The Violation of "Dhimar": Reflections on Religion and Ecopolitics in India
In this article, I draw on archival and ethnographic research in Gujarat (India) to analyze the intersections of religion and ecopolitics. Indian society is characterized by complex patterns of religious belief and practices and by the circulation of divergent and competing understandings of nature....
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2026
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| In: |
Journal for the study of religion, nature and culture
Year: 2026, Volume: 20, Issue: 1, Pages: 88-117 |
| Further subjects: | B
Environment Religion Climate Change
B Religion B BL1-150 Religion (general) B Caste B ecopolitics B swadhyaya B India |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | In this article, I draw on archival and ethnographic research in Gujarat (India) to analyze the intersections of religion and ecopolitics. Indian society is characterized by complex patterns of religious belief and practices and by the circulation of divergent and competing understandings of nature. This plurality combined with caste and class inequalities not only contributes to the unequal distribution of the burdens of ecological destruction and climate change but also presents challenges in thinking about how religious traditions respond to our planetary crisis. In this article, I analyze the contending responses to the crisis of the swadhyaya, a predominantly upper caste Hindu reform movement and the kharwa, a subaltern caste with both Hindu and Muslim members. I argue that at stake in the encounter between swadhyaya and the kharwa are divergent conceptions of nature. Following recent scholarship on secularism (Asad 2003; Kaviraj 2010; van der Veer 2014), I argue that religious responses to our planetary crisis are shaped by how religious traditions have been compelled to redefine prior conceptions of nature due to the demands of a secularizing and modernizing state. |
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| ISSN: | 1749-4915 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal for the study of religion, nature and culture
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1558/jsrnc.28769 |
