About this event
A discussion on Gabriel of Madness by Anand Vivek Taneja will be held on Saturday 17 October.
Since a right-wing Hindu nationalist government came to power in 2014, Indian Muslims have faced Islamophobia, mob violence, discriminatory legislation and economic ostracism. The book asks how the country’s largest religious minority has responded to the failure of state secularism in the world’s biggest democracy.
Taneja turns to Urdu poetry for his answer, drawing on poetic symposiums, interviews, social media and conversations with a diverse group of Muslim interlocutors. His ethnography follows the ways Indian Muslims have drawn upon Islamic traditions to actualise free-thinking selves and to imagine a pluralistic society that would not depend on coercive state power.
The evening will give the audience a chance to consider the artistic, ethical and spiritual life that Muslim communities have kept vital at a moment of existential crisis.