Modern Hindu Diaspora(s)

A key characteristic of modern Hinduism has been its interaction with forces of globalization. This interface has produced creative expressions of the religion globally. This chapter outlines the global movement of Indians (and Hindus) from the colonial period onwards and focuses on their everyday lives to reveal how Hindu religiosities have been reconfigured in new locales. Specifically, devotional Hinduism—seen in the persistence of domestic worship, growth of Hindu temples, and enactment of festivals and processions—has marked the life of overseas Hindu communities. In diasporic spaces, popular Hinduism is defined by religious syncretism and hybridity in a liberal approach to deities, symbols, philosophies, and ritual practices associated with non-Hindu religious traditions. An inclusive and plural notion of ‘Hindu diaspora’ needs to attend to more than ‘Indian’ variations of Hinduism abroad and to focus also, for example, on Sri Lanka and Nepalese diasporic Hindu experiences.

Hinduism in the Secular Republic of Nepal

Since its creation in the mid-eighteenth century, the state of Nepal has claimed to be Hindu. This chapter describes how the assertion of Nepal’s Hindu identity became an explicit and politicized state strategy from 1960 to 1990. The definition of the state as Hindu was increasingly challenged after 1990, culminating in the declaration of secularism in the aftermath of the civil war (1996–2006). The dominant position of Hindu high castes (Bahuns and Chhetris) has remained, however, and support for a Hindu state remains high. This support is sustained by recurrent arguments, many borrowed from India, that reposition the Hindu majority as an embattled community. The new constitution of 2015 reflects conflicting understandings of and struggles over secularism. It simultaneously institutionalizes a clear shift in the understanding of Hinduism. Hinduism is today beginning to be conceptualized as one religion among equals, and a personal choice, rather than as a collective and inherited identity.

Caste and Contemporary Hindu Society

This chapter investigates the complex issue of caste and its relationship to modern Hinduism. It starts by drawing up a broad canvas of classical theories about caste from sociology and anthropology, considering caste in relation to the Sanskritic concepts of varna and jati. The authors then move on to the emergence of caste in its modern form in the colonial period and post-colonial period. The chapter’s discussion of the emergence of a modern conception of caste in the colonial period converges with what has been discussed concerning the ‘invention’ or ‘standardization’ of Hinduism. The chapter also discusses caste in relation to post-colonial politics, and to work and occupation, tracing the transformation of caste in the face of contemporary socio-economic and political change. Hence the chapter also considers the relationship of caste with Modern Hinduism and Hindu society with reference to law and the state, Dalit politics, affirmative action, violence, and the economy.

Hinduism and New Age

One of the latest transformations of Hinduism concerns the appropriation of Western New Age influences, which in the 1990s and 2000s gave rise to a burgeoning spiritual field dominated by urban middle-class Hindus. This chapter discusses its growth and fuzzy contours and analyses its rapid growth. Drawing on psychology-inspired social theory, the chapter argues that the rapid societal changes brought about by the liberalization of India’s economy created a demand for self-development techniques that facilitated adjustment to these changes, some of which were spiritualized in the guru movements that began to mushroom. Cultivating a New Age emphasis on human oneness in a country as hierarchical and multi-religious as India makes Indian New Age stand out in at least two respects. First, by the friction between oneness, class-stratified organization, and religious philanthropy, here conceptualized as ‘patrimonial oneness’. And, secondly, by its self-conscious effort to bridge religious boundaries, though religious cosmopolitanism was difficult to accomplish in practice.

Indian Cinema and Modern Hinduism

This chapter looks at how issues of modernity and Hinduism have been treated in a key modern medium: film. Chatterjee looks closely at several important Indian films that all reveal changing ideas on the place of Hinduism in modern India. Several of these films are historical. For instance, Rammohun Roy, the subject of Killingley’s chapter, is the hero in the 1965 film bearing his name. It shows the reformer as an enlightened man fighting social ills, insisting that Hinduism should exist peacefully with Islam. According to Chatterjee, the portrayal also glosses over several other, and important, aspects of his life. The social and religious movements of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries inspired a large body of Indian films in the early decades of Indian cinema, and these are one of the main foci of Chatterjee’s chapter.

Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and Modern Hinduism

This chapter looks at the contributions of Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay (1838–94), an important Bengali intellectual and writer, and discusses his key writings relevant to modern Hinduism. Bankimchandra was primarily an author—and not an organization-builder—and it was through his writings that he influenced younger generations of Hindu reformers and Indian nationalists. Bankimchandra merits a chapter in this volume not least because of his early and sophisticated attempts to define Hinduism, and, as Harder highlights, his reinterpretation of dharma as both equivalent and counter-concept to ‘religion’, as well as his claim of inherent spirituality and tolerance being distinctive features of Hinduism.

Introduction Modernity and Hinduism

The introduction presents some of the most important conceptual and historical questions related to the study of modern Hinduism. It explains the historical limitations used in this volume and why we exclude a number of movements, ideas, and practices in Hinduism in order to keep the focus on what is new. It discusses the argument that Hinduism is an entity created by colonial scholarship rather than an indigenous category and it looks at the role of some important Hindu leaders and organizations in the development of a modern concept of Hinduism as a world religion. It also presents a discussion of how modernity standardizes culture, language, and religion and what this means for the study of modern Hinduism. Finally, the introduction briefly presents the main argument of each of the chapters in this volume.

Hindu Law in Modern Times

Covering the colonial period and modern India, this examination of the complex relationship between law and religion focuses on the impacts of state legal regulation of Hindu law in India. A key question in this chapter is to what extent colonial and postcolonial legal interventions over time have turned ‘Hindu law’ into something far removed from the lived realities of India’s Hindu population. As many Hindus of various kinds in India continue to live by customary norms and ethics, rather than following modern state law, significant discrepancies between the formal law and the ‘living law’ of Hindus are manifest, forcing the law to adjust to society, rather than driving its development. This indicates that ‘the right law’ for India today is a culture-specific, deeply pluralist construct with Hindu elements, a hybrid entity continuously challenged to prove that it is a ‘good law’.

Online Hinduism

Technological change is a fundamental element of modernity, and an exploration of modern Hinduism must take seriously the role of technology in religious transformation. While the nineteenth century saw the introduction of the printing press as a new tool for mass mobilization, the Internet has become the technological platform for religious innovation and transformation since the last decade of the twentieth century. This chapter gives an introduction to the topic of Hinduism online. It starts by giving a brief overview of the short history of Hinduism online, with the first movements and temples establishing a presence on the World Wide Web from the mid-1990s. Focusing on the core concept of pūjā, the chapter argues that online Hinduism and the wider Hindu tradition are so closely linked that it makes little sense to see the online and the offline as separate realms. In fact, online Hinduism is an integral part of contemporary Hinduism, and the Internet has already spurred interesting questions and dilemmas of theology and religious authority in the Hindu tradition and will certainly continue to do so.

Hindu Pilgrimage and Modern Tourism

Tourism as we know it is a product of modernity, but what happens when tourism meets the ancient Hindu tradition of pilgrimage? This chapter shows how Indian modernity has stimulated Hindu pilgrimage in multiple ways and how modern tourism has helped it grow in popularity. The tourism industry has introduced travel agencies, hotels, tourist guides, and guidebooks to the pilgrimage sites and routes, and these have to some extent caused a decrease in the demand for traditional ritual services. Pilgrims spend less time at one particular site and often expect to combine pilgrimage with other types of travel, such as sightseeing or visiting theme parks. In the face of these changes, some priests have adapted by collaborating with tourist agencies and drivers, joining the tourism trade and catering to foreign tourists. A modern literary genre has emerged combining elements of the traditional pilgrimage texts with modern tourist information. The Indian state is a major player in shaping the operation of Hindu pilgrimage under the banner of tourism development.