Negotiating The Divine: Temple Religion and Temple Politics in Contemporary Urban India
By- Ursula Rao
The book investigates contemporary discourses on
religion in urban India through the prism of Hindu temples. It is based on the
material collected during extensive fieldwork in Bhopal between 1996 and 1998.
Presenting and interpreting data of the history as well as the ritual, social
and political life of two central goddesses temples, the author presents the
first comprehensive study of Hindu temples as socio-religious institutions in
the urban environment of contemporary India. She also addresses several issues
of general importance: questions of changes in community life in urban India
with reference to caste and religious communities; the role of traditions in a
fast changing cultural environment; the problematic relationship between
religion and politics in the political life of India and a critical assessment
of discussions of subalternity and resistance. These discussions appear in a
new light in a study that avoids the classical dichotomies of politics and
religion, tradition and modernity, elite and subaltern. In a detailed analysis
of the religious/political practices and reflexive processes of a broad range
of people the author shows how discourses are interconnected and dynamically
re-created in practice.
Ursula Rao
is lecturer in Anthropology at the University Halle, Germany. Her areas of
interests are: ritual studies, the relationship bween religion and politics and
the anthropology of cultural performances. Most recently she has started a
study on the production of news through journalistic practices, with field
research located in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.
ISBN
81-7304-515-1 2003
186p. Rs.500/Pounds 45
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