The Inner Revolution: Shuddhi and the Reinvention of Hinduism

Abstract

The Shuddhi movement of the late 19th century was a religious revolutionary movement that aimed to intrinsically restructure and transform the Hinduism and Hindu society into a more socially equalized and religiously universal system. It was a quest to reconstruct Hindu religious and social identity in response to socioeconomic modernism and challenges from Christian and Islamic proselytization. The first phase of the movement lasted from the 1880s to the late 1910s and was defined by a persistent struggle with orthodox society to transform Hinduism by opening its doors to induct and assimilate returning and new converts. The second phase of Shuddhi began in the early 1920s with the emergence of a consensus between the orthodox and the Arya-led reformers, who expanded the Shuddhi movement to confront the challenges presented by Islam and Christianity; this phase ended in 1947.