Meera Nanda - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Meera Nanda
Old and new friends helped out with valuable feedback and suggestions. My old friend and critic, ... more Old and new friends helped out with valuable feedback and suggestions. My old friend and critic, Vijaya Kumar, patiently read all the first drafts. Amardeo Sarma reached out from Germany. Achin Vanaik was an invaluable sounding board, as always. My friend and mentor, Mackenzie Brown offered helpful advice. Vasudevan Mukunth, the erstwhile science editor of The Wire, worked with me to develop the first drafts of some of the essays included here. I also wish to thank Professor Knut Jacobsen and the Routledge Press for giving me the permission to reproduce an essay first published in the Routledge Handbook of South Asian Religions. Asad Zaidi and Nalini Taneja have shown immense patience with my temperamental behavior. I cannot thank them enough for their friendship and steadfast support. c A Field Guide to Post-Truth India One thing you can no longer call India is what the Constitution calls it: a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC (capitalization in the original). 2 India remains democratic because elections still go on. That gives Indians bragging rights as the world's largest democracy and even the "mother of democracy." But one thing Indians can no longer brag about is that they alone, in all of South Asia, live in a secular country where the state has no religion, and where Indians of all faiths have equal rights and freedoms. We don't live in that India any longer. January 22, 2024, was the moment of arrival of the Hindu Raj for a Hindu Rashtra. As prana, or life-breath, was flag, emblem, national anthem, names of places, ceremonies and the like are all Jewish. " Not all discriminatory practices are written in law, however. They are carried out informally through differential treatment of Jews and Arab citizens of Israel in matters of resource allocation, job opportunities, treatment by security agencies, and apartheid-like separation of public spaces etc. What legitimizes the two-tiered citizenship is the majority public opinion which regards the Arab population as potentially disloyal to the Jewish state and a demographic threat to the Jewish majority. Ethnic democracies thrive in societies where majoritarianism becomes the norm. Majoritarianism assumes that a permanent numerical majority, based upon religion and cultural heritage, is entitled to a certain degree of primacy in society, and has the right to make decisions that affect the society. Jews in the state of Israel after the land was forcibly cleansed of Arabs in 1948, and Hindus in India after partition, see themselves as constituting primordial majorities that have an exclusive right to their respective lands and public cultures.
Claiming an organic unity between the Vedic world view and modern science has been the agenda of ... more Claiming an organic unity between the Vedic world view and modern science has been the agenda of Hindu nationalists from the very start. If modern science is nothing more than a minor tributary…
Annals of New York Academy of Science
Collection of essays in defense of reason
Science and Technology in Southern Africa and East and South Asia
... Taking cultural diversity seriously has come to mean giving cultural meanings the power to co... more ... Taking cultural diversity seriously has come to mean giving cultural meanings the power to construct reality with ... WHO NEEDS POST-DEVELOPMENT? ... framework that provides the conceptual resources for them: all post-positivist epistemologies accept this theory-ladenness of ...
The current internationalisation of capital has the effect of transforming the state into a '... more The current internationalisation of capital has the effect of transforming the state into a 'transnational state' in which domestic, social and political relations are increasingly shaped by global capital circuits. In contrast to the green revolution period, the current phase of internationalisation of agribusiness impedes the ability of third world states to formulate selfsustaining and pro-poor agricultural policies.
The Wire India , 2023
The recent elimination of Darwin's theory of evolution from science curricula is a masterclass on... more The recent elimination of Darwin's theory of evolution from science curricula is a masterclass on doublespeak, Bharatiya-style.
South Asia Citizens Web, Jul 15, 2020
How modern science was folded into a Vedic narrative
a journal of modern society & culture summer 2002 volume one- issue three
Economic and Political Weekly, Jul 11, 2009
Social Epistemology, 2005
Science & Education, 2005
Teaching and communicating science: What the history, philosophy and sociology of science can con... more Teaching and communicating science: What the history, philosophy and sociology of science can contribute The conference is being held in conjunction with the British History of Science Society conference. Sessions of both conferences will be available to participants, and there will be some shared social events. Details about the conference, including travel, accommodation and registration, are at the web site:
Economic and Political Weekly, 1998
It is precisely the critical dimension of science movements in India which has been silenced by t... more It is precisely the critical dimension of science movements in India which has been silenced by the new critiques of science, Modern science has been given a middle name-'westen'-which casts a long shadow of doubt on its validity and usefulness. There are three basic issues which are basic to the understanding of Indian science 'wars': one, the flawed logic of treating the criteria of validity of all knowledge as internal to the cultural context; two, the location of postcolonial intellectuals in the transnational academic networks that have given epistemological anti-imperialism so much respectability, and finally, the necessity of a scientific worldview for the advancement of equality and justice for all.
