PDF Poverty and the Quest for Life: Spiritual and Material Striving in Rural India by Bhrigupati Singh in History

Description

The Indian subdistrict of Shahabad; located in the dwindling forests of the southeastern tip of Rajasthan; is an area of extreme poverty. Beset by droughts and food shortages in recent years; it is the home of the Sahariyas; former bonded laborers; officially classified as Rajasthan’s only “primitive tribe.” From afar; we might consider this the bleakest of the bleak; but in Poverty and the Quest for Life; Bhrigupati Singh asks us to reconsider just what quality of life means. He shows how the Sahariyas conceive of aspiration; advancement; and vitality in both material and spiritual terms; and how such bridging can engender new possibilities of life. Singh organizes his study around two themes: power and ethics; through which he explores a complex terrain of material and spiritual forces. Authority remains contested; whether in divine or human forms; the state is both despised and desired; high and low castes negotiate new ways of living together; in conflict but also cooperation; new gods move across rival social groups; animals and plants leave their tracks on human subjectivity and religiosity; and the potential for vitality persists even as natural resources steadily disappear. Studying this milieu; Singh offers new ways of thinking beyond the religion-secularism and nature-culture dichotomies; juxtaposing questions about quality of life with political theologies of sovereignty; neighborliness; and ethics; in the process painting a rich portrait of perseverance and fragility in contemporary rural India.