The Word of Guest Editor

When Dr. Miroljub Jevtic, the Editor-in-Chief of the prestigious journal Politics and Religion published by the Centre for Study of Religion and Religious Tolerance, Belgrade, Serbia invited me to guest edit its special issue of the journal focusing on " Politics and Religion in India " , my initial reaction to accepting this challenging responsibility was not favorable since I never though I had the requisite specialized expertise either in political sociology or in sociology of religion or else in the interface and interplay of politics and religion. However, friendly persuasion and persistence of Dr. Jevtic and his reminding me that I have already put in the word of guest editor to their issue on " Secularism versus Religion " way back in 2009, I was hardly left with any other option but to accept his invitation. To begin with, I was reluctant to accept this prestigious offer knowing well that in spite of the continuous play and interface between politics and religion in India where all sorts of political parties exist with very different ideological orientations having no inhibition in justifying the use of religion for their political benefits and fortunes, it would not be easy to have a good number of contributions for this special issue since at this moment not many senior sociologists are engaged in these areas of research in spite of their utmost importance. However, quite a few very senior and other scholars of sociology who had been engaged and are still working on these issues, accepted my invitation to contribute papers in order to help me realize this invitation. I am thankful to all of them. It is a matter of great pleasure and honor for me that this particular issue of Politics and Religion is entirely devoted to some of the important aspects of society, polity and religion in India. The aspects covered in this special issue are important not only historically but also in the contemporary context. Whatever has been included in this volume will certainly provide a window to the world, and more so to the European particularly to the East European and Balkan sociologists to have a glimpse of the contemporary Indian scenario mainly in the context of politics and religion, their interplay and particularly the construction of varied identities based on religion and other social factors such as caste, community and gender. C.N. Venugopal in his paper " Polity, …