ABSTRACT
In particular, in the last 60 years, there has been a change in terms of who ordinary local Yadavs worship, how they worship and who they believe to be their direct ancestors/protectors. This chapter focuses on the cult of a lineage deity and its transformation into a Krishna cult. It discusses that the study of Yadav kuldevta cults, which incorporate dimensions found in hero cults, bhakti cults and cults of 'great' gods, simultaneously highlights tensions within contemporary Hinduism, processes of caste substantialisation and democratic politics, and importantly, offer a privilege window to explore how 'democracy' has been vernacularised into the realm of popular religion. In Sadar Bazaar, the pollution barrier between clean caste communities and unclean castes is a lively social reality. A number of hierarchical transactional relations still exist between local Yadavs and low castes.
