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Abstract
This chapter explores the dynamics of the local/global networks in two religious movements – Svadhyaya and Tablighi Jamaat – using ethnographic accounts from Gujarat. The movements' theology of reform is based on the claim that to change one's moral and spiritual status one needs to change the world around and vice versa. The volunteers periodically embark on self-transformative religious journeys to approach their co-religionists with their message. The chapter dwells on how the soteriological questions are posed in the movements and the method of religious journeying that acts as a double-edged process of self-transformation and organizational expansion. Locating the movements within the discursive field of secularism in the Indian context, I will problematize the concept of ‘apolitical’ movements, arguing that whether a movement is political or apolitical is not necessarily a question of choice that religious groups make but they acquire political significance under certain circumstances. The ethnography of the movements in Gujarat spanning almost a decade (2000--2009) will help us to appreciate the internal theological questions that lead to the formation of new religious communities, religious networks and the relation of these movements with the wider political context.
Notes
1. To protect the identity of the informants, pseudonyms, instead of the real names of the volunteers have been used in this essay.
2. The term soteriological refers to the theory of salvation that is specific to a particular religion.
3. Fernandez, ‘African Religious Movements’.
4. Evans-Pritchard, The Sanusi of Cyrenaica.
5. Kaviraj, Wahabi and Farazi Rebels of Bengal.
6. Ronald Robertson writes that Weber himself relinquished much of his interest in church/sect dichotomy as he ‘moved Eastward’ (Robertson, ‘Church-Sect and Rationality’, 198). There has been a paucity of both theoretical debates as well as ethnographic accounts regarding the study of the sectarian phenomenon in Hinduism. A.M. Shah has pointed out that the ethnography of sects did not receive as much attention during the colonial period and the situation did not improve much after independence (Shah, ‘Sects and Indian Social Structure’). An effort was made in the 1970s and early 1980s to show the ‘dissent, protest and reform’ aspect of religious movements but despite rich discussion on particular movements, there has not been sustained theoretical work on sects (see Malik, Indian Movements). There are a few sociological studies on sects but they do not necessarily pursue the theoretical debates within the sociology of sects. They seek to explore the protean nature of Hinduism; and how it grapples with the question of modernity; the relation between caste and sect. Commenting on the Pusti Marga and the Svaminarayan sects in Gujarat, David Pocock has argued that the paradox that lies in the rejection of caste in the institution of sannyās is more apparent than real as the sect that is formed around the renouncer corrupts the world-rejecting ideal. Therefore, the fellowship of sect preserves and continues the fellowship that was earlier provided by caste but now with a spirit of egalitarianism (Pocock, Mind, Body and Wealth, 95, 158). In Lawrence Babb's study of three contemporary religious sects, the main concern has been the Hindu tradition's ability to generate multiple interpretations within a common frame of reference. It is not the ‘modernity’ of these movements but their protean character that the author has drawn attention to (Babb, Redemptive Encounters). Maya Warrior in her study of the Mata Amritanandamayi Mission has focused on how individuals construct and grapple with the phenomenon of modernity. Her focus is not so much on sects but on the ‘constructed’ nature of Hindu selves in the lives of a globalizing middle class (Warrior, Hindu Selves in a Modern World, 15–20).
7. Weber, ‘The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism’, 302–22.
8. It has been pointed out that spiritually as well as intellectually, Maulana Muhammad Ilyas belonged to the Deoband school of thought, which was founded after the Great Revolt in 1857 to preserve the religious and cultural heritage of the Muslims in the Indian sub-continent (Faruqi, ‘The Tablighi Jamaàt’, 61). Pandurang Shastri Athavale, the founder of the Svadhyaya movement, was a Brahman and a scholar of religious texts (śastras). He delivered religious exegesis (pravacans) on the Vedas, Upanisads, and the Bhagavad-Gīta in three vernacular languages in downtown Mumbai.
9. An account of the history of the Movement in Mewat, Bangladesh and Britain is given by Yoginder Sikand (Sikand, The Origins and Development of the Tablighi-Jamaat).
