Tag Archives: Religion

Litigating the past in the manner of the British created a new reality for India. It gave shape to religion and provided the bases for many a confrontation between religions and the religious-minded in this country of hundreds of personalized religions…

A way from the hypnotic overreach, exaggerated deeds and the over-ritualized texture in the earlier works on the Bhakti poet Kabir, Kiran Nagarkar’s The Arsonist foregrounds the persona of Sant Kabir through a recital of the mundane, ordinary and the normal run of things in his life.

Kabir’s works stand thoroughly translated and analysed, yet the appeal of his ideas and writings continues to invite further translations and interpretations. Chandan Sinha’s book makes an important contribution to the existing knowledge on Kabir and places this possibly…

Madrasas in the Age of Islamophobia by Zia Us Salam and M Aslam Parvaiz offers us an insight into the different facets of the world of madrasas in India. The preface spells out the central question/intent: what the reality of madrasas is today, a ubiquitous part of the landscape.

In these volatile times, when every word written is scrutinized for any hint of religious fundamentalism, it is difficult to assess a book like the present one. Its very title is bound to raise the hackles of those who read anything that has the word ‘Jai’ in it with the Pavlovian…

Gyan ka Gyan is a multi-nodal intervention in the academy of Vedic studies, or Vedic ontology to be precise.  The Vedas, Rigveda, Samveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda, in that order, are one of the most ancient sources of knowledge. From the four Vedas essentially .

Usha Sanyal’s book on new institutions of Islamic learning for women is an important study on the relatively under-researched theme of South Asian Muslim women’s changing engagement with religious learning. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in two institutions namely.

Hinduism is the oldest living religion. Like all statements about Hindus, this needs further and then further qualification. The Indic tradition (shorthand for Hinduism), as expected, provides it: neti, neti. It is not a religion, nor an -ism.

price not statedThe view of Ambedkar as a radical philosopher who can help us understand and fight social and economic evils that Indian society is fraught with through the ages is gaining strength. The gains are a hard-won battle realized by Dalit-Bahujan groups.

The sixty papers published in these two volumes were all presented at the 14th International Seminar on Indo-Portuguese History (ISIPH) held at Delhi in 2013. The first of these seminars was held at Goa in 1978 on the initiative of the late Father John Correia-Afonso.

The South Asian subcontinent counts a significant Shi’i population, with Pakistan having the word’s second largest number of Shi’is. Yet it has so far received limited scholarly attention. This book, adapted from the author’s PhD dissertation.

To label this book the biography of a spiritual figure would be a misnomer. On the contrary, it is an inner exploration into a universalism that transcends caste and creed and therefore religion in our conventional understanding of the term.

The title is a misnomer. This tantalizing title of a book of translation that is saturated with divinity is an invitation to the enterprising reader to explore what lies within and what lies beyond the imagined entity called ‘God’. I would like to begin my review.

The current manouevres by the Indian government to define civic status in terms of religious identity have deep roots in the legal regimes introduced under British colonial rule.  If implementation of the new Citizenship (Amendment) Act will require applicants.

MJ Akbar needs no introduction. A famous journalist and politician (BJP), he is also a prolific writer. His latest offering, its unwieldy and somewhat misleading title notwithstanding, is about the last phase of India’s freedom struggle. The struggle for freedom was never between Hinduism and Islam.