First Edition The Wrongs of the Religious Right Reflections on Science, Secularism and Hindutva By Meera Nanda Hardcover, 120 pages Pub. Date: June 2005 ISBN: 81-88789-31-3 Dimensions (cm): Demy 8vo Rs 350 / $20.00 Paperback, 120 pages Pub. Date: June 2005 ISBN: 81-88789-30-5 Dimensions (cm): Demy 8vo Rs 150 / $10.00

description

Meera Nanda’s book is an impassioned plea for secularization of mentalities. She compares the secular polities of India and America to argue that, faced with the current right wing assault, secular constitutions alone cannot guarantee secularism. She examines how India’s major ecological movements have been reframed by Brahminical Hinduism with some unintended but crucial help from those within these movements. Her work shows the interconnections between the Hindutva scientism and national chauvinism, a factor crucial for its middle class support and its ‘reactionary modernism’.

Contents: 1. Secularism without Secularization: Reflections on the Religious Right in America and India 2. Hindu Ecology in the Age of Hindutva: The Dangers of Religious Environmentalism 3. Making Science Sacred: How Postmodernism Aids Vedic Science.

about the author

Meera Nanda is a John Templeton Foundation Fellow in Religion and Science (2005-2007). She is the author of ‘Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodernism, Science and Hindu Nationalism’ (Rutgers University Press, 2004), ‘Postmodernism and Religious Fundamentalism: A Scientific Rebuttal to Hindu Science’ (Navayana, 2003) and ‘Breaking the Spell of Dharma and Other Essays’ (Three Essays, 2002).