Max Weber, the beggar and the political in India: or when the non-puritan generates non-violence

Abstract

Under the gaze of Max Weber and in the wake of his theory with that of Louis Dumont’s, we analyze how the ancient Indian context and imaginary present us with possibilities of coexistence between violence and "non-violence", between the irrationality of the world and the disdain for the ethics of fraternity and the eagerness for wealth, without endangering the "salvation" or liberation of the soul. This summarily characterizes the violent and the nonviolent actions on the same level: vocational, depending on the context and on the social agents involved. In this case, there are two specific agents: the intellectual mendicant br?hma?a and the violent politician; the latter, directed by the former to coexist with ideas and actions of nonviolence. We demonstrate, thus, how the strength of the established hierarchy in caste society, along with the imaginaries surrounding it, were able to sacralize seemingly contradictory actions.