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Religious Piety in Islam and Contemporary India
Religion and Secularities: Reconfiguring Islam in Contemporary India edited by Sudha Sitharaman and Anindita Chakrabarti, Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan, 2020; pp 240, ₹795 (hardback).
It should not be surprising that the rise of new forms of religious nationalism since the late 1970s and a renewed interest in revisiting the idea of secularism has been the central preoccupation of intellectuals interested in the study of religion. In continuity, religious nationalism of the Hindu Right has gained enough traction with the academic world. It has produced some of the most original insights to understand Hinduism, Hindu nationalism, and the everyday aspect of being a Hindu. On the other hand, while much has been written on Islamic revivalism and fundamentalism, the religious aspects of the everyday life of Muslims have yet to receive adequate attention. In a broader context, Peter van der Veer (1994) argues that to study the religious aspects of movements, everyday practices, and discourses one needs to shift the focus from the political scientist’s viewpoint to the anthropologist’s study of rituals and traditions.
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