ABSTRACT
As subjects for scholarly analysis, the non-Brahman movements of southern and western India have never really been satisfactorily integrated into any of the fields of interest which presently comprise modern South Asian studies. With the decline of their interest in religious reform, and their transformation into political parties, non-Brahmans seem equally inappropriate as objects of study for those interested in religious reform movements. The chapter focuses on two problems which arise at political activity at the level of local communities and illustrates these with examples both of Congress and of Satyashodhak efforts at popular mobilization. The first is that of the role of the local community, the collective context in which most people lived their lives, in shaping the ways in which they participated in political activity. The second problem is how we are to relate the everyday values and assumptions shared at this level of local and popular culture to the more familiar ideological preoccupations of political elites.
