithAPin? Check out our delicate hand-crafted pins inspired by Amrita Pritam, Faiz and Amrita Sher-Gil, as well as unique earrings with our favourite word-pairs!
3. Daak Recommends
Complement this week’s newsletter with this video on the Anand Vivek Taneja's book, 'Jinneology' with the lovely Rana Safvi.
Also, check out this gallery of vintage photos of Firoz Shah Kotla to trace its history.