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Humanitarianism Across Mountain Valleys: “Shia Aid” and Development Encounters in Northern Pakistan and Eastern Tajikistan

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Mapping Transition in the Pamirs

Part of the book series: Advances in Asian Human-Environmental Research ((AAHER))

Abstract

This chapter focuses on development encounters involving organisations with particular Shia genealogies in Pakistan’s Hunza-Nagar district and Tajikistan’s region of Gorno-Badakhshan. Based on anthropological fieldwork conducted between 2008 and 2013, I argue for an ethnographically grounded exploration of the two regions as contact zones which these organisations have entered. I furthermore maintain that as a result of dynamics within these contact zones, the analysed organisations, while promoting a humanitarian approach to development, also become part of specific sectarian imaginaries. Thus this chapter attempts to show that these organisations have not only left their imprints on physical landscapes and improved people’s lives. In the course of their involvement, development interventions also become part of how society imagines society, and they engage with local constructions of sectarian difference.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    While I use real names for public figures and well-known representatives of organisations, the names given for all other interlocutors are pseudonyms.

  2. 2.

    The term “Punjabi” is a collective term used to describe “down country people” more generally, even if they do not originate from the region of Punjab.

  3. 3.

    Further translations of taraqqi include “advancement” and “progress”.

  4. 4.

    While road construction in the 1980s certainly enabled large-scale development projects in Hunza-Nagar, there were already attempts to improve the lives of local Ismailis and to integrate them into a broader transnational network during the time of the Aga Khan III (1877–1957) (Kreutzmann 1989:156).

  5. 5.

    For a general analysis of the relationship between the Ismaili Imamate and the AKDN, see Poor (2014).

  6. 6.

    However, AKDN institutions have also been accused of serving missionary purposes. As Kreutzmann (1989:164, fn. 38) notes in the 1980s, violence against Ismailis and institutions attributed to them was not uncommon. In 1985, for instance, a group of Sunni Muslims attacked institutions which they defined as Ismaili in Gilgit.

  7. 7.

    Twelver Shiites also constitute a majority in Ganish and its affiliated villages which are located in Hunza at the meeting point of the two valleys.

  8. 8.

    The most obvious signs of Islamic semantics on the USWA website include pictures of veiled girls studying at local schools (USWA 2014b), the organisation of events on the “Islamic Code of Ethics” (USWA 2014c) and references to Allah in reports (USWA 2014d).

  9. 9.

    The exact point in time is defined by the Aga Khan III’s Diamond Jubilee which marked sixty years of his Imamate between 1885 and 1945. The establishment of eighteen “Diamond Jubilee Schools” in Hunza began in the aftermath of the celebrations (Kreutzmann 1989:163).

  10. 10.

    In Niaz’ statement, the adjective “Kenyan” serves as a broad reference to Twelver Shiites with historical links to East Africa. In this context, a group of particular importance are the Khojas who originate from Gujrat and have lived through multiple migrations from India to East Africa (Madelung 2014) and subsequently to a range of countries including Canada, the UK and the USA (Nanji 2004). The Khojas are divided into Ismailis and Twelver Shiites and thus sometimes serve as a point of comparison for “ethnic groups” with a similar divide (such as the Burusho in Hunza-Nagar).

  11. 11.

    For more on the potential of Charles Taylor’s “social imaginaries” for the study of Central Asia see Rasanayagam (2014).

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Acknowledgement

For comments and criticism, I am deeply indebted to the editors and to Brook Bolander and Philip Fountain. I would furthermore like to express my gratitude to the University of Bern Research Foundation and the Burgergemeinde Bern for funding parts of my field research for this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Central Asian Studies, University of Bern, Lerchenweg 36, CH-3012, Bern, Switzerland

    Till Mostowlansky

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  1. Till Mostowlansky
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Correspondence to Till Mostowlansky .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Development Studies, Freie Universitaet Berlin, Haus K, Berlin, Germany

    Hermann Kreutzmann

  2. Faculty of Environmental Earth Scie, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan

    Teiji Watanabe

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Mostowlansky, T. (2016). Humanitarianism Across Mountain Valleys: “Shia Aid” and Development Encounters in Northern Pakistan and Eastern Tajikistan. In: Kreutzmann, H., Watanabe, T. (eds) Mapping Transition in the Pamirs. Advances in Asian Human-Environmental Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23198-3_15

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