The God Market: How Globalization Is Making India More Hindu

Conventional wisdom says that integration into the global marketplace
tends to weaken the power of traditional faith in developing
countries. But, as Meera Nanda argues in this path-breaking book,
this is hardly the case in today's India. Against expectations of
growing secularism, India has instead seen a remarkable intertwining
of Hinduism and neoliberal ideology, spurred on by a growing
capitalist class. It is this "State-Temple-Corporate Complex,"
she claims, that now wields decisive political and economic power,
and provides ideological cover for the dismantling of the Nehru-era
state-dominated economy.

According to this new logic, India's rapid economic growth is attributable
to a special "Hindu mind," and it is what separates the
nation's Hindu population from Muslims and others deemed to be
"anti-modern." As a result, Hindu institutions are replacing public
ones, and the Hindu "revival" itself has become big business, a major
source of capital accumulation. Nanda explores the roots of this
development and its possible future, as well as the struggle for secularism
and socialism in the world's second-most populous country.