Urban Histories of Rajasthan: Religion, Politics and Society (1550-1800) (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781909942660)

An exploration of religious conflicts in premodern urban India.

Diverse peoples intermingled in the streets and markets of premodern Indian cities. This book considers how these diverse residents lived together and negotiated their differences. Which differences mattered, when and to whom? How did state actions and policies affect urban society and the lives of various communities? How and why did conflict occur in urban spaces? Through these questions, this book explores the histories of urban communities in the three cities of Ajmer, Nagaur, and Pushkar in Rajasthan, between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The focus of this study is on everyday life, contextualizing religious practices and conflicts by considering patterns of patronage and broader conflict patterns within society. The book examines various archival documents, from family and institutional records to state registers, and uses these documents to demonstrate the complex and sometimes contradictory ways religion intersected with politics, economics, and society. The author shows how many patronage patterns and processes persisted in altered forms, and how the robustness of these structures contributed to the resilience of urban spaces and society in precolonial Rajasthan.


Author: Elizabeth M. Thelen
ISBN-10: 1909942669
ISBN-13: 9781909942660
Publisher: Gingko Press
Language: English
Published: 06/20/2022
Pages: 261
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.20w x 1.10d