Secularism in South Asia: A Historical Analysis
Shefali Jha
HURT SENTIMENTS: SECULARISM AND BELONGING IN SOUTH ASIA by By Neeti Nair Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2023, 333 pp., USD 45.00
December 2023, volume 47, No 12

In beginning her book by repeatedly invoking the image of Gandhi’s prayer meetings as a counter to the violence of the Partition, the author is emphasizing a conception of secularism that many others have noted as specific to South Asia. At these prayer meetings, near the Hydari Manzil in Beliaghata in Calcutta,

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