Holy science : the biopolitics of Hindu nationalism / Banu Subramaniam.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

In search of India: the inner lives of postcolonialism -- Avatars for bionationalism: tales from (an)other enlightenment -- Home and the world: the modern lives of the Vedic sciences -- Colonial legacies, postcolonial biologies: the queer politics of (un)natural sex -- Return of the native: nation, nature, and postcolonial environmentalism -- Biocitizenship in neoliberal times: on the making of the Indian genome -- Conceiving a Hindu nation: (re)making the Indian womb -- Avatars for dreamers: narrative's seductive embrace -- Notes on the mythopoeia -- Finding India: the afterlives of colonialism.

"Subramaniam examines how science and religion have come together to propel a vision of the modern Indian nation, and in particular, a Hindu nationalist vision of India. Five illustrative cases of bionationalism animate this book: Hindu nationalist narratives of scientific development, colonial law and sexual politics in India, surrogacy and women's roles, the politics of caste and race in the language of genes and genomics, and the alignment of environmental scientists and religious activists. Subramaniam demonstrates that the politics of gender, race, class, caste, sexuality, and indigeneity are deeply implicated in the projects and narratives of the nation. At the same time, she seeks spaces of possibility and new narratives for planetary salvation that defy binary logics, incorporating science and religion, human and nonhuman, and nature and culture"-- Provided by publisher.