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There are several common approaches to understanding religious conversion and correspondingly various ways of responding to it: as change, as subversion, as atrocity, as freedom. In our pluri-religious society, all of these must be contained in our Constitutional democratic secularism, affirmed both as the Nehruvian dharma nirapekshata, and the Gandhian sarvadharma samabhava, equal distance, and equal respect. These common approaches are often at odds and do not present an integrated or holistic understanding. While religious commitment is essentially a matter of personal conscience and freedom of choice, it inevitably impacts other areas and levels of individual and social life. In attempting a holistic approach here, we distinguish four levels of understanding: the psycho-social, the sociocultural, the eco-political, the socio-religious. Conversion as critique is invariably associated with resistance and rebellion, dissent and protest. It includes a spectrum of possibilities both in analysis and interpretation as well as in response and action.

Resumé La spectaculaire croissance économique de l'Inde n'a pas réduit la pauvreté. Pour combler le fossé qui s'élargit entre les bénéficiaires de la mondialisation et la masse des laissés pour compte, deux visions du développement s'affrontent.

The challenges to the dominant hegemony in this land have focused on the key issues of equity and justice that underlie the quest for identity and dignity. Setting these in a more integrated and holistic context we focus on three crucial issues: caste and hierarchy, caste and class, and caste and ethnicity. We conclude with some more important leads which could be further pursued: a sub-altern hermeneutic, a new understanding of the fragmen tation and shift in our present electoral politics, and the dilemmas of intervention by the state, social movements and market mechanisms. In sum, subaltern alternatives do repre sent a horizon of revolt and revolution, which can fuse with others to construct the identi ties and ideologies for a brave new world.

Contributed papers presented earlier at a workshop