Modern Religiosity and the Construction of Sacrality in Space: A study of roadside temples and e-darshans

Debates on the role of religion in public and political life grow in complexity in contemporary times. Post-colonial interactions between modernity and tradition are redefined by modern technology and its refashioning of global community links and encouraging creative forms of self-expression. Rather than retreating from an increasingly homogenised public sphere, religion enriches the Indian public sphere, complicating its politics and guiding its spatial experience. Premised upon this understanding, this paper aims to push the frontiers of scholarship on secularism and modern Hindu religious practices in the spatial contexts of roadside temples and digital spaces. I argue that, rather than solely through scriptural conventions, sacrality is invoked within the unlikeliest of spaces through the beliefs and practices of people within certain spaces upon which they choose to confer this quality. These forms of spatial praxis indicate an intensive engagement with modernity in designing faith and religiosity