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This book traces religion and secularity in eleven countries not shaped by Western Christianity (Japan, China, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Russia, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, and Morocco), and how they parallel or diverge from Charles Taylor’s grand narrative of the North Atlantic world, A Secular Age (2007). In all eleven cases, the state – enhanced by…
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Over the past two decades, thanks to Narendra Modi, Hindu nationalism has been coupled with a form of national-populism that has ensured its success at the polls, first in Gujarat and then in India at large. Modi managed to seduce a substantial number of citizens by promising them development and polarizing the electorate along ethno-religious…
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NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday offered prayers at a Matua temple in Bangladesh’s Orakandi, the birthplace of Hindu mystic figure and Matua community’s spiritual guru Harichand Thakur.
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Ravana, the demon-king antagonist from the Ramayana, the ancient Hindu epic poem, has become an unlikely cultural hero among Sinhala Buddhists over the past decade. In Ravana’s Kingdom, Justin W. Henry delves into the historical literary reception of the epic in Sri Lanka, charting the adaptions of its themes and characters from the fourteenth century…
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The growth, consolidation, and seizure of social and political power by majoritarian and populist tendencies in Indian politics have been variously examined, more so by several recent studies on the changing patterns of communal mobilisation. While on-ground, empirical research informs Nalin Mehta’s influential study (The New BJP: Modi and the Making of the World’s Largest…
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On his daily podcast, the conservative commentator and #NeverTrumper Charlie Sykes often refers to Donald Trump as “the orange god-king” and to the former president’s fervent MAGA following as a “cult.” The jibe may be intended for laughs, but it hints at a deeper truth: The neoauthoritarian leaders of the present era have more than…
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The Post-Secular in Question considers whether there has in fact been a religious resurgence of global dimensions in recent decades. This collection of original essays by leading academics represents an interdisciplinary intervention in the continuing and ever-transforming discussion of the role of religion and secularism in today’s world. Foregrounding the most urgent and compelling questions…
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Required reading at more than 100 colleges and universities throughout North America.
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Recasting the Region studies the trajectories of Muslim Bengali politics and examines the literary and cultural history of Bengali Muslims from the early twentieth century until the 1952 Language Movement. It argues that Muslim political mobilization in late colonial Bengal did not emanate from north Indian calls for a separatist ‘Muslim’ state of Pakistan, but…
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Negotiating Democracy and Religious Pluralism examines the relationship between the functioning of democracy and the prior existence of religious plurality in three societies outside the West: India, Pakistan, and Turkey. In the introduction, editors Karen Barkey, Sudipta Kaviraj, and Vatsal Naresh frame the theoretical and historical context of each country’s transition from imperial statehood to…
