Meera Nanda’s “the God Market: How Globalization Is Making India more Hindu” (2009).
Nanda argues in her book that India’s neo-liberal economic reforms since 1991 haven’t secularized society. Instead, they’ve created a “state-temple-corporate complex” that actively promotes Hindu religiosity. The educated middle class is becoming MORE ritualistic, not less. She highlights:
The rush hour of gods: Rising religiosity among the educated and prosperous, not the poor.
Privatization enables hinduization: Deregulation of education allows religious endowments to establish deemed universities teaching astrology, vastu, priestcraft.
Superpower swadeshi: Economic success gets attributed to Hindu civilizational superiority.
Public hinduism: What was private home worship becomes ostentatious public ritual.
Has she decided that religion should be practiced behind closed doors? She does not say so. Does any such society exist where such practice is confined to closed doors? None. The question therefore is:
What can be the psychology behind such absurdist writing and delusion?
Fiction writers create absurdist works deliberately. They want to challenge reality, mock society, or explore philosophical ideas. Cervantes wrote Don Quixote as satire. He was poking fun at chivalric romances that were popular but outdated in his time. How somebody becomes Don Quixote and find wind mills as threatening?
Don Quixote becomes delusional because he reads too many knight stories. His mind can’t separate fiction from reality anymore. He genuinely believes he’s a knight and that windmills are giants. This happens through obsession mixed with isolation.
In real life, people develop similar patterns through different paths. Some get absorbed in ideologies or conspiracy theories. Others experience mental health conditions that distort perception. The brain is incredibly good at finding patterns, even where none exist.
What makes it compelling is the sincerity. Don Quixote isn’t pretending. He truly sees threats everywhere because his worldview demands enemies to fight. His servant Sancho sees reality clearly but goes along anyway.
The absurdity reveals truth. When we laugh at Don Quixote charging windmills, we might recognize our own tilting at imaginary problems. That is the brilliance.
Rationality and Absurdity
Rationality has both fixed and relative elements. The methods of rational thinking are fairly fixed. Logic, evidence evaluation, and consistency matter universally. A valid logical argument works the same everywhere.
But what counts as rational belief does shift with context and information. Someone in 1200 AD believing the sun orbits Earth wasn’t irrational given available evidence. They were working rationally within their information bubble.
Cocoon Effect
A closed circle creates its own reality. Everyone agrees, reinforces shared assumptions, and mistakes consensus for truth. The reasoning process might be internally consistent. But it’s built on unchecked premises.
This happens often with non-fiction writers. They read the same sources, talk to similar people, and develop elaborate theories. Inside the bubble, everything makes perfect sense. Outside observers see the windmills clearly.
The fix isn’t abandoning rationality. It’s testing your reasoning against hostile evidence and contrary views.
Keep the Critique Close
There is a saying in Khari boli (a dialect similar to Hindi) “Nindak Neere Rakhiya, Angan Kuti Chawwaye.” It translates into exactly same thing. Keep your critique closer, give him a room in your house. Real rationality requires exposure to people who think you’re wrong.
Rationality as a method is fixed. But rational conclusions are provisional. They depend on information quality and willingness to update beliefs.
Meera Nanda in the academic cocoon isn’t being irrational. She is being insufficiently skeptical of their information environment.
Temple and Deity Worship
Whether deity exists or not, the practice serves real psychological needs. Articulating problems, even silently, helps process them. The ritual provides structure and comfort.
In India even if there is disbelief it is kept with restraint in younger years. Saying “insufficient data” instead of “nonsense” keeps doors open. Many atheists mistake certainty for rationality.
The Ishwara or divine presence permeates everything, the object of worship becomes secondary. The act itself matters more than theological precision. This is very different from Abrahamic exclusivity.
Temple Proliferation in India
In India the most ancient temples are found after 600 AD. These accelerated after 1026 AD. Temple proliferation was also a reaction to invasion. When faith gets threatened, it becomes more visible and defensive. Communities build monuments partly as resistance.
The absence of temples in ancient Sanskrit texts either stories or scriptures is telling. Vedic religion was more about yajna (ritual fire) than buildings. Temples came later, possibly due to changing social needs.
So worship moved from home fires to public structures during periods of threat and change. The form adapted while core ideas persisted. This reframes “traditional” temple worship as relatively recent innovation, not timeless practice.
The Career Reinvention Pattern
At 50, after two decades as a biologist, she pivots completely. Not gradually, but abruptly. This suggests either:
- Deep personal crisis requiring new identity
- Opportunistic recognition of a niche market
- Genuine ideological conversion experience
The timing (2004, post-Gujarat riots, pre-2009 elections) suggests the second. She saw the opening.
The Borrowed Authority
She writes with certainty about traditions she hasn’t studied. This reveals:
- Dunning-Kruger effect (incompetence breeding confidence)
- Ideological possession (the framework matters more than facts)
- Performance of expertise for external validation
Her reliance on Western scholars creates an echo chamber. She’s not discovering, she’s confirming.
