Forthcoming: edited volume, published by Routledge Rethinking Religion in India: The Colonial Construction of Hinduism
Edited by Esther Bloch, Marianne Keppens, Rajaram Hegde
Series: Routledge South Asian Religion Series
Publication Date: 01/12/2009
More information and possibility of ordering the book at www.routledge .com
The second conference Rethinking Religion in India II: Rethinking Secularism from 10 till 13 January 2009 at IDSA, New Delhi, was a success. Around 150 scholars from about 15 different countries participated. Speakers such as Achin Vanaik, Akeel Bilgrami, Ashis Nandy, Dilip K. Chakrabarti, Geoffrey Oddie, Naomi Goldenberg, Neera Chandhoke, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, S.N. Balagangadhara, Timothy Fitzgerald, Vivek Dhareshwar, and Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, together with other less well-known and young scholars engaged in four days of intensive and sometimes heated debate.
Watch the conference documentary as well as footage of the conference sessions and interviews with speakers and participants at www.youtube.com/cultuurwetenschap. Images of the first conference and interviews with speakers and participants, can also be found here.
More about these discussions and reflections on the conference can be read on the Rethinking Religion in India Blog: http://rethinkingreligion.wordpress.com/ We invite you to actively contribute by posting your comments and reflections about the conference on this blog.
Pictures of the conference can be watched via the 'Photo album'on the left hand side of the screen.
Rethinking Religion in India II: Rethinking Secularism
When India turned independent in 1947, there were high hopes that secularism would adequately protect the nation against communal strife. The first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru even saw the secular state as the only civilized model of political organisation. Six decades later the times have changed. The recurrent communal riots, the rise of Hindutva from the 1980s onwards and key events like the destruction of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya have led to a crisis of Indian secularism. Critics have begun to dismiss secularism as the ideology of an alienated and westernized elite trying to reform society in its own image; while secularists dismiss all opposition to secularism as communalism, indigenism or romanticism.
In the first decade of the twenty-first century, along with its economic boom, Indian society appears to have manoeuvred itself into a socio-political stalemate: its politicians and intelligentsia are now divided between two opposing camps, which claim to exhaust the realm of political and cultural possibilities for the country. The ideological struggle between secularism and Hindutva has hijacked all reflection and debate on the nature of the Indian culture and society. Textbooks are written to represent one of the two positions; social science research generally aims to confirm the views of one camp; academics are appointed as partisans. The debates on India in North America and Europe are caught up in the same straitjacket.
Rethinking Religion in India II is the initiative of a group of intellectuals who think this clash between secularism and Hindutva is pernicious. Within the general aims of the five-year conference cluster, this conference intends to move beyond the framework which presents liberal secularism as the only possible solution to communal strife. Under the motto of “Rethinking Secularism,” it will examine the limitations of the conceptual framework shared by Hindutva and secularism.
Rethinking Religion in India II invites scholars and intellectuals for four days of reflection on questions such as: What if the Indian culture and its traditions cannot be characterized in terms of religion? What if communities in Indian society cannot be delineated according to religious identities? What if conflicts are neither religious strife nor communal violence? What if secularism and communalism are not opposites, but rather feed on each other? What if liberal secularism is the cause of communal conflict, rather than its antidote? The point of reflecting on these questions is not only to work towards a new understanding of the problem situation of secularism in India. The ambition is to identify the constraints of the western liberal paradigm of political theory, when it comes to religion. Therefore, both scholars of western political theory and scholars of Indian religion will be invited.
The conference will work towards these ambitions in four formats:
A Platform, addressing the question ‘Is secularism the solution to communal conflict in India? ’
A Roundtable, taking up the issue of ‘Secularism in India' with three subthemes: 'Freedom of Religion and Religious Conversion'; 'Secularism, Hindutva and the Aryan Invasion Theory';and 'Liberal Secularism and Religious Fundamentalism: Oppositers or Alter Egos?'
A call for proposals is invited for the:
Parallel Paper sessions, addressing 'Indian Religion and the Issue of Conversion'; 'The Caste System and Indian Religion'; 'Colonialism and Religion in India'; and 'Religion and Law in India'. See call for proposals.
"How to...?" workshop sessions. One of the workshops will deal with the question ‘How to teach about the Indian traditions and religions?’ We invite proposals for workshops dealing with similar questions.See call for proposals.
Find out more about Rethinking Religion in India I:
A selection of interviews, lectures and debates during Rethinking Religion in India I (January 2008, IGNCA, New Delhi) at www.youtube.com/cultuurwetenschap
