The making of a modern temple and a Hindu city : Kālīghāṭ and Kolkata

"This book is about what temples do for Hindus in the modern era, particularly those who belong to India’s diverse and evolving middle classes. While many excoriate these sites as emblematic of all that is backward about Hinduism and India, many others work to modernize them so that they might become emblems of a proud heritage and of the nation’s future. I take Kālīghāṭ Temple, a powerful pilgrimage site dedicated to the dark goddess Kālī, in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) as a case study in the phenomenon by which middle-class Hindus work to modernize temples. At the height of the colonial era in the 1890s, they wrote books and articles attaching this temple to both rationalist and spiritual forms of Hinduism. In the middle decades of the twentieth century, they filed and adjudicated lawsuits to secularize and democratize its management structure. Today, in the wake of India’s economic liberalization, they work to gentrify Kālīghāṭ’s physical spaces. The conceptual, institutional, and physical forms of this religious site are thus facets through which middle-class Hindus produce and publicize their modernity, as well as their cities’ and their nation’s. The use of Kālīghāṭ as a means to modernization is by no means uncontested. The temple plays a very different role in the lives and livelihoods of individuals from across the class spectrum. The future of this and other temples across India thus relies on complex negotiations between actors of multiple class backgrounds who read their various needs onto these sites" -- University Press Scholarship Online Kalighat is said to be the oldest and most potent Hindu pilgrimage site in the city of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). It is home to the dark goddess Kali in her ferocious form and attracts thousands of worshipers a day, many sacrificing goats at her feet. In The Making of a Modern Temple and a Hindu City, Deonnie Moodie examines the ways middle-class authors, judges, and activists have worked to modernize Kalighat over the past long century. Rather than being rejected or becoming obsolete with the arrival of British colonialism and its accompanying iconoclastic Protestant ideals, the temple became a medium through which middle-class Hindus could produce and publicize their modernity, as well as the modernity of their city and nation. That trend continued and even strengthened in the wake of India's economic liberalization in the 1990s. Kalighat is a superb example of the ways Hindus work to modernize India while also Indianizing modernity through Hinduism's material forms. Moodie explores both middle-class efforts to modernize Kalighat and the lower class's resistance to those efforts. Conflict between class groups throws into high relief the various roles the temple plays in peoples' lives, and explains why the modernizers have struggled to bring their plans to fruition. The Making of a Modern Temple and a Hindu City is the first scholarly work to juxtapose and analyze processes of historiographical, institutional, and physical modernization of a Hindu temple. Cover 1 The Making of a Modern Temple and a Hindu City 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 List of Figures 10 Acknowledgments 12 Notes on Translation and Transliteration 16 Introduction: The Temples of Modern India 18 1. Reviving and Reforming Calcutta’s Hindu Past 54 2. A Religious Institution Goes Public 84 3. Sacred Space Becomes Public Space 116 4. Resisting Middle-​Class Modernizing Projects 152 Conclusion: Bourgeoisifying Hinduisms and Hindu-​izing Cities 178 Notes 188 Bibliography 206 Index 222 Kalighat is said to be the oldest and most potent Hindu pilgrimage site in the city of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). In this book, Deonnie Moodie examines the ways middle-class authors, judges, and activists have worked to modernize Kalighat over the past long century. The Making of a Modern Temple and a Hindu City is the first scholarly work to juxtapose and analyze processes of historiographical, institutional, and physical modernization of a Hindu temple "Middle-class Hindus have worked to modernize Kālīghāṭ - the most famous Hindu temple in Kolkata - over the past long century. Rather than being rejected with the onslaught of European modernity, the temple became a facet through which Hindus could produce and publicize their modernity, as well as their cities' and their nation's"-- Provided by publisher This text is about what temples do for Hindus in the modern era, particularly those who belong to India's diverse and evolving middle classes