The practice of jathera worship in Punjab: A case study of jathera Baba Kala Mehar Sandhu in Faridkot, Punjab

ABSTRACT Jathera worship is a popular devotional practice of Punjab in which obeisance is paid to ancestors of the got/gotra. This paper presents a case study of a jathera known as Baba Kala Mehar Sandhu in Faridkot. Its worship is marked by heterodox rituals such as offering and consuming liquor as parshad (oblation) to the deity. I argue that the continued persistence of the practice into the twenty-first century, despite facing proscription from the dominant religions of Punjab, is on account of the complex modes of negotiation that the jathera undertakes and the potentialities for subaltern resistance that it offers to its primary cultural agents - a caste of genealogists-musicians known as Dhadis and Mirasis.