Shivani Bothra
My thesis on the Anuvrat Movement is comprised of six chapters. The current chapter introduces the main ideas and the goals of the thesis, its significance and the methodologies employed in order to accomplish the goals. Chapter 2 reviews the movement from a historical perspective. In the light of the interviews conducted with mendicants and the laity, it provides an account of the circumstances in which the movement emerged, along with an outline of its origin, evolution and its expansion.
Chapter 3 investigates how the Anuvrat Movement is in compatible with the Gandhian legacy of nonviolence like many other post-independence movements. Thus, I employed a comparative methodology to analyze the Anuvrat Movement in the light of other pan-Indic movements such as the Sri Lankan Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement and the Bhoodan Movement. All these comparison is crucial to my analysis as it seeks to find out the role of meditation and the place of monks and nuns within these movements. Chapter 4 introduces each of the 11 vows and provides the perspectives of ascetics and the laity as developed through the structured and non-structured interviews. It analyzes the vows in contemporary Indian circumstances. Chapter 5 is the analysis of the social survey conducted in India among a convenience sample of 200 Indians. The 30 questions in the survey were designed to examine the present effectiveness of the vows and analyze the attitude and behavior of the Anuvratis as compared to the non-Anuvratis. The second part of the analysis is derived from the interviews conducted in the Jain diaspora of North America regarding the diasporic Jain attitude towards a Jain inspired movement. I inquired to see whether the movement really has secular characteristics, broad appeal and individual and social relevance across boundaries. Chapter 6 concludes the study with an analysis of the overall implications of my research.
