History And The Making Of A Modern Hindu Self

Taking the contentious debates surrounding historical evidence and history writing between secularists and Hindu nationalists as a starting point, this book seeks to understand the origins of a growing historical consciousness in contemporary India, especially amongst Hindus. The broad question it poses is: Why has ‘history’ become such an important site of identity, conflict and self-definition amongst modern Hindus, especially when Hinduism is known to have been notoriously impervious to history? As modern ideas regarding notions of history came to India with colonialism, it turns to the colonial period as the ‘moment of encounter’ with such ideas. The book examines three distinct moments in the Hindu self through the lives and writings of lower-caste public figure Jotiba Phule, ‘moderate’ nationalist M. G. Ranade and Hindu nationalist V. D. Savarkar. Through a close reading of original writings, speeches and biographical material, it is demonstrated that these three individuals were engaged with a modern historical and rationalist approach. However, the same material is also used to argue that Phule and Ranade viewed religion as living, contemporaneous and capable of informing both their personal and political lives. Savarkar, the ‘explicitly Hindu’ leader, on the contrary, held Hindu practices and traditions in contempt, confining them to historical analysis while denying any role for religion as spirituality or morality in contemporary political life. While providing some historical context, this volume highlights the philosophical/ political ideas and actions of the three individuals discussed. It integrates aspects of their lives as central to understanding their politics.

A monumental intellectual history of the pivotal figure of Hindu nationalism Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966) was an intellectual, ideologue, and anticolonial nationalist leader in India’s struggle for independence from British colonial rule, one whose anti-Muslim writings exploited India’s tensions in pursuit of Hindu majority rule. Savarkar and the Making of Hindutva is the first comprehensive intellectual history of one of the most contentious political thinkers of the twentieth century. Janaki Bakhle examines the full range of Savarkar’s voluminous writings in his native language of Marathi, from political and historical works to poetry, essays, and speeches. She reveals the complexities in the various positions he took as a champion of the beleaguered Hindu community, an anticaste progressive, an erudite if polemical historian, a pioneering advocate for women’s dignity, and a patriotic poet. This critical examination of Savarkar’s thought shows that Hindutva is as much about the aesthetic experiences that have been attached to the idea of India itself as it is a militant political program that has targeted the Muslim community in pursuit of power in postcolonial India. By bringing to light the many legends surrounding Savarkar, Bakhle shows how this figure from a provincial locality in colonial India rose to world-historical importance. Savarkar and the Making of Hindutva also uncovers the vast hagiographic literature that has kept alive the myth of Savarkar as a uniquely brave, brilliant, and learned revolutionary leader of the Hindu nation.

This volume offers innovative approaches to the study of religion. It brings together junior and senior scholars from the Global North and South. The contributors also explore the context-specific formations of religion and religious knowledge production in an increasingly instable and incalculable, globalized world. In the spirit of the challenging slogan, “Religion in Motion. Rethinking Religion, Knowledge and Discourse in a Globalizing World,” the book bundles voices from a great variety of cultural and academic backgrounds. It offers readers a cross-continental exchange of innovative approaches in the study of religion. Coverage intersects religion, gender, economics, and politics. In addition, it de-centers European perspectives and brings in perspectives from the Global South. Chapters examine such topics as feminine power and agency in the Ilê Axé Oxum Abalô, queering the Trinity, and faith and professionalism in humanitarian encounters in post-earthquake Haiti. Coverage also explores notions of development in African initiated churches and their implications for development policy, the study of religion as the study of discourse construction, rethinking the religion/secularism binary in world politics, and more. This book will appeal to students and researchers with an interest in Religion and Society, Philosophy and Religion, and Religion and Gender.

This is an ethnographic study of the Vidya Bharati chain of schools in India which are run by a Hindu nationalist organization called the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The first study of its kind, this volume is an important narrative on the role and impact of textbooks in modern India. Despite having limited resources (they are run on a tight budget) and being based on a radical ideology that derives from a 'Hindu' nationalist agenda, the Vidya Bharati schools have achieved considerable success in the free market of private education and have grown to over 12,000 schools within 40 years. They are an important example of the interlinkage between ideology and nationalism in contemporary India. The author analyses school structure, curriculum, teaching quality, institutional goals, and ideology in an effort to identify reasons behind Vidya Bharati's success and to show through his field research that a combined strategy of pragmatism blended with ideology has allowed the schools to become highly sought-after. This analysis then asks broader questions about the failures of the public education system in India.

A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. The Emergence of Modern Hinduism argues for the importance of regional, vernacular innovation in processes of Hindu modernization. Scholars usually trace the emergence of modern Hinduism to cosmopolitan reform movements, producing accounts that overemphasize the centrality of elite religion and the influence of Western ideas and models. In this study, the author considers religious change on the margins of colonialism by looking at an important local figure, the Tamil Shaiva poet and mystic Ramalinga Swami (1823–1874). Weiss narrates a history of Hindu modernization that demonstrates the transformative role of Hindu ideas, models, and institutions, making this text essential for scholarly audiences of South Asian history, religious studies, Hindu studies, and South Asian studies.

When Hindu devotional or bhakti traditions welcomed marginalized people-women, low castes, and Dalits-were they promoting social equality? In this book, Jon Keune deftly examines the root of this deceptively simple question. The modern formulation of the bhakti-caste question is what Dalit leader B. R. Ambedkar had in mind when he concluded that the saints promoted spiritual equality but did not transform society. While taking Ambedkar's judgment seriously, Jon Keune argues that, when viewed in the context of intellectual history and social practice, the bhakti-caste question is more complex. Shared Devotion, Shared Food explores how people in western India wrestled for centuries with two competing values: a theological vision that God welcomes all people, and the social hierarchy of the caste system. Keune examines the ways in which food and stories about food were important sites where this debate played out, particularly when people of high and low social status ate together. By studying Marathi manuscripts, nineteenth-century publications, plays, and films, Shared Devotion, Shared Food reveals how the question of caste, inclusivity, and equality was formulated in different ways over the course of three centuries, and it explores why social equality remains so elusive in practice.

Behind the euphoric narrative of India as an emerging world power lies a complex and evolving relationship between science and religion. Evoking the rich mythology of comingled worlds where humans, animals, and gods transform each other and ancient history, Banu Subramaniam demonstrates how Hindu nationalism sutures an ideal past to technologies of the present to make bold claims about the Vedic Sciences and the scientific Vedas. Moving beyond a critique of India’s emerging bionationalism, this book explores the generative possibility of myth and story, interweaving compelling new stories into a rich analysis that animates alternative imaginaries and “other” worlds of possibilities.

This book offers an in-depth study of right-wing politics in India by analysing the shifting ideologies of Hindu nationalism and its evolution in the late nineteenth century through to twenty-first century. The authors provide a thorough overview of the chronological evolution of Hindu nationalist organizational outfits to reveal how Hindu nationalist ideology has adapted in ways that have not always corresponded with the orthodox Hindu nationalist position. An examination of the overriding preference for Hindu nationalism demonstrates how it has flourished and continues to remain relevant in contemporary India despite being marginalized at the dawn of India’s independence. The book demonstrates that Hindu nationalism is a context-driven ideological device which is sensitive to the ideas and priorities that gradually gain salience. It also explores Hindu nationalism as a vote-catching device, especially from the late twentieth century onwards. Providing a nuanced analysis of Hindu nationalism in India as a constantly evolving phenomenon, this book will be of interest to researchers on Asian political theory, nationalism, religious politics and South Asian and Indian politics.