10. S. Zainuddin notes that this overemphasis on the importance of namāz in Tablighi Jamaat has been a point of criticism. The critics of Tabligh argue that they have reduced Islam to merely namāz (Zainuddin, ‘Economic Internationalization and Islamic Resurgence in India’).
11. Faruqi, ‘The Tablighi Jama‘at’; Marwah, ‘Tabligh Movement Among the Meos of Mewat’; Zainuddin, ‘Economic Internationalization and Islamic Resurgence in India’.
12. Kandhalvi, Fazail-i-Amal, 78.
13. Cited in Troll, ‘Two Conceptions of Da'wá in India’, 118.
14. Interview, Mumbai, October 2004.
15. Interview, Surat city, March 2001.
16. Durkheim, Elementary Forms of Religious Life.
17. Shilling and Mellor, ‘Durkheim, Morality and Modernity’, 196.
18. Durkheim, Elementary Forms of Religious Life, 277.
19. Interview with Tablighi Jamaat leader, Gandhinagar, October 2009. It was also pointed out to me that in recent years the Gujarati leadership at Nizamuddin has declined as many of the leaders have died and aged.
20. Interview, Surat city, July 2001.
21. Women go around in their neighbourhood and outside their home they wear the burkhā. Zarinaben who participated in these tālīm sessions explained that it is their duty to be in burkhā. It was better that way because otherwise we do not know the nature of the male gaze (nazar). In actual practice, however, I had come across women who did not wear the burkhā. Ayeshaben the divorced daughter of the maulavi cited personal discomfort as the reason for not wearing one.
22. Sikand has noted that these reading sessions act not only as pedagogic device but also serve as an incentive for the listeners to strengthen their own faith and ritual practice (Sikand, Origins and Development of the Tablighi-Jamaat, 74).
23. Metcalf, ‘Islam and Women’.
24. Zainuddin, ‘Some Aspects of Society and Culture’.
25. Tablighi Jamaat's annual meetings are held for 3 days at Raiwand in Pakistan and Tungi in Bangladesh where at least 2 million people congregate. In January 2002, it was reported that about four million people had gathered from around the world in Bangladesh where religious scholars delivered religious sermons explaining the greatness of Islam, how they shunned violence and promoted peace. Later the congregation prayed for world peace (Islamonline and News Agencies, ‘Millions of Muslims Gather to Pray for World Peace’).
26. Mayaram, Resisting Regimes, 223–4.
27. For accounts of Tablighi Jamaat activists during the aftermath of the violence of 2002 see Chakrabarti, ‘Assertive Religious Identities’, 182–7.
28. Interview, Ahmedabad, October 2000.
29. The relationship between the hardship undertaken during religious journeys and the religious merit that they accrue is well-known. Pilgrimages undertaken in groups (sangha) especially on foot is considered to be meritorious has been documented (Sopher, ‘Pilgrimage Circulation in Gujarat’, 401).
30. For a detailed account of the method of bhaktipherī see Chakrabarti, ‘Rituals, Re-birth and the Emergent Congregation’, 55–8.
31. Fieldnotes, Ahmedabad city, June 2000.
32. Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India, 354.
33. Mahmood, ‘Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and the Docile Agent’; Mahmood, Politics of Piety.
34. Chakrabarti, ‘Judicious Succession and Judicial Religion’.
35. Interview with Ayesha Khan, journalist with the Indian Express, Vadodara city, July 2004.
36. While D.E. Smith's position would be representative of the former perspective the latter viewpoint has been argued succinctly by T.N. Madan (Smith, India as a Secular State; Madan, ‘Secularism’).
37. Mahajan, ‘Secularism’.
38. Interview, Ahmedabad city, December 2008.
39. Interview, Gandhinagar, October 2009.
40. Barbara Metcalf's work on the Tablighi Jamaat offers one of the most nuanced interpretation of the movement and she has emphasized how the significance of Tabligh is weighed in relation to the state, a perspective of no relevance to Tablighis’ own view of their activities (Metcalf, ‘New Medinas’). In the ‘secular’ media, however, terms such as ‘ultra Right’, ‘fundamentalist’ and ‘militant’ have merged into each other with dangerous fluidity (see Swami, ‘Godhra Question’).