The Telegraph The Hour of The Saints Election 2009 will be remembered as the first serious attemp... more The Telegraph The Hour of The Saints Election 2009 will be remembered as the first serious attempt by the BJP to create a Hindu vote bank, writes Meera Nanda The Bharatiya Janata Party has worked…
Economic and Political Weekly, Oct 18, 2008
One cannot fight the faith-based politics of Hindu nationalists and the similarly inspired initia... more One cannot fight the faith-based politics of Hindu nationalists and the similarly inspired initiatives of the Indian state unless one questions the very foundations of the beliefs and rituals of popular Hinduism itself. One cannot go on "respecting" people's faith, but then turn around and start questioning them when they actually act upon that faith under the banner of Hindutva.
Choice Reviews Online, 2004
If you are looking for a book Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu... more If you are looking for a book Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu Nationalism in India by Meera Nanda in pdf format, then you've come to loyal website. We presented the utter option of this book in ePub, txt, PDF, doc, DjVu formats. You can read Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu Nationalism in India online by Meera Nanda or downloading. Moreover, on our site you may read the guides and other artistic books online, or download their as well. We like to draw on attention that our website not store the eBook itself, but we grant ref to the site whereat you can downloading or reading online. If you want to downloading Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu Nationalism in India pdf by Meera Nanda , then you have come on to faithful website. We have Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu Nationalism in India PDF, DjVu, doc, ePub, txt forms. We will be glad if you revert to us over.
Old and new friends helped out with valuable feedback and suggestions. My old friend and critic, ... more Old and new friends helped out with valuable feedback and suggestions. My old friend and critic, Vijaya Kumar, patiently read all the first drafts. Amardeo Sarma reached out from Germany. Achin Vanaik was an invaluable sounding board, as always. My friend and mentor, Mackenzie Brown offered helpful advice. Vasudevan Mukunth, the erstwhile science editor of The Wire, worked with me to develop the first drafts of some of the essays included here. I also wish to thank Professor Knut Jacobsen and the Routledge Press for giving me the permission to reproduce an essay first published in the Routledge Handbook of South Asian Religions. Asad Zaidi and Nalini Taneja have shown immense patience with my temperamental behavior. I cannot thank them enough for their friendship and steadfast support. c A Field Guide to Post-Truth India One thing you can no longer call India is what the Constitution calls it: a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC (capitalization in the original). 2 India remains democratic because elections still go on. That gives Indians bragging rights as the world's largest democracy and even the "mother of democracy." But one thing Indians can no longer brag about is that they alone, in all of South Asia, live in a secular country where the state has no religion, and where Indians of all faiths have equal rights and freedoms. We don't live in that India any longer. January 22, 2024, was the moment of arrival of the Hindu Raj for a Hindu Rashtra. As prana, or life-breath, was flag, emblem, national anthem, names of places, ceremonies and the like are all Jewish. " Not all discriminatory practices are written in law, however. They are carried out informally through differential treatment of Jews and Arab citizens of Israel in matters of resource allocation, job opportunities, treatment by security agencies, and apartheid-like separation of public spaces etc. What legitimizes the two-tiered citizenship is the majority public opinion which regards the Arab population as potentially disloyal to the Jewish state and a demographic threat to the Jewish majority. Ethnic democracies thrive in societies where majoritarianism becomes the norm. Majoritarianism assumes that a permanent numerical majority, based upon religion and cultural heritage, is entitled to a certain degree of primacy in society, and has the right to make decisions that affect the society. Jews in the state of Israel after the land was forcibly cleansed of Arabs in 1948, and Hindus in India after partition, see themselves as constituting primordial majorities that have an exclusive right to their respective lands and public cultures.
