Reconceptualizing India Studies by Balagangadhara–a new book
What does it mean to be an Indian in this time and age? What does India have to give to the contemporary world? These overarching questions that echo in the…
Read moreComparing India and the West—S.N. Balagangadhara
[Original, published in ASIANetwork Exchange XVI (1): 57–63.] During the last two decades, I have been pursuing an unorthodox way of studying cultural differences, focusing mainly on the Indian and the western…
Read moreCourting controversy in the West
The sustained efforts by certain Hindu groups in the west to redefine and “correct” long existing Hindu traditions are perhaps reflective of their desire to put in place a cogent…
Read moreSecularism and Absence of Theory
[Published in Economic and Political Theory, 37(51):5142-5142] A text like my article on the secularism debate (EPW, September 28, 2002), is something more than a sequence of sentences. This is a…
Read moreThe Vacuity of Secularism
[Published in Economic and Political Weekly, 37: 4047-4053] On the Indian Debate and Its Western Origins The rise of Hindutva has often been interpreted as a threat to the secular state.…
Read moreThe Question of Conversion in India
[Published in Economic and Political Weekly, 40(28):3048-55] The Indian debate on religious conversion has been an ongoing one for a few centuries now. However, the mutual understanding between the advocates…
Read moreMantras of Anti-Brahmanism: Colonial Experience of Indian Intellectuals
[Published in Economic and Political Weekly, 38: 4611-17] Colonial Experience of Indian Intellectuals Opposing factions in the Orientalist-Anglicist controversy in the 19th century shared a common understanding of Indian religion…
Read moreSecularism, Colonialism and Indian Intellectuals
In the last few decades, “secularism” has become the subject of caustic debate in the Indian media. The dispute about the value of this idea to contemporary India is no…
Read moreReview of Imagining Hinduism
Review of Imaging Hinduism: A Postcolonial perspective. By Sharada Sugirtharajah. Routledge, 2003. 164 pages This book is the first of its kind to bring post-colonial perspectives into a study of Hinduism. Consequently,…
Read moreFacing the challenge of American Pluralism on the future of NRI community
In years to come, the Indian community in the U.S. will face a major challenge from American pluralism. This is the first time a powerful community of pagans has to be accommodated…
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