About the Book: On Being Indian: The Organic Intellectual, Mystical Poetry, and
Lineages of Indian Rationalism
A SHARP AND TIMELY ASSESSMENT OF WHAT THE PROTESTS OF 2020 SHOWED US ABOUT
BEING INDIAN
Originally a talk delivered at Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi, in
February 2020, and then published as an essay in Social Research Quarterly the
following year, On Being Indian is many things. On one level, it is a record of
the various events and utterances that led up to and characterised the protests
against the Citizenship Amendment Act in India. On another level, it questions,
and shows us the limited value of, dichotomies such