ABSTRACT

This book evaluates the promise of human progress and secularism in grand political narratives of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, comparing counter-narratives of South Asia within the context of a fast-changing twenty-first century.

The book embraces a broad range of sources and theoretical approaches that include political philosophy, film, and ideological discourse analysis. In the twenty-first century, global inequality and significant growth of religious and majoritarian nationalisms have been appended with a protracted economic slowdown and recession in many countries. Examining what went wrong in terms of secularism and distributive justice in India, this book critiques the Euro-American visions of democracy, global capitalism, and their so-called universality. As an alternative, it proposes a progressive politics of radical democracy for the Indian people.

Reconsidering alternatives to capitalism, western secularism and the radical possibilities of Islamism, Political Theory and South Asian Counter-Narratives will appeal to students and scholars of political theory, international relations, global history, and South Asian politics.

chapter |11 pages

Introduction

Progress contra evolution

chapter 1|18 pages

Elusiveness and necessity of justice

A political exposition

chapter 2|18 pages

Avatar

A political cinema

chapter 3|27 pages

Theology and ideology

Political reading of Islamic discourses

chapter 4|25 pages

The promise of alternative

Transforming capitalism?

chapter 7|20 pages

Majoritarian nationalism in India

chapter 10|21 pages

Fortunes of radicalism

Indian Maoists and the parliamentary Left