Foreword

Summary

During the three days from 11 March to 13 March 2010, a rich and remarkable scholarly event was held on the campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. It was a major international conference devoted to a critical examination and discussion on a wide variety of the forms of religious devotion and sectarian practice and, more provocatively, to the various types of dissent that these forms have engendered over the longue durée of Indian history. The event, conceived and organized by Professor Vijaya Ramaswamy of the Centre for Historical Studies at JNU and hosted by the Centre, brought together scholars – both Indian and foreign – who were experts in many different religious and linguistic traditions as these traditions have evolved in different regions of the subcontinent from antiquity through the medieval period and down to modernity.

The conference – the papers presented at which appear in the present volume– represented an original and productive turn in the study of the history of religious movements over time in South Asia. It focused scholarly attention specifically on the frequently overlooked currents of dissent within and against several major, mainstream religious movements and organizations that are often represented as the uncontested, if not the exclusive, representatives of their respective faiths in India and throughout the Indian diaspora. In highlighting the phenomenon of dissent, the conference thus productively focused the attention of the scholars in attendance, and one would hope, of those who have the opportunity to read the present collection of the proceedings, on some less fully examined aspects of Indian religions.