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UPSC 2021 GS-I · 10 marks · 150 words

Evaluate the nature of the Bhakti Literature and its contribution to Indian culture.

What “Evaluate” demands

judge worth against stated criteria and reach a verdict, saying what the criteria are.

The characteristic failure: listing merits and demerits without ever weighing them or concluding.

What a top answer must contain

These are the checkable specifics from the marking standard for this question — the actual case, committee, datum or thinker, not an instruction to “give examples”.

  • Nature: vernacular, devotional, anti-ritualist, oral-performative; nirguna (Kabir, Nanak) vs saguna (Tulsi, Mira, Surdas)
  • Made literary languages: Hindi (Ramcharitmanas), Marathi (Dnyaneshwari), Punjabi (Adi Granth), Bengali padavali
  • Social contribution: caste critique from within, women's voice (Mira, Akka Mahadevi, Lal Ded), Sufi-Bhakti syncretism
  • Downstream culture: kirtan-bhajan performance traditions; nationalism's later devotional idiom

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