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BHAKTI MOVEMENT: CHALLENGING SOCIAL INEQUALITIES AND PROMOTING EQUALITY IN INDIAN SOCIETY

ABSTRACT

The marginalised parts of Shudras and Atishudras found an important venue in the Bhakti Movement to air their concerns against the social injustices that were ingrained in the ’varna’ system, which received validity in Manusmriti and other Vedic texts. This platform was known as the Bhakti Movement. This movement was a style of socialist critique that addressed a variety of different types of social injustices. It expanded the meaning of "bhakti" beyond the confines of organised religion to include, even if only tacitly, the redemption of the individual. The Sants, who were the leaders of the movement, advocated for the rejection of superstitious beliefs and ceremonial practises as well as the promotion of the virtues of love and harmony. They promoted a society without castes and a non-hierarchical, brotherly, humanistic outlook on life as their guiding philosophy for living. The impact of Islam, in especially via the practise of Sufism, also led to the spread of the concept that people have an inherent equal standing in the world. The revolutionary shifts that took place in the Vedic worldview were a major factor in the schism that occurred within the Bhakti Movement, which resulted in the development of the Saguna and Nirguna schools of thought. Every school followed the tenets and procedures outlined in its own unique set of guiding principles. Traditions of dissent and protest reached its apex with Kabir and Nanak’s Sant Mat, in which they not only decried untouchability but also addressed the social and economic issues faced by the agricultural and labouring classes. This book is considered to be the pinnacle of the dissident and protesting traditions. This was the pinnacle of a long history of dissent and protest in India, which had been building up to this point.

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