The Minority Anxiety Lens
Her constant invocation of Muslim anxiety is telling. It’s either:
- Genuine empathy that blinds her to complexity
- Strategic framing to create political urgency
- Projection of her own anxieties onto others
Given the election timing, the third seems most likely. She may fear Hindu assertion because it threatens her worldview.
The Rationalist’s Rage
Her tone reveals deep frustration. Educated Indians aren’t becoming secular rationalists as the script demands. Instead they’re thriving economically while remaining devout. This breaks her model.
This cognitive dissonance produces the inflammatory language she uses. She’s not analyzing, she’s fighting against reality.
The Exile’s Resentment:
There may be deep anger. She left (or stayed away in) America expecting India to follow the secular rationalist script. Instead, India globalizes while becoming MORE Hindu. Her entire framework is invalidated. The people she thought she’d liberated are thriving without her liberation.
The Expatriate’s Gaze:
Living in the USA since 2004 fundamentally shapes her perspective. She’s observing India from outside, with American rationalist assumptions as her baseline. This creates several psychological dynamics:
Cultural Estrangement
- She returns as a visitor, not a participant
- The rituals she once knew (or ignored) now appear alien, even threatening
- Distance breeds certainty – she doesn’t have to live with the complexity
The Convert’s Zeal:
Her insisting on denying others’ “choice” is crucial. She’s adopted Western rationalism so completely that she cannot extend basic liberal tolerance to those who choose differently. This is classic convert psychology – more rigid than those born into the framework. Once again I wonder if she has converted to some other religion. But she has definitely converted to another process.
The Holy Prophet of Rationality
The Intellectual Superiority Complex: By labeling all Hindu rituals as “superstition” without qualification, she positions herself as:
- The enlightened one who sees through false consciousness
- The rescuer who must save Indians from themselves
- The arbiter of what counts as rational
The Authoritarian Rationalist: “There is no question of respecting other persons ‘choice’ as it is irrational.” She writes in her article called personal diary. This reveals her true position. She’s not a liberal pluralist. She’s an ideological enforcer. Her rationality isn’t one valid framework among others – it’s THE framework, and deviation must be condemned.
The Symbolic Target
She chose car puja as her emblematic example of Hindu “superstition.” This is deeply telling because:
- Class resentment disguised as rationalism – Car owners are the new middle class, the globalization winners. She’s not attacking temple rituals of the poor, but the consumption rituals of the prosperous.
- The missionary’s frustration – People buying cars (symbols of modernity, Western technology) are STILL performing Hindu rituals. This breaks her model completely. They should have abandoned religion along with their scooters.
- Cultural alienation – Living in America, she returns and sees car dealerships offering free pujas. To her expatriate eyes, this looks like contamination of the modern by the primitive. To the participants, it is a natural cultural continuity.
The Key Quote of Fight
“One cannot fight the faith-based politics of Hindu nationalists and the similarly inspired initiatives of the Indian state unless one questions the very foundations of the beliefs and rituals of popular Hinduism itself. One cannot go on ‘respecting’ people’s faith, but then turn around and start questioning them when they actually act upon that faith under the banner of Hindutva.”
Her Psychology
- Totalizing Logic – You can’t oppose Hindutva without attacking ordinary Hindu practice. This reveals her belief that ALL Hindu religiosity is proto-fascist.
- The Respect Problem – She puts “respecting” in scare quotes. She sees liberal tolerance of religious practice as enabling fascism. Therefore, respect itself becomes complicity.
- The Slippery Slope Fallacy – Car puja → temple donations → Hindu nationalism → fascism. No distinction between levels of practice, no recognition of individual autonomy.
- The Ideological Puritan – She demands total renunciation of Hindu practice as the price of being considered rational/progressive. Partial modernity is worse than none.
The Logic of Outrage
Her outrage at car pujas reveals ontological anxiety. The rationalist secular modern world she believed in is NOT emerging. Instead, hybrid forms are thriving. People are:
- Economically rational (buying cars)
- Technologically competent (IT workers)
- Religiously observant (performing pujas)
- Politically assertive (voting BJP)
This combination is UNBEARABLE to her framework. It must be either:
- False consciousness (they don’t understand their real interests)
- Manipulation (corporate/state conspiracy)
- Civilizational defect (Hinduism itself is the problem)
She cannot accept the fourth option: People are making informed choices different from hers. This is the psychology of the failed prophet. The masses refuse salvation.
Next question is what framed her in this module? The answer is Lord Macaulay’s Education Policy in India. That shall be covered in next Article.
References:
- Meera Nanda “God Delusion at Work: My Indian Travel Diary” Economic Political Weekly 2008: https://www.epw.in/journal/2008/42/commentary/god-delusion-work-my-indian-travel-diary.html
- Fight faith based Politics: https://independent.academia.edu/MeeraNanda
- Kabir Das: निंदक नियरे राखिये, आँगन कुटी छवाये। बिन पानी साबुन बिना, निर्मल करे सुहाए
- God Delusion at Work: My Indian Travel Diary https://www.jstor.org/stable/40278070?
- The God Market: https://www.academia.edu/65857600/The_God_Market_How_Globalization_is_Making_India_More_Hindu