Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)
The campaign to ‘liberate’ the Baba Budan Shah Dargah in Karnataka from any Islamic history and purify it for exclusive Hindu usage as a Dattatreya Peetha has proceeded through multiple strategies: political, judicial, and devotional. Today the fate of the site remains ambiguous as some tactics gain traction and others become less salient. By examining the ebbs and flows of the spiritual, legal, and partisan approaches to laying claim to this site, this paper will elucidate the tensions and contradictions between the arenas of authority mobilized in the struggle to claim exclusivity at a once-shared sacred site.