How to Fix India’s Broken Secularism
VIEW EVENT DETAILSReligious polarization and the future of secularism in India is a much-debated issue today. With the meteoric electoral rise of the right and Hindutva politics, many worry that the rights and efficacy of the nation’s minorities are in jeopardy while others believe that “appeasement” to minority groups encourage hard-liners. Does the responsibility for the rise of extremism lie only with the right? What role can other political parties play in countering the rise of intolerance? Is the founding nation-state ideal of secularism still valid in India today? Few have commented on India’s governance with as much clarity and nuance as Sadanand Dhume. Join us as he talks about the need for a new model of secularism to retain and encourage India’s multicultural nature while countering divisive forces in all forms of social, religious and cultural extremism that endanger diversity.
Sadanand Dhume is a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he writes on the South Asian political economy, foreign policy, business, and society, with a focus on India and Pakistan. Dhume has served as India bureau chief of the Far Eastern Economic Review and as Indonesia correspondent of FEER and the Wall Street Journal Asia, and is currently a South Asia columnist for the Wall Street Journal. Previously, he was Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the Asia Society in Washington, D.C. He has written articles and op-eds for Foreign Policy, Forbes, Commentary, YaleGlobal, the Washington Post, and other publications. His television appearances include CNN, PBS, BBC World, Al Jazeera International, CNBC Asia, and ABC Television. His political travelogue about the rise of radical Islam in Indonesia, My Friend the Fanatic: Travels with a Radical Islamist, has been published in four countries. He has twice been selected by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the world's top 100 Twitterati. Follow him on Twitter @dhume.
Kumar Ketkar is an Indian journalist. Ketkar was previously Chief Editor of Loksatta and Maharashtra Times, and Editor-In-Chief of the Lokmat Group of Newspapers. Ketkar was also Resident Editor of Daily Observer, and has been a Reporter and Special Correspondent at the Economic Times. He was awarded the Padmashree in 2001, and the Rajiv Gandhi Award for Media.
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