HOW BHAKTI MOMENT WAS STARTED IN 7 CENTURY
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Answer: In northern India, from the 13th to the 17th centuries, a large number of poets flourished who were all Bhakti figures of considerable importance. At times, speaking of a formless god, sometimes centring their devotion on a preferred god (ishtdevata), these poets have left behind a considerable body of literature in Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Punjabi, Maithili and a number of other languages.
Kabir, the renowned saint of northern India, falls squarely in this tradition of singer-songwriter-critic. Living in the 13th and 14th centuries (the exact dates are disputed, but fall between 1398 and 1518), Kabir upturned the religious notions and social conventions of his time.
Kabir preached a monotheism that appealed directly to the poor and assured them of their access to god without an intermediary. He rejected both Hinduism and Islam, as well as empty religious rituals, and denounced hypocrisy. This outraged the orthodox gentry.
The Bhakti movement empowered the underbelly of Indian society in fundamental ways and also provided the required impetus for the growth of vernacular literature. This tradition of those deemed “low” singing and writing did not, however, end with the Bhakti movement comingling into the mainstream.
In 2011 in Pune, Sheetal Sathe and her husband Sachin Mali, along with two others—all with the Kabir Kala Manch—were arrested for Naxal links and also had charges of sedition slapped on them. The group had been formed in the wake of the Gujarat riots in 2002 and had performed songs and plays about social inequality, the exploitation of the labour class, farmer suicides, female infanticide, Dalit killings and corruption.