BACK OF THE BOOK
Colonialism. Modernity, And Religious Identities

Ed Gwilym Beckerlegge,
Oxford University Press Pages 274. Rs 650

Exploring the changing relationships between religion and the socio-political context, this volume analyses the experience of individuals and religious groups and also the movements during the colonial period and after. It critically examines the process of formulation of religious identities in South Asia. The essays also document the different ways in which the latter negotiated the challenges posed by colonial modernity.

The collection explores a number of Hindu and Muslim movements in different regions and investigates, among other things, the interpretation of religious texts, proselytization, the apologetic use of art and Hindu constructions of East and West. The issue of gender in religion is addressed through studies of both Islam and Hinduism. The contributors also engage with the uses of functionalism, Orientalism, and syncretism as analytical concepts in the study of religious phenomena.

In his introduction, Gwilym Beckerlegge reviews the changing historical scholarship on religious reform movements in South Asia. He underlines the role of new elements in the redefinition of religious identities during 19^th century and in more recent times.

The editor also discusses the relationship between the past and modernity implied by religious reform. The issues raised in this book will interest scholars and students of modern Indian history, sociology and cultural and religious studies.

A House In The Old Style

by Ananda Mukerji. Harper Collins
Pages 311. Rs 295

Youngest-Uncle, octogenarian and master storyteller, is a cherished eldest member of his deceased brother’s family and lives with his nephews, their sons, wives and grandchildren, in an old colonial mansion in Allahabad. The colourful stories of his youth, which he recounts with great flourish and comic timing, are a huge hit with the children of the house. But Swapan, his corporate son born from a late, second marriage and wary of his father’s somewhat dubious past, is home for the Durga Puja festivities and feels duty bound to take his father away with him, far from the comfort of his extended family and the courtesies of a traditional Prabasi household, to the tightly nuclear confines of his own.

A House in the Old Style is a gently humorous, elegantly understated novel about the pleasures and disappointments of an old-fashioned family with old world values from the author of the lyrical, And Where, My Friend, Lay You Hiding.

HOME