Religion and Modernity in India

In stock

Free & Quick Delivery Worldwide

Modernity, which emphasizes the relegation of religion firmly to an individual’s private life, is a challenging idea for any culture. In India it faces a particularly unusual problem: the persistence of numerous traditional and religious practices means that religion and modernity co-habit here in a complex, plural, transient, and historically evolving relationship.

Religion and Modernity in India explores this complex relationship through a series of case studies on the quotidian experiences of people practising a variety of religions. It presents the dynamically interacting textures of society engaging with modernity in divergent ways, both historically and in contemporary times.

The essays in this collection consciously bring in the idea of inclusivity by factoring in the small and local contexts. They raise important questions about marginality and sexuality, and discuss the oral and cultural traditions of both mainstream and marginal communities such as tribal communities and women. In doing so, they put forward the perspectives of groups that represent difference but at the same time are linked to a larger whole.

Contents: Introduction/Sekhar Bandyopadhyay and Aloka Parasher Sen. Part I: Modernity, Religion and Secularism. 1. Society, religion and modernity in postcolonial India/T.K. Oommen. 2. Possession, alterity, modernity/Aditya Malik. Part II: Modernity, Religion and the Communities. 3. The Dravidian idea in missionary accounts of South Indian religion/Will Sweetman. 4. Locating the self, community and the Nation: writing the history of the Srivaisnavas of South India/Ranjeeta Dutta. 5. Sedentarization and the changing contours of religious identities: the case of the Pastoral Van Gujjars of the Himalayas/Alok Kumar Pandey and R. Siva Prasad. 6. Religion, erotic sensibilities and marginality/Pushpesh Kumar. Part III: Secularism, Religion and Politics. 7. Rethinking the ‘religious-secular’ binary in global politics: M.A. Jinnah and Muslim Nationalism in South Asia/Aparna Devare. 8. Modernity, citizenship, and Hindu Nationalism: Hindu Mahasabha and Its ‘Reorientation’ Debate, 1947-52/Sekhar Bandyopadhyay. 9. Bipolar coalition system in Kerala: Carriers and Gatekeepers of communal forces in politics/B.L. Biju.10. The ritual of power and power of the ritual: an interface between religion and politics/N. Sudhakar Rao and M. Ravikumar. Part IV: Religious Practices of the Diaspora. 11. Cultural reproduction and the reconstruction of identities in the Indian Diaspora/Aparna Rayaprol. 12. Durability and change: Anglo-Indian religious practice in India and the diaspora/Brent Howitt Otto and Robin Andrews. Index.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Aloka Parasher-Sen

Aloka Parasher-Sen, Ph.D. (SOAS, University of London) is currently Professor, Department of History, University of Hyderabad where she has been teaching since 1979. She was DAAD Fellow at the Sudasien Institut, Universitat Heidelberg in 1986 and Visiting Professor and Fullbright Scholar at the University of Calilfornia, Berkeley in 1992. She received the British Council Fee Award (1975-77) and the UGC Career Award in Social Science and Humanities (1989-91). She has been Member Indian Council For Historical Research, New Delhi (1994-97) apart from serving on Academic Bodies of various Universities and Research Institutions as expert. Some of his major publications are: Mlecchas in Early India, Munshiram Manoharlal, New Delhi, 1991; Absences In History Towards Recovering History Of The Marginal In Early India, Indian History Congress Symposia Series: Monograph 3, Delhi, 1992; Social and Economic History off the Deccan, Some Interpretations, Manohar, New Delhi, 1993; (Co-edited with Harsh K. Gupta and D. Balasubramaniam) Deccan Heritage, Universities Press, Orient Longman, Hyderabad, 2000. Subordinate and Marginal Groups in Early India up to A.D. 1500, an OUP Reader Themes in Indian History Series volume edited by her is in press. She has written extensively in the form of articles, research monographs and encyclopedic entries on the special area of her interest in the Social History of Early India with particular emphasis on looking at the history of marginal groups and regional history.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sekhar Bandyopadhyay

Sekhar Bandyopadhyay teaches modern Indian history at Victoria University of Welington in New Zealand. He has also taught at Calcutta University and Kalyani University in India. He is the author of Caste, Politics and the Raj: Bengal, 1872-1937 (1990). He is the editor of Bengal: Rethinking History. Essays in Historiography (2001) and a co-editor of Caste and Communal Politics in South Asia (1993) and Bengal Communities, Development and States (1994).

reviews

0 in total

There are no reviews yet.

Bibliographic information

Title
Religion and Modernity in India
Author
Edition
1st. ed.
Publisher
ISBN
0199467781, 9780199467785
Length
336p., 23cm.
Subjects