The Crisis of Secularism in India
Contents: Preface. Acknowledgement. 1. Introduction/Anuradha Dingwaney Needham and Rajeswari Sunder Rajan. I. Secularism's historical background: 2. Reflections on the category of secularism in India: Gandhi Ambedkar, and the ethics of communal representation, c. 1931/Shabnum Tejani. 3. A view from the south: Ramasami's public critique of religion/Paula Richman and V. Geetha. 4. Nehru's faith/Sunil Khilnani. II. Secularism and democracy: 5. Closing the debate on secularism: a personal statement/Ashis Nandy. 6. Living with secularism/Nivedita Menon. 7. The contradictions of secularism/Partha Chatterjee. 8. The secular state and the limits of dialogue/Gyanendra Pandy. 9. Secular nationalism, Hindutva and the minority/Gyan Prakash. III. Sites of secularism: education, media and cinema: 10. Secularism, history and contemporary politics in India/Romila Thapar. 11. The Gujarat experiment and Hindu national realism: lessons for secularism/Arvind Rajagopal. 12. Secularism and popular Indian Cinema/Shyam Benegal. 13. Neither state nor faith: the transcendental significance of the cinema/Ravi S. Vasudevan. IV. Secularism and personal law: 14. Siting secularism in the Uniform Civil Code: a "Riddle Wrapped Inside an Enigma?"/Upendra Baxi. 15. The Supreme Court, the media, and the Uniform Civil Code Debate in India/Flavia Agnes. 16. Secularism and the very concept of law/Akeel Bilgrami. V. Conversion: 17. Literacy and conversion in the discourse of Hindu nationalism/Gauri Viswanathan. 18. Christian conversions, Hindutva, and secularism/Sumit Sarkar. 19. Appendix: Chronology of the career of secularism in India/Dwaipayan Sen. 20. Works cited. Contributors. Index.
"While secularism has been integral to India's democracy for more than fifty years, its uses and limits are being debated anew. Signs of a crisis in the relations between state, society, and religion include the violence against Muslims in Gujarat and the precarious situation of India's minorities more generally; personal laws that vary by religious community the affiliation of political parties with fundamentalist religious organizations; and the rallying of sections of the diasporic Hindu community behind nationalist Hinduism.
A crisis of secularism undoubtedly exists, but whether the state can resolve conflicts and ease tensions or is itself part of the problem are matters of vigorous debate. In this continuingly relevant book, twenty leading Indian intellectuals assess the contradictory ideals, policies, and practices of secularism in India.
Scholars of history, anthropology, religion, politics, law, philosophy, and media studies here consider the history of secularism in India; the relationship between secularism and democracy; and shortcomings in the categories "majority" and "minority". They examine how debates about secularism play out in schools, the media, and the popular cinema. And they address two of the most politically charged sites of crisis: personal law and the right to practice and encourage religious conversion.
Together the essays inject insightful analysis into the fraught controversy about the shortcomings and uncertain future of secularism in the world today." (jacket)
