This is in response to Vijay Prashad's review of my book, The God Market: How Globalization is making India more Hindu that appeared in the last issue of Himal.
So badly has Vijay Prashad distorted the basic theses of the book that I am left scratching my head and wondering if it is really my book he could possibly be talking about?
From where, I wonder, did he get the laughable idea that I am making the "rigid claim that globalization produces neo-Hinduism" –as if there was no neo-Hinduism or Hindutva before the economic reforms that started in India in the early 1990s. He clearly implies that I am suggesting that globalization manufactured modern Hinduism and Hindu nationalism out of thin air when he goes on to piously remind the reader that "neo-Hinduism is not a recent phenomenon, but has its roots in the 19th century." He trivializes what I am saying by imputing to me this utterly simplistic, ahistorical and machine-like cause- and-effect relationship between globalization and the god market.
The reality is that I spend the bulk of the long first chapter in carefully tracing the Hindu nationalist critique of Nehruvian socialism and secularism in favor of a marriage between a Hindu renaissance and laissez faire capitalism. I bring to light the rather obscure history of how the Indian state got involved in managing the financial and other secular affairs of Hindu temples and pilgrimage spots. I directly challenge the pet peeve of the Hindu Right that the Indian state discriminates against the Hindu majority by showing how the state involvement in Hindu affairs has actually worked to the benefit of the majority religion. All of these pre-existing institutional arrangements have gone into making of what I call the "state-temple-corporate complex" which is now producing the astrologers, the vastu shastris and the purjaris who are taking care of the growing demand for religious services by the growing middle classes.