About the Book: Hindutva Rising Secular Claims, Communal Realities
This book, substantially expanded and revised from a 1997 study, argues that to
properly understand why and how the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Sangh
Parivar have risen to where they are in India today, we need to critically
re-evaluate the claims made about the virtues of Indian secularism and of its
historical emergence. In the necessary battle of ideas, mainstream liberal
discourse does not sufficiently counter Hindutva because both share some common
ground regarding Indias civilizational durability, and how the nexus of religion
(primarily Hinduism) and culture has shaped todays social order. The book seeks
to