Watch | ‘Hindu Rashtra is a Modern, Western Project, Not at All Indigenous’: Nivedita Menon

Nivedita Menon is professor at the Centre for Comparative Politics and Political Theory at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her latest book, Secularism as Misdirection: Critical Thought from the Global South, makes the argument that ‘secularism’ as we define it today is in fact not a value in itself – and is compatible with diametrically opposed worlds. It is a tool of governance, and one that is used to turn attention away from real, meaningful values.

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She spoke to Jahnavi Sen about the book and the ideas she’s laid out in it – including why she says the project to create a homogeneous Hindu identity has failed, how politics is played on women’s bodies to push forward agendas other than their rights, and more.