A History of State and Religion in India
A History of State and Religion in India

Author: Ian Copland

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-05-02

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1136459502

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Offering the first long-duration analysis of the relationship between the state and religion in South Asia, this book looks at the nature and origins of Indian secularism. It interrogates the proposition that communalism in India is wholly a product of colonial policy and modernisation, questions whether the Indian state has generally been a benign, or disruptive, influence on public religious life, and evaluates the claim that the region has spawned a culture of practical toleration. The book is structured around six key arenas of interaction between state and religion: cow worship and sacrifice, control of temples and shrines, religious festivals and processions, proselytising and conversion, communal riots, and religious teaching/doctrine and family law. It offers a challenging argument about the role of the state in religious life in a historical continuum, and identifies points of similarity and contrast between periods and regimes. The book makes a significant contribution to the literature on South Asian History and Religion.

Religion in India
Religion in India

Author: Fred W. Clothey

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2007-01-24

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1135948380

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Religion in India is an ideal first introduction to India's fascinating and varied religious history. Fred Clothey surveys the religions of India from prehistory and Indo-European migration through to the modern period. Exploring the interactions between different religious movements over time, and engaging with some of the liveliest debates in religious studies, he examines the rituals, mythologies, arts, ethics and social and cultural contexts of religion as lived in the past and present on the subcontinent. Key topics discussed include: Hinduism, its origins and development over time minority religions, such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, Jainism and Buddhism the influences of colonialism on Indian religion the spread of Indian religions in the rest of the world the practice of religion in everyday life, including case studies of pilgrimages, festivals, temples and rituals, and the role of women Written by an experienced teacher, this student-friendly textbook is full of clear, lively discussion and vivid examples. Complete with maps and illustrations, and useful pedagogical features, including timelines, a comprehensive glossary, and recommended further reading specific to each chapter, this is an invaluable resource for students beginning their studies of Indian religions.

India's Agony Over Religion
India's Agony Over Religion

Author: Gerald James Larson

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 1995-02-16

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13: 143841014X

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Many of ancient India's religious traditions are alive in modern India, and many of these religious traditions are in conflict with one another regarding the future of India. Even the so-called "secular state" is deeply pervaded by religious sentiments growing out of the Neo-Hindu nationalist movement of Gandhi and Nehru. A careful analysis of the current religious scene when placed in its proper long-term historical perspective raises interesting questions about the nature and future of religion not only in India but elsewhere as well.

A History of State and Religion in India
A History of State and Religion in India

Author: Ian Copland

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-05-02

Total Pages: 413

ISBN-13: 1136459499

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Offering the first long-duration analysis of the relationship between the state and religion in South Asia, this book looks at the nature and origins of Indian secularism. It interrogates the proposition that communalism in India is wholly a product of colonial policy and modernisation, questions whether the Indian state has generally been a benign, or disruptive, influence on public religious life, and evaluates the claim that the region has spawned a culture of practical toleration. The book is structured around six key arenas of interaction between state and religion: cow worship and sacrifice, control of temples and shrines, religious festivals and processions, proselytising and conversion, communal riots, and religious teaching/doctrine and family law. It offers a challenging argument about the role of the state in religious life in a historical continuum, and identifies points of similarity and contrast between periods and regimes. The book makes a significant contribution to the literature on South Asian History and Religion.

Religion and Modernity in India
Religion and Modernity in India

Author: Śekhara Bandyopādhyāẏa

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780199467785

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Quatrième de couverture: "Through a series of case studies taken from everyday experiences of people following a variety of religions, this book interrogates the supposed epistemological dualism between modernity and religion in India. Through a study of oral and textual traditions, examining the perspectives of women and other marginal social and regional groups, as well as the diaspora, it presents dynamically interacting textures of society-historically and in our contemporary times-engaging with modernity in divergent ways"

Identifying and Regulating Religion in India
Identifying and Regulating Religion in India

