Melting Pot and Salad Bowl: Notes on Multi-cultural India
Malavika Menon
WAYS OF BEING INDIAN: ESSAYS ON RELIGION, GENDER AND CULTURE by Edited by Manoj Kumar Jena Speaking Tiger Books, New Delhi, 2024, 317 pp., INR ₹ 499.00
June 2025, volume 49, No 6

Academicians demonstrate gratitude, appreciation and affection by and through their scholarly contributions. The edited volume under review titled Ways of Being Indian: Essays on Religion, Gender and Culture is one such endeavour put together and published in honour of Professor Renuka Singh who retired from Jawaharlal Nehru University.

The volume is also in honour of India, albeit a critical one, at a time of heightened nationalism, jingoism, populism and patriotism. Ways of Being Indian celebrates India in all its facets, the progressive and regressive; the spiritual-secular aspect; gender and caste; urban-rural and diaspora. A collection of 14 essays with an Introduction by the editor Manoj Kumar Jena, the volume serves as a much-needed input to reiterate the diversity that defines being Indian.

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