This book is a reinterpretation of the dynamics of India from ancient times to the present. The author presents India’s multiple traditions with attention to the religious ways open to the socially excluded, practiced by the Bhakti poets and musicians from at least the thirteenth century AD. While analysing the complexity and burden of the caste system, that appears as an age-old social law of the jungle, the author finds that it also incited a long-standing tradition of social rebellion and counter-positioning to balance the dominant currents and norms. The author traces the social glaciation of India under British occupation with the emergence of the maharajas and collaboration of sections of India’s elites in the colonization process. He also touches the political awakening of Indians with the Independence Movement and the tragedy of Partition.
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