The God Market

How Globalization is Making India More Hindu

Meera Nanda

• Publisher: Monthly Review Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9781583672501
• eBook ISBN:
  9781583673102
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Hinduism

Conventional wisdom says that integration into the global marketplace tends to weaken the power of traditional faith in developing countries. But, as Meera Nanda argues in this path-breaking book, this is hardly the case in today's India. Against expectations of growing secularism, India has instead seen a remarkable intertwining of Hinduism and neoliberal ideology, spurred on by a growing capitalist class. It is this "State-Temple-Corporate Complex," she claims, that now wields decisive political and economic power, and provides ideological cover for the dismantling of the Nehru-era state-dominated economy.

According to this new logic, India's rapid economic growth is attributable to a special "Hindu mind," and it is what separates the nation's Hindu population from Muslims and others deemed to be "anti-modern." As a result, Hindu institutions are replacing public ones, and the Hindu "revival" itself has become big business, a major source of capital accumulation. Nanda explores the roots of this development and its possible future, as well as the struggle for secularism and socialism in the world's second-most populous country.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• A Note to the Readers
• Introduction to the Monthly Review Press Edition
• Introduction to the First Edition: God and Globalization in India
• 1. India and the Global Economy: A Very Brief Introduction
• 2. The Rush Hour of the Gods: Globalization and Middle-Class Religiosity
• 3. The State-Temple-Corporate Complex and the Banality of Hindu Nationalism
• 4. [email protected] How We See Ourselves
• 5. Rethinking Secularization (with India in Mind)
• Notes
• Bibliographic Essay
• Acknowledgements
• Author