Devotion and dissent in Indian history/

Includes bibliographical references and index.

In contrast to sectarian movements across the world that have been fundamentalist in terms of their ideology and locked in conflicts with those who worshipped ‘differently’, dissent movements within devotional streams were characterized by the qualities of universalism, humanism and love which cut across communal, caste and gender lines. The primary focus of this volume is to present the morphology of dissent within devotion. In the process, the traditional tropes of borders and boundaries get corroded. The normally visible communal, class, caste and gender divides are rendered fuzzy. Equally significant is the emergence of dissent within dissent movements, as these movements begin to petrify into rigid doctrinal positions.

This book seeks to provide a counter-perspective to the well-known and well-trodden school of Marxist historiography which locates religion firmly within the existing socio-economic order. However, the editor has not conceived of a tailored closure to these two positions and this volume contains essays that explore the notion of devotion as being embedded in dissent, either religious or social.