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This chapter explores the emergence and development of Himachal's vernacular science of religion, a discourse that has come to define the shape and scope of Himachali religion. Struggling to articulate their argument for recognition as an autonomous state, early Himachali leaders realized that literacy rates, kilometers of roads, and village electrification metrics alone were not sufficient justifications for establishing statehood. As India came of age as an independent nation, this need to see beyond metrics of development became a national, and not simply a regional, concern. As its mission, the first major independent census endeavored to “invest the dry bones of village statistics with flesh-and-blood accounts of social structure and social change,” and like other regions across India, Himachal began a series of “village surveys.” Contracted by the census bureau, these surveys employed educated villagers to construct reviews of the history and culture of their villages. While the surveys themselves did not become widespread authoritative texts, the idea that one could write the history of one's own village took root quickly. Soon, farmers, pharmacists, and shopkeepers alike were all working to preserve and articulate what they called “our religious culture.”

This chapter examines how “religion” circulates from margin to center and back, starting in the remote villages of the upper Himalayas, traveling through a small regional city and into the state capital, only to return to where it started. This circle is a hermeneutic, as much spatial as historical, that uncovers how religion and the city become problems in need of definition, defense, or reform. As this circuit feeds back on itself, centripetal forces draw in energy and inspiration from colonial reformulations of Hinduism, new forms of governmental and spatial organization, and an ascendant cosmopolitan subjectivity. Individuals and institutions embody and exploit “secular” post-Enlightenment critiques of religion even as they attempt to preserve and celebrate the region's religious heritage. These media reflect a normalized recension of Himachali religion authored by urbanized elites and authorized by a constellation of interdependent forces (the modern state, neoliberal economics, and global visual norms) that reproduce themselves in the subtlest desires and imaginations of the people they represent, producing new styles of relating to oneself and to others.

This chapter investigates an anxiety that emerged as the state government asserted itself in more areas—such as regulating festivals, limiting the authority of temple officers to decide local disputes, and publishing works to explain “authentic Himachal.” Many villagers were uneasy with the blurring boundaries between state power and the power of deities. Who gets to speak for a deity, and in which contexts? In Himachal, each deity has its own gūr, a person who is specially trained, adheres to certain behavioral standards, and knows how to invite the deity to enter his body. These gūrs are the lifeblood of the community, communicating the desires and displeasures of the deity, predicting rain, and warning of calamities. Even as scientific rationalism has become prominent in the region, very few people questioned the legitimacy of these individuals to speak on behalf of deities. But it is increasingly true that the scope of their statements is circumscribed, in effect if not always in locution. Extensive interviews with these mediums as well as with members of their communities show how anxiety over the extent of the gūr's ability to speak clarifies the boundaries between the deity's sphere and that of the state as well as a growing nostalgia for a time when society was governed by gods and not the secular state.

This chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. The book's title, Becoming Religious in a Secular Age, suggests the work's primary contribution to the study of religion. As a whole, it offers a historical ontology of religion. The “becoming” at the heart of this book is a necessarily twofold process. Even as the people of Himachal Pradesh increasingly recognize themselves as becoming religious, the target of their becoming is itself becoming. This confusing, convoluted, and creative process is the historical ontology of religion, but it is important to be clear about the ends of this becoming. Becoming religious is a process without end. This book is not to be understood as the story of the struggle by which a people became religious—that they struggled until they attained a particular state. Becoming religious is that state.

Early records show that animal sacrifice has long been a common compulsory component of local rites in the region of Himachal Pradesh. As recently as the early 1960s, there was virtually no debate about blood sacrifice as a contentious issue. However, following Himachal's attainment of statehood in 1971, animal sacrifice became the most critical debate for Himachalis struggling to define themselves, their relations with their pasts, and their relations with Indian national culture. Animal sacrifice developed into a problem through the emergence of a new category of religion, which determines what is allowed and what is prohibited. Because this category of religion is new in the region and the belief and practices that constitute it are so undefined, it is emotions, anxieties, and passions that animate the debate over animal sacrifice and the shaping of religion. The profound emotional shifts tied to religion are referred to as the labor of religion. The remainder of the chapter tracks religion's labor through a series of ethnographic vignettes.