Religious governance of the everyday life: an ethnographic inquiry of Barpeta Satra in Assam

Abstract

How does the social and cultural economy of collective governance embedded through a religious organisation shape the contours of everyday life? When social life is full of regulations based on aspects of castes, class, gender, and religion, how do we distinguish them from narratives of legal centralism? Is there a difference at all when norms, practices, and regulations inherently become part of social life? Hence, the paper examines how religious organisations provide groups a system of self-governance, facilitating the process of reclaiming and empowering their everyday cultural and social identities. Based on an ethnographic inquiry, the paper analyses the Barpeta Satra, a neo-Vaishnavite religious institution, in Assam at the intersection of deliberative freedom, alternative governance, and a religious public sphere. The Barpeta Satra has devised a peculiar system of self-governance through its process of initiation (Saran Lowa), network of settlements (Hatis), membership rights (Bhag Lowa), and reconciliation committees (Sabhas). The paper argues that such a system of self-governance leads to an (social) order that reinforces (moral) forces, providing symbolic representation to the (authoritative) bonds that connect or censor individual members in the community.