Processes of Secularization in Contemporary India

Guru Faith in the Mata Amritanandamayi Mission

Bibliographic Data

ID3666201
AuthorsMaya Warrier (University of Wales Trinity Saint David, corresponding author)
Year2003
Volume37
Issue1
Pages213-253
Publication date2003-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueModern Asian Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0026-749X • E-ISSN: 1469-8099
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0026749x03001070
OpenAlexW2130879605
LanguageEN
Citations received28
References cited21

The perceived resurgence of Hindu nationalist sentiments in India, particularly since the 1990s, occupies centre-stage in much of the current academic writing on contemporary Hinduism. This preoccupation with politicized Hinduism has meant that other developments in contemporary Hindu society, which run contrary to the dominant trend, have tended to go relatively unnoticed in recent academic literature. One such development has to do with religious belief and practice within some of the more popular modern guru organizations in India, many of which own and manage vast institutional and financial empires, command an international presence, and, within India, attract followers largely from educated, urban, 'middle class' sections of the country's population. Commentators in the past have tended to see the popularity of these guru organizations merely as a sign of intensified religiosity among urban middle class Indians. A closer look at these organizations and the place which many of them occupy in the lives of their followers, however, indicates that this apparently intensified religiosity also carries within it seeds of something quite different-trends towards the secularization of civil society

Faith · Hinduism · Middle class · Political science · Popularity · Population · Religiosity · Secularization · Social science · Sociology · Theology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Indian and Buddhist Studies · Indian History and Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies · South Asian Studies and Diaspora

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