This work is an intensive study of certain facets of social and intellectual life in Bengal between 1872 and 1905, particularly Hindu revivalism. The period under discussion represents significant progress in the area of social and religious reform as well as a period which witnessed hostile attitudes towards such reforms. This is probably the first major work concerning the controversy that surrounded the Brahmo Marriage Bill of 1868–72 and the Consent Bill of 1890–92. The major source material for this book comprises contemporary Bengali literature, including essays, newspaper articles and correspondence, novels, short stories, drama, and poetry. Though this study purports to be a history of intellectual life in Bengal and the broader intellectual trends and movements, it is largely an examination of certain developments centred in or around Calcutta.

This work is an intensive study of certain facets of social and intellectual life in Bengal between 1872 and 1905, particularly Hindu revivalism. The period under discussion represents significant progress in the area of social and religious reform as well as a period which witnessed hostile attitudes towards such reforms.

What are the major Hindu ideas and traditions of India that have shaped dominant conceptions of womanhood, domesticity, wifeliness, and mothering, and of India as a Hindu nation? Tanika Sarkar analyzes literary and social traditions, the elite voices and popular culture that helped create the lived reality of north India today. She explores the proto-nationalist novels of Bankimchandra Chattopadhyaya as well as scandal literature, rumors, women's memoirs, and the popular press of colonial times for the subaltern ideas that have shaped contemporary India. Sarkar also examines the way earlier Indian religious traditions of saintliness, sacrifice, heroism, and warfare are being subverted or transformed by militant and fundamentalist forms of Hinduism.

This book examines nineteenth-century religious movements and discourses in India. Concentrating on the philosophy propounded by Swami Vivekananda, the book explores the relation between nationalism and modernity in a colonial world.

The author charts the rise of Bauls to their present iconic status as minstrels and mystics.

Conntributors to this volume tackle the question of how to define the contours of current religious fundamentalism, examining the private & public postures of fundamentalist rhetoric, the importance of its regional variants, & the damage it can do to regional & national educaton systems.

Hinduism in the Modern World presents a new and unprecedented attempt to survey the nature, range, and significance of modern and contemporary Hinduism in South Asia and the global diaspora. Organized to reflect the direction of recent scholarly research, this volume breaks with earlier texts on this subject by seeking to overcome a misleading dichotomy between an elite, intellectualist "modern" Hinduism and the rest of what has so often been misleadingly termed "traditional" or "popular" Hinduism. Without neglecting the significance of modern reformist visions of Hinduism, this book reconceptualizes the meaning of "modern Hinduism" both by expanding its content and by situating its expression within a larger framework of history, ethnography, and contemporary critical theory. This volume equips undergraduate readers with the tools necessary to appreciate the richness and diversity of Hinduism as it has developed during the past two centuries.