On seeing the generative possibilities of dalit neo-Buddhist thought

Abstract

Nandas irresponsible book carelessly prescribes for the U.S a return to ColdWar science politics; and for India, nothing less than a cultural revolution which would install science as the arbiter. She sees this as smashing the backwards looking metaphysics of Hindu thought. I argue that her iconoclasm carries with it a purist fetishism deriving from sciences denied metaphysics. The metaphysics embedded in Nandas secularist critique is no more innocent than that she wishes to smash, yet being denied is more tricky to deal with. I claim Nandas book is irresponsible both in the context of Indias contesting social imaginaries, but also in the USA where she seeks to intervene in the socalled scie..