Peasants and Monks in British India

Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction: Peasants, Monks and Indian history. 2. Indian Sadhus and Shudras. 3. Ramanand and Ramanandis. 4. Conversion of Vaishnava into Kshatriya. 5. Culture, conflict, and violence in Gangetic India. 6. British India 1800-1858. 7. Ethnic and religious identities in British India. Bibliography. Index.

"A Monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, the conditioning of mind and body in favor of the spirit, and does so living either alone or with any number of like-minded people, whilst always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose. A peasant is an agricultural worker who subsists by working a small plot of ground. There were free and unfree peasants. Free peasants could leave the manor as they wished. Unfree peasants had to buy their way out of the manor by paying their lord. During the British period the Monks and Peasants faced hard times. The book is an outcome of serious efforts on part of the author to walk into the existing conditions of Peasants and Monks during British Period. The book also lightens the policies followed by the Britishers towards them. It is a landmark work by the author in the respected field. Worth reading by students, teachers, researchers and scholars." (jacket)