title: Relating Spirituality and Politics: Love, Marriage or Friendship?
creator: Srinivasan, Vasanthi
subject: ddc-200
subject: 200 Religion
description: In India, we often hear that "Hindu spirituality" ought to inform and energize the Indian enactment of liberalism, secularism and democracy. In this paper, I examine the diverse ways in which three less-known Indian thinkers such as Ananda Coomaraswamy, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Chakravarti Rajagopalachari relate spirituality and politics. I argue that there are at least three visions of what spiritualized politics might look like; the first variant, amplified in Coomaraswamy, argues for a "traditional" theory of government as an imitation of cosmic order. The ruling metaphor is of a marriage between the spiritual and temporal powers with the Brahmin-priest as the exemplary spiritual figure. The second variant, exemplified in Radhakrishnan, proceeds from an experiential account of spiritual life and argues for a deepening of modern ideals of freedom and democracy through emancipatory political praxis. The ruling metaphor is love of the whole and the exemplary figure is the saint-activist. The third variant, based on Rajagopachari, proceeds from spirituality as ordinary devotion that ensues in moral virtues. Unlike the priest-husband or saint-lover who aspire to anchor politics in first principles, the mature devotee works for a "spirited" politics where reasonableness, courage and friendliness may prevail.
date: 2004
type: Working paper
type: info:eu-repo/semantics/workingPaper
type: NonPeerReviewed
format: application/pdf
identifier: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserverhttps://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/4838/1/hpsacp22.pdf
identifier: DOI:10.11588/heidok.00004838
identifier: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-heidok-48381
identifier:   Srinivasan, Vasanthi  (2004) Relating Spirituality and Politics: Love, Marriage or Friendship?  [Working paper]     
relation: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/4838/
rights: info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/help/license_urhg.html
language: eng