In India, religion continues to be an absolutely vital source for social as well as personal identity. All manner of groups – political, occupational, and social – remain grounded in specific religious communities. This book analyses the development of the modern Hindu and Sikh communities in north India starting from about the fifteenth century, when the dominant bhakti tradition of Hinduism became divided into two currents: the saguni and the nirguni. The sagu]ni current, led mostly by Brahmins, has remained dominant in most of north India and has served as the ideological base of the development of modern Hindu nationalism. Several chapters explore the rise of this religious and political movement paying particular attention to the role played by devotion to Ram.
