Stone Beads of South and Southeast Asia: Archaeology, Ethnography and Global Connections

Abstract

terize most of popular Hindu worship. Finally, in the conclusion, Ramos brings the discussion of pilgrimage, politics, and nationalism up to the present by examining the rhetoric of right-wing politicians in the twenty-first century. Perhaps most importantly, she highlights Narendra Modi’s remarkable creation of a new spiritual tourist destination at Gabbar Hill in Gujarat, where replicas of all fifty-one shakti pithas have been constructed at a single site. As such, the pithas continue to play a key role in the imaging of the nation, in the politics of Hindutva, and in the literal attempt to re-integrate the body of ‘Mother India.’ Overall, Ramos’ book is a compelling read and an important contribution to our larger understanding of the complex intersections between religion, politics, sacred space, pilgrimage, and national identity. She brings together an outstanding collection of visual images with a number of key historical sources in order to shed important light on the rise of nationalist consciousness during this key period. Perhaps the one weakness with this book is simply that it is so short and so narrowly focused. At 126 pages, the book is tightly written and precisely argued, but there are many places where the reader will simply want more – more historical evidence (for example, in the chapter on Kamakhya) and more case studies beyond these three sites in the northeast (how, for example, did the other forty-eight major pithas play into this nationalist narrative? Do they support or challenge her analysis of these three sites in Bengal and Assam? And what of the pithas that lie outside the boundaries of the modern Indian nation, such as those in Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh)? But despite this weakness, Pilgrimage and Politics in Colonial Bengal is an important book that should be of genuine interest to anyone interested in the study of pilgrimage, sacred space, religious nationalism, and modern Indian history.