Taking the scholarship from social justice studies from Hyderabad to the global level, the Norton’ Anthology of World Religions’ has featured Prof Kancha Ilaiah’s “Why I Am Not A Hindu” alongside Bertrand Russell ” Why I Am Not A Christian”.
W W Norton publishers is celebrated worldwide for its classics like ” The Norton’s Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, or Reza Aslan’s ” Tablet &Pen” Literary Landscapes From the Modern Middle East”. The publishers have now released ” The Norton’s Anthology of World Religions”.
The work, in the words general editor Jack Miles, will be rewarding, even for those who, “practice no religion, those who are spiritual but not religious and those who count themselves critics or antagonists of religion”.
Miles is a professor of English and Religious Studies at the University of California, Irvine. He’s the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book “God: A Biography” and “Christ: A Crisis In The Life Of God.”
The book discusses primarily six religions now in practice across the globe namely Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Daoism. Miles chose different editors to do the work on six religions and the The Anthology on Hinduism is edited by Wendy Doniger of “The Hindus: An Alternative History”. Prof Ilaiah, who paved path for the alternative understanding of Hinduism from the perspective of dalits and backward classes is now Director at Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Gachibowli, Hyderabad.
His sensational and much acclaimed work, ” Why I am not a Hindu” appeared in 1996. Talking about the book, Jack Miles, described it as ” contrarian canon”. On the other side, Doniger says, “Kancha Ilaiah, who announces officially that he is not a Hindu, writes brilliantly as the outsider within, the Dalit who simultaneously illuminates the Hinduism that he rejects, and that rejects him, and his own dalit strain of religion that strangely resembles Hinduism”. The book includes excerpts from chapter 5 ( Hindu Gods and Us) of ” Why I am Not a Hindu’.
For starters, a chapter from “Why I am Not a Hindu’ was incorporated in Rutledge anthology called “Post Colonialism – Critical Concepts In Literary And Cultural Studies” way back in year 2000.
In a statement Professor Ilaiah thanked the publishers for reproducing a chapter from his book, ” Why I am Not a Hindu” in “Norton’s Anthorlogy of World Religions”.