Claiming an organic unity between the Vedic world view and modern science has been the agenda of ... more Claiming an organic unity between the Vedic world view and modern science has been the agenda of Hindu nationalists from the very start. If modern science is nothing more than a minor tributary…
Annals of New York Academy of Science
Collection of essays in defense of reason
Science and Technology in Southern Africa and East and South Asia
... Taking cultural diversity seriously has come to mean giving cultural meanings the power to co... more ... Taking cultural diversity seriously has come to mean giving cultural meanings the power to construct reality with ... WHO NEEDS POST-DEVELOPMENT? ... framework that provides the conceptual resources for them: all post-positivist epistemologies accept this theory-ladenness of ...
The current internationalisation of capital has the effect of transforming the state into a '... more The current internationalisation of capital has the effect of transforming the state into a 'transnational state' in which domestic, social and political relations are increasingly shaped by global capital circuits. In contrast to the green revolution period, the current phase of internationalisation of agribusiness impedes the ability of third world states to formulate selfsustaining and pro-poor agricultural policies.
The Wire India , 2023
The recent elimination of Darwin's theory of evolution from science curricula is a masterclass on... more The recent elimination of Darwin's theory of evolution from science curricula is a masterclass on doublespeak, Bharatiya-style.
South Asia Citizens Web, Jul 15, 2020
How modern science was folded into a Vedic narrative
a journal of modern society & culture summer 2002 volume one- issue three
Economic and Political Weekly, Jul 11, 2009
Social Epistemology, 2005
Science & Education, 2005
Teaching and communicating science: What the history, philosophy and sociology of science can con... more Teaching and communicating science: What the history, philosophy and sociology of science can contribute The conference is being held in conjunction with the British History of Science Society conference. Sessions of both conferences will be available to participants, and there will be some shared social events. Details about the conference, including travel, accommodation and registration, are at the web site:
Economic and Political Weekly, 1998
It is precisely the critical dimension of science movements in India which has been silenced by t... more It is precisely the critical dimension of science movements in India which has been silenced by the new critiques of science, Modern science has been given a middle name-'westen'-which casts a long shadow of doubt on its validity and usefulness. There are three basic issues which are basic to the understanding of Indian science 'wars': one, the flawed logic of treating the criteria of validity of all knowledge as internal to the cultural context; two, the location of postcolonial intellectuals in the transnational academic networks that have given epistemological anti-imperialism so much respectability, and finally, the necessity of a scientific worldview for the advancement of equality and justice for all.
The Telegraph The Hour of The Saints Election 2009 will be remembered as the first serious attemp... more The Telegraph The Hour of The Saints Election 2009 will be remembered as the first serious attempt by the BJP to create a Hindu vote bank, writes Meera Nanda The Bharatiya Janata Party has worked…
Economic and Political Weekly, Oct 18, 2008
One cannot fight the faith-based politics of Hindu nationalists and the similarly inspired initia... more One cannot fight the faith-based politics of Hindu nationalists and the similarly inspired initiatives of the Indian state unless one questions the very foundations of the beliefs and rituals of popular Hinduism itself. One cannot go on "respecting" people's faith, but then turn around and start questioning them when they actually act upon that faith under the banner of Hindutva.
Choice Reviews Online, 2004
If you are looking for a book Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu... more If you are looking for a book Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu Nationalism in India by Meera Nanda in pdf format, then you've come to loyal website. We presented the utter option of this book in ePub, txt, PDF, doc, DjVu formats. You can read Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu Nationalism in India online by Meera Nanda or downloading. Moreover, on our site you may read the guides and other artistic books online, or download their as well. We like to draw on attention that our website not store the eBook itself, but we grant ref to the site whereat you can downloading or reading online. If you want to downloading Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu Nationalism in India pdf by Meera Nanda , then you have come on to faithful website. We have Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu Nationalism in India PDF, DjVu, doc, ePub, txt forms. We will be glad if you revert to us over.
A Field Guide to Post-truth India , 2024
India's slide into deep-lies
Setting the record straight on Hindu nationalist distortions of ancient Indian sciene.
unpublished draft, 2022
A critical review of how the Indian government pushed Ayurveda and other traditional medicines du... more A critical review of how the Indian government pushed Ayurveda and other traditional medicines during the Covid-19 pandemic even when there was no evidence of their effectiveness or safety.
Religious and legal history of juristic personhood of Hindu idols
Economic and Political Weekly, 2024
A review of Amit Chauduri's book on Organic Intellectuals