Wendy Doniger and Martha Nussbaum bring together leading scholars from a wide array of disciplines to address a crucial question: How does the world's most populous democracy survive repeated assaults on its pluralistic values?

Contributors ; Introduction: Wendy Doniger and Martha Nussbaum ; I.The Past and the Present ; The Politics of History - Amartya Sen ; Pluralism on Trial in Late Nineteenth-Century India - Mushirul Hasan ; Nehru, Religion, and the Humanities - Martha C. Nussbaum ; Gandhi, Newton, and the Enlightenment - Akeel Bilgrami ; II. Democratic Media ; Legitimating Majoritarian Chauvinism: The Indian Media and the Hindutva Campaign - Malini Parthasarathy ; Clarity Begins at Home - Antara Dev Sen, ; From a Compartmental Society to Growing Violence and Corruption: Surveying in the 1990s through Advertisements - Arvind Rajagopal ; III. Political Parties and Movements ; The Long March from Ayodhya: Democracy and Violence in India - Amrita Basu ; Tokenism or Empowerment? Policies and Institutions for Disadvantaged Communities - Zoya Hasan ; Neoliberalism and the Food Crisis - Prabhat Patnaik ; IV. Creating an Inclusive Public Culture Gurcharan Das, The Dilemma of a Liberal Hindu ; The Role of Poetry and Literature in Implementing a Pluralistic Democracy: Writing at the Time of Siege - Nabaneeta Dev Sen ; The Baby and the Bathwater: Secularism in the Work of a Conservative Writer - Pratik Kanjilal ; The BJP's Intellectual Agenda: Textbooks and Imagined History - Mushirul Hasan and Jamia Millia Islamia ; V. Gender and Democracy ; 'Shed No More Blood': Women's Peace Work in India - Ritu Menon ; Violent and Violated Women in Hindu Extremist Politics - Tanika Sarkar ; Fantasies of Purity and Domination: Rape and Torture in the Gujarat Riots - Martha C. Nussbaum ; VI. India's Politics on the U.S. Stage ; Speaking About, For, To, Against, and With Hindus: Scholars and Practitioners in the Diasporic Post-Colonial Moment - Paul Courtright ; The Fight for the History of Hinduism in the American Academy - Wendy Doniger ; Partisan Dreams, Fractured Homeland: Gujarati Diaspora Politics in America - Mona G. Mehta ; The Hindu Diaspora in the United States - Ved Nanda ; Notes ; Index

This is a timely conversation about the resilience of India's pluralist democracy in a variety of spheres, from education and the media to electoral politics, public institutions and the diaspora. The essays point to how challenges to a democratic public culture can be resisted by drawing upon India's long historical tradition of critical thinking, argument and dissent.

"Informed by several different disciplinary perspectives, and grounded in solid scholarship, the essayists in Pluralism and Democracy in India: Debating the Hindu Right are clear-eyed about the many inadequacies in India s democratic structure that allow anti-minority politics to flourish. The contributions on secular and religious Indians and curricular reform are a promising beginning for those who believe that a dialogue among the left, the center, and the right may still be possible. This is a timely, hopeful collection."--Current History "This is a timely conversation about the resilience of India's pluralist democracy in a variety of spheres, from education and the media to electoral politics, public institutions and the diaspora. The essays point to how challenges to a democratic public culture can be resisted by drawing upon India's long historical tradition of critical thinking, argument and dissent." --Niraja G. Jayal, Professor in the Center for the Study of Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University "There are 20 essays in this volume devoted to addressing the central question of how India's pluralism and democracy can face the challenges posed by the growing Hindu Right. The range of the essays is wide, covering not only every possible aspect of the threat to pluralism, but also examining how different institutions of a democracy like India, particularly the media, have made this challenge more complex and even formidable." --Business Standard "Doniger and Nussbaum's exceptional contribution will likely shape the future of how scholars examine Hindu nationalism and India's diverse culture... Highly recommended." --CHOICE

Selling point: Offers a uniquely cross-disciplinary approach, which considers democracy's past and future in India in connection with the arts, the media, the history and current practice of political debate, and religious questions Selling point: Includes essays from leading scholars

Wendy Doniger is Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago. Martha C. Nussbaum is Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago.

Selling point: Offers a uniquely cross-disciplinary approach, which considers democracy's past and future in India in connection with the arts, the media, the history and current practice of political debate, and religious questions Selling point: Includes essays from leading scholars