Hindu-Muslim Syncretic Shrines and Communities

The present book is basically an outcome a two year long study undertaken by the author as an aftermath of the severe communal configuration which occurred in Mumbai, a few years back. Being associated with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences relief work, the author realised that relief alone is not enough to counter the phenomenon. It appears that there exists a serious misunderstanding among the middle class urbanites about the nature of religious rites prevalent at the level of the common peoples who in their day to day life. Quite often they ate syncretic and lot of Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains and Sikhs frequently visit each other’s shrines—that too with a lot of veneration. The Dargah of Khwaza Muinuddin Chisti, or the Laxmi temple of Chiplun (in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra) are some of the finest illustrations of this. Through the study the author has indicated that to confront the vagaries of nature and agonies of diverse life-situations peoples all faiths join hands together instinctively and the textual religious rites take a back seat consequently. Apart from theoretical discourse, case studies from all districts of Maharashtra have been provided in this brief volume humanist compact among collectivities of diverse orders.