Author: Geetanjali Srikantan

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-10-29

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1108901158

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Judicial debates on the regulation of religion in post-colonial India have been characterised by the inability of courts to identify religion as a governable phenomenon. This book investigates the identification and regulation of religion through an intellectual history of law's creation of religion from the colonial to the post-colonial. Moving beyond conventional explanations on the failure of secularism and the secular state, it argues that the impasse in the legal regulation of religion lies in the methodologies and frameworks used by British colonial administrators in identifying and governing religion. Drawing on insights from post-colonial theory and religious studies, it demonstrates the role of secular legal reasoning in the background of Western intellectual history and Christian theology through an illustration of the place of worship. It is a contribution to South Asian legal history and sociolegal studies analysing court archives, colonial narratives and legislative documents.

India as a Secular State
India as a Secular State

Author: Donald Eugene Smith

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2015-12-08

Total Pages: 539

ISBN-13: 1400877784

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Throughout India's history, religion has been the most powerful single factor in the development of her civilization. Today, despite her religious tradition, India is emerging as a secular state. In this book, Donald E. Smith explores the origin of the concept of secularization as it is found both in Indian culture and in the example of the western nations. He emphasizes the important role of secularization in India’s total democratic experiment and points out that the degree of its realization will undoubtedly affect the eventual character of democracy in India. In addition, the success or failure of the secular state in India cannot fail to influence the attitudes of her neighbors. Professor Smith considers the many aspects and implications of India’s attempt to secularize her government. Originally published in 1963. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Regulation of Religion and the Making of Hinduism in Colonial Trinidad
The Regulation of Religion and the Making of Hinduism in Colonial Trinidad

Author: Alexander Rocklin

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781469648705

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How can religious freedom be granted to people who do not have a religion? While Indian indentured workers in colonial Trinidad practiced cherished rituals, "Hinduism" was not a widespread category in India at the time. On this Caribbean island, people of South Asian descent and African descent came together--under the watchful eyes of the British rulers--to walk on hot coals for fierce goddesses, summon spirits of the dead, or honor Muslim martyrs, practices that challenged colonial norms for religion and race. Drawing deeply on colonial archives, Alexander Rocklin examines the role of the category of religion in the regulation of the lives of Indian laborers struggling for autonomy. Gradually, Indians learned to narrate the origins, similarities, and differences among their fellows' cosmological views, and to define Hindus, Muslims, and Christians as distinct groups. Their goal in doing this work of subaltern comparative religion, as Rocklin puts it, was to avoid criminalization and to have their rituals authorized as legitimate religion--they wanted nothing less than to gain access to the British promise of religious freedom. With the indenture system's end, the culmination of this politics of recognition was the gradual transformation of Hindus' rituals and the reorganization of their lives--they fabricated a "world religion" called Hinduism.

Christianity and Politics in Tribal India
Christianity and Politics in Tribal India

Author: G. Kanato Chophy

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2021-11-01

Total Pages: 500

ISBN-13: 1438485832

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Through an ethnohistorical study of the Nagas—a congeries of tribes inhabiting the Indo-Myanmar frontier—this book explores an unusually interesting region of India that is all too often seen as peripheral. G. Kanato Chophy provides a distinct vantage point for understanding the Nagas in relation to colonialism, missionary encounters, identity politics, and cultural change, all seamlessly woven around American Baptist mission history in this region. The book also analyses India's cacophonous postindependence democracy in order to delineate multifaith issues, multiculturalism, and ethnicity-based political movements. Within the West, episodic memories of the "Great Awakening," a significant landmark in the history of Protestantism, have faded into archival records. But among the Nagas of the Indo-Myanmar highlands, Baptist Christianity persists as the dominant religion, influencing the daily lives of nearly three million people. Focusing variously on evangelical faith, missionary zeal, ethnic identities, political struggle, and complex culture wars, Christianity and Politics in Tribal India is an original and major study of how Protestant missions changed the history and destiny of a tribal community in one of the unlikeliest regions of South Asia.