Sightings Articles

Man in white shirt and dark vest against backdrop of American and Indian flags

Narendra Modi | Hinduism | nationalism | multiculturalism

Modi, Biden, and the Surprising Links Between Multiculturalism and Islamophobia

Support for Hindu nationalism is widespread in the western diaspora, which both ends of the American political spectrum enable, in their own ways....

June 29, 2023

blasphemy | censorship | Doniger | Hinduism | India

Looking Back on My Run-in with Censorship in India

Ed. Note: The author has discussed other aspects of the story of her publishing experiences in India in The New York Review of Books (“India: Censorship by the Batra Brigade,” May 8, 2014); Sightings (“Prelude to Censorship: The Toleration of Blasphe...

October 1, 2018

blasphemy | India | Hinduism | Brahmins | Dharma | adharma | Manu | Kautilya | Arthashastra | James C. Scott | Materialists | Ramayana | Jabali | Rama | Kamasutra | bhakti | Islam

Prelude to Censorship: The Toleration of Blasphemy in Ancient India

India today is experiencing a powerful wave of censorship of literary texts, films, and artworks. Such a degree of repression is unprecedented in India, but it is rooted in concepts of blasphemy that underwent a number of changes throughout Indian hi...

May 21, 2015

Doniger | India | free speech | Hinduism | #JeSuisCharlie | censorship | blasphemy | British colonization | Bhagavad Gita | Krishna | Brahmo Samaj | Arya Samaj | Sanatana Dharma | Sanskritization | Indian Penal Code | Hindu Nationalism | Hindutva

#JeSuisCharlie: Blasphemy in Hinduism and Censorship in India

Free speech, under attack in France, is also contested in India, where violence ignited by videos or messages deemed “blasphemous” or “insulting” by orthodox Hindus has long been a reality. In 2014 alone, eighty-five religion-related attacks on the m...

January 22, 2015

India | Indian bioethics | Euthanasia | Hinduism | palliative care | karmic cycle | Brahmin | Dharma Shastra | Mahatma Gandhi | Vinoba Bhave | Jainism

The Bioethics of Euthanasia in India: Past and Present

The Los Angeles Times carried an article (January 2013) on the elderly citizens of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, who, perhaps ailing and suffering from debilitating pain, are being quietly sent off to their deaths, often with the use of a ...

December 18, 2014