Sightings Articles
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
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
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
#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
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 ...