Indian Religions Podcast
Date: 28. July 2022

Democracy and Social Cleavage in India

Suman Nath's book Democracy and Social Cleavage in India: Ethnography of Riots, Everyday Politics and Communalism in West Bengal (2012-2021) (Routledge, 2022) explores the emergence of identity politics and violence at the forefront of political life in an Indian state. Through a close reading of everyday politics in West Bengal, India, which until recently boasted of the longest-serving elected communist government in the world, the volume presents unique observations on Indian politics and its trajectories.

Raj Balkaran is a scholar, online educator, and life coach. For information see rajbalkaran.com.

Similar Posts

See All
14. August 2025Intellectual History
India and Its Intellectual Traditions: of Love, Advaita, Power, and Other Things

India and Its Intellectual Traditions: of Love, Advaita, Power, and Other Things

The book, the third volume to emerge from the enterprise known as 'The Backwaters Collective on Metaphysics and Politics', attempts to further the collective's ambition to put into question the certitudes of conventional social science discourse, decolonize …

07. August 2025South Asian Studies
Kalikrama and Abhinavagupta

Kalikrama and Abhinavagupta

The Krama School of the Trika Saivism of Kashmir, more familiar as Kalikrama in the contemporary parlance, has turned out to be the most crucial among the monistic Saiva traditions of medieval Kashmir after the Pratyabhijna school, a scenario people could …

31. July 2025Ancient History
Invisible Fire

Invisible Fire

Invisible Fire (ELIPSA, 2021) by Joanna Jurewicz explores early Hindu philosophy through the Manusmṛti, Bhagavadgītā, and Mokṣadharma, showing that reality is a single cognitive field manifesting through subject-object perception. Drawing from Vedic roots …