India: some reviews of literature related to religions and development

Abstract

This review comprises of six essays aimed at the development of an inter-disciplinary framework for understanding religions and development in modern India. It was motivated by the increasing realization amongst social scientists that there is a need to take faith seriously in understanding the complexity of discourses of development, as promoted by the imperatives of democratic nation building in post-colonial India. Beginning, in the first chapter, with a contextualisation of the study of religion and development in post-colonial India, the review then moves to provide a discussion of the historical forces that shaped religion in the subcontinent; an analysis of the demographic aspects of religious communities in India; a consideration of the role of Roman-Catholic faith-based organizations (FBOs) in the provision of education; a sociological perspective on religion and development in North-east India; and, finally, an exploration of FBOs at the State level in Bihar.