The Secret Life of Another Indian Nationalism

Shail Mayaram is Professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi and Co-Director of the International Center for Advanced Study (ICAS-MP). Some of her publications include Against History, Against State: Counterperspectives from the Margins (2003); Resisting Regimes: Myth, Memory and the Shaping of a Muslim Identity (2016, 2nd edition) and Israel as the Gift of the Arabs: Letters from Tel Aviv (2015).

• Preface; Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; List of illustrations; Note on transliteration; 1. Introduction: colonialism, orientalism, nationalism and the shaping of popular history and religion; 2. James Tod and popular Indian nationalism; 3. War and violence in Savarkar's view of Indian history; 4. The Vishva Hindu Parishad's Fantasmagorical history; 5. The politics of Vishva Hindu Parishad conversion; 6. Another history of religion; 7. Myth and medical pluralism as resistance to Hindu nationalism; Bibliography; Index.

'This magisterial book brings together history, ethnography and political theory to compose a remarkable argument about the ways in which colonial administrative knowledge made a deep contribution to the transformation of vernacular nationalism into Hindutva hyper-nationalism. Shail Mayaram's book brings Rajasthan into the deep history of postcolonial Hindu fundamentalism in India and deals a decisive blow to the orientalist fantasy of Rajasthan as an Indian setting for the Game of Thrones.' Arjun Appadurai, New York University