ABSTRACT
A range of perspectives have been aired, from a strictly anti-religion position, to standpoints affirming of religion though critical of particular interpretations, practices and claims regarding it. The exchanges have been polite, only fleetingly combative. Once religious practice is seen to self-evidently consolidate religious identity, then practice can be nothing other than the demonstration and affirmation of religious identity. Practitioners manifest a bewilderingly complex array of relationships to religious institutions, practices and knowledges. Dalits have been at the very core of the subcontinent’s cultural and artistic life: its painters, musicians, story tellers, weavers, craftsmen, actors. Their role in religious life is not exhausted by the circumscribed place accorded to them by a caste-conscious hinduism. The similarities, differences, specificities, tensions and contradictions of religious life in a society structured by caste invite our dispassionate attention. Religion continued to be the elephant in the room imposing, perplexing, singular; a threat to the very idea of justice.
