Wrongs of the Religious Right: Reflections on Science, Secularism and Hindutva

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’.

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 (2004), Postmodernism and Religious Fundamentalism: A Scientific Rebuttal to Hindu Science (2003) and Breaking the Spell of Dharma and Other Essays (2002).