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

Wrongs of the Religious Right is an impassioned plea for secularization of mentalities.

The author 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.

Meera Nanda is an independent scholar based in the United States. Her education has been in both science and philosophy, and her research interests include the history of science, Hindu nationalism and the subversion of scientific temper, postmodernism and right wing environmentalism, apart from the philosophy of science.

She has been a John Templeton Foundation Fellow in Religion and Science (2005-2007), and is currently in India as Visiting Professor at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali. Her essays in various academic and popular journals have been widely read and discussed.