Chapter 4, on page 99 of Zitzewitz’s book The Art of Secularism begins with a quote by painter Gulam¬mohammed Sheikh where he says, ‘in one sense it is the communal situation that opened doors to understand the role of reli¬gion in life. Then you are told who you are. Until then, you are an artist.’ Unlike the be¬ginnings of so many chapter fours of so many other texts, this statement—almost half way into the book, hauntingly accompanies the reader for the rest of the hundred and odd pages, as much as it proves to be a pivotal moment to reflect on the ninety-eight page journey undertaken till now. Sheikh’s words in many ways capture the problematic that the author grapples with, the slant of her arguments and the ‘normative secularity’.
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Malvika Maheshwari
THE ART OF SECULARISM: THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF MODERNIST ART IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA by Karin Zitzewitz Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2015, 206 pp., 1795
July 2015, volume 39, No 7