Toward a South Asian Critical Theory of Religion: Anekāntavāda, Marxist Ideology-Critique, and Kabir’s Anti-Caste Poetics

This article reconstructs Jain anekāntavāda (the doctrine that reality is many-sided), Marxist ideology-critique, and Kabir’s Sant vernacular philosophy as a shared Indian genealogy of critical theory. These traditions offer tools for questioning hierarchy and epistemic authority. Anekāntavāda’s discipline of qualified assertion functions as a political epistemology that challenges scriptural absolutism and caste ideology. Marxist analysis anchors this critique in the material reproduction of power, illuminating how caste and class are legitimated through religious and ideological apparatuses. Kabir’s vernacular poems translate epistemic pluralism and structural critique into subaltern praxis, articulating anti-caste and anti-sectarian visions accessible beyond textual elites. Through close textual analysis, the article argues that South Asian religious and philosophical traditions are producers of critique in their own right.