Secularism, Religiosity and Popular Culture: Chennai's Roadside Temples

by U Kalpagam

(Economic and Political Weekly
November 4, 2006)

This paper is an ethnographic essay dealing with various facets of religiosity, urban communities and roadside temples even as it raises larger issues on the secularisation of Indian society. Its central argument is that the notion of “multiple modernities” may provide a framework to understand the flourish of contemporary religiosity as it accords a role to tradition in the shaping of the modernisation process. In the specific context of Hindu communities, the sanskritisation process works conjointly with the secularisation process. The paper also suggests some possibility for rethinking the notion of popular culture as well.