Capitalism in India

• Nanda 2008 - God and Globalisation: examines the role of Hinduism, religion of 85% of population and examines the rise of the new Hindu ‘ultra-nationalism’ 
• Globalisation has created a huge and prosperous scientific education, urban middle class in India working in IT, Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology. Secularisation theory predicts that they are the class most affected by secularisation. 
• Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 2007: Indians are becoming more religious. Only 5% said that their religiosity declined in the last 5 years and 30% said they had become more religious. ‘Urban educated Indians are more religious than their rural and illiterate counterparts’. 
• Dramatic growth of religious tourism reflects rise in religiosity
• Middle class religiosity attracted to once low-status village gods instead of the Hindu ‘great gods’ as they appear more responsive. 
• Increasingly religiosity is the result of their ambivalence to their new found wealth 
• Ambivalence stems from a tension between the renunciation of materialism and worldly desires which is resolved through modern holy men and tele-gurus who preach that their desire is not bad but that consumerism can be ‘spiritually balanced’ by paying for elaborate rituals 
• Nanda 2003: modern hinduism legitimates a triumphant version of indian nationalism. Indian success in the global market is attributed to the superiority of ‘hindu values’. Hinduism has become a civil religion
• Pew Global Attitude Survey: 93% of Indians agreed that ‘our people are not perfect, but our culture is superior to others’