Bringing Krishna Back to India

Review

"In this richly-textured and readable ethnography of the ISKCON community in Mumbai, India, Claire C. Robison offers us an insightful take on the globalization of a religious movement. In exploring how religious revivalism changes people's relationships to their religion, family, culture, and nation, Robison innovatively argues that ISKCON educates Hindus into a new cosmopolitan vision of their own tradition. This provocative and lively lesson in religious originality has applications and implications far beyond India and should be read by all students of religion and globalization." - Tulsai Srinivas, Emerson College,"With care and nuance, Claire C. Robison follows the diverse members of the ISKCON temple community-with a white American guru at their head-as they define themselves at the cutting edge of a transnational, twenty-first-century Hinduism. From the worldly to the spiritual, the hi-tech to the traditional, the global to the familial and national, ISKCON's teachers must resolve the dilemmas confronting upwardly mobile young metropolitan Indians. From their answers, Robison derives questions that will speak to scholars of Hinduism, of urban India, and beyond." - William Elison, University of California, Santa Barbara,"Using extensive research conducted with devotee networks, Claire C. Robison expertly leads readers into the everyday lives of those who embrace ISKCON's religious conservatism against prevailing currents of liberal values and secular ideas of success and happiness. By analyzing diverse resources, including social media platforms that feature monks-turned-wellness gurus gaining celebrity status, Robison captures the rich texture of religion in practice. She includes engaging accounts of devotees' personal and professional struggles with leaving behind social norms to emphasize religious piety. Robison renders transparent the gravitas of ISKCON's 'rhetoric of revivalism,' pioneering a thoroughly intersectional approach to studying religion and globalization in contemporary contexts." - Antoinette DeNapoli, Texas Christian University,"Bringing Krishna Back to India examines the place of this globalized religious community in Mumbai, India's business and entertainment capital, where ISKCON draws Indians from diverse regional and religious backgrounds and devotees adopt a conservative religious identity amidst a neoliberal urban context. Claire C. Robison examines the full-circle globalization of this religious movement and considers how religious revivalism shifts people's relationships to their religion, family, culture, and nation." - Jennifer Ortegren, Reading Religion,"This book serves as a description of the way in which the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) grew from a North American religious community to a major force in Hindu revivalism in India. At times dense, the book presents fascinating research on a unique religious movement." - P. Rowe, Choice