Home to all the major religions, India is also, inevitably, host to virtually every type of religious fanatic. No other nation has witnessed as much proselytizing or heard as many war cries in the name of God as India. Holy Warriors paints a picture of a country divided by dogma.
EDNA FERNANDES is a British-Indian journalist who has worked for many of the leading international news organizations from AP-Dow Jones and Reuters in London to the FT in New Delhi. Her articles have been reproduced in the Wall Street Journal and International Herald Tribune. She is now at work on her second book for Portobello, The Last Jews of Kerala.
The reportage is even-handed and responsible and even delightfully
witty. Fernandes's asides are precise and wicked. Above all, she
offers a valuable reminder of the dark side of the economic miracle
that is modern India
*Guardian*
As fair and objective an assessment of the perils that lie ahead
for India as any that I have ever read. It is a must-read for all
of those who wish the country to prosper as a secular democracy. A
powerful book
*Khushwant Singh*
This impressively researched and lucidly written book travels
quickly beyond many banalities about India today. Anyone interested
in exploring the complex appeal of religious extremism in
half-modern societies should read it
*Pankaj Mishra*
This is an amazing book, incredible. Anyone interested in religions
and how they get on - or don't - should get hold of it. I'm telling
you, it's a compulsive read.
*BBC Asian Network*
This energetic account of religious violence and prejudice in India
is witty, informative - and disturbing. Purity and impurity, rather
than good works and sin, would appear to constitute the dominant
polarity in religious consciousness on the Subcontinent. But one
faith's purity may be another's filth... Holy Warriors sets out to
explore the conundrum: what exactly is the relationship between
fanatical religious observance and sectarian violence in modern
India? The book opens with a brief consideration of Partition, the
carnage that accompanied it and the unhappy irony that it did not
produce clear and separate national identities for Pakistan and
India... After the grim facts, Fernandes tells of her own trips to
these troubled areas and her long interviews with many of those
involved in the violence: victims, police chiefs, religious
leaders, politicians (but not the killers). Her travelogues are
attractive; she is a witty caricaturist, and a stubborn
interviewer... often fun, always informative, Holy Warriors is a
useful introduction to the sectarian divides of contemporary
India.
*Telegraph*
An entertaining and insightful thematic travelogue, a tour of
Indian flashpoints.
*Economist*
In Holy Warriors, the British-Indian journalist Edna Fernandes
offers and insightful analysis of religious fundamentalism,
combining solid research with bold investigative reporting...
Fernandes's survey is brave, enlightening and sobering, a must-read
for anyone interested in modern India.
*Observer*
Edna Fernandes meets extremists of every faith, and paints a vivid
portrait of a country so often divided by dogma.
*Traveller*
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