The Wire: Hegel's Gita - A Philosopher Haunted by Indian Spirit

​'It is little known that the great teacher of Karl Marx, German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel, wrote extensively on the Gita. Hegel’s long two-part essay entitled, “On the Episode of the Mahabharata Known by the Name Bhagavad-Gita by Wilhelm von Humboldt” is a detailed critique of not only the Indological work of Humboldt, but also of the philosophical foundations and teachings of the ​Gita itself.'
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— The Wire, 'Hegel's Gita: A Philosopher Haunted by Indian Spirit'. An excerpt from Hegel's India: ​A Reinterpretation, 04/NOV/2017

Hegel’s India was nominated for Best Non-fiction Book of 2017, Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest. 

Arabic and Italian Forays: Hegel's India

'Hegel's Gita'
~ Arabic translation in Hekmah, 3 October 2018

'Hegel, passione indiana' 
~ Review by Sebastiano Maffettone in Italian press, Il Sole 24 Ore, 2 April 2017

Hegel ka Bharat: Kuchh Pratikriyaen - Review in Pratiman

~ Review of Hegel's India in Pratiman, ​Vol. 10, ​Nand Kishore Acharya, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India, July-December 2017

A philosophical critique of Hegel - Economic & Political Weekly

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‘A philosophical critique of Hegel will have to squarely confront this question, howsoever critical it may well be—and justifiably so—​of Hegel’s specific historical, sociological, and politico-theoretical forays. After all, at stake in the latter is both the conceptualisation and expression of the modern condition in the shape of the free citizen (modern politics) having a human history as much as a “collective perfectibility.”’ ​

— Rahul Govind, ​Economic & Political Weekly, Vol. 53, Issue No. 16, 21 April 2018 

A unique volume: The Sunday Guardian

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‘This unique volume brings together Hegel’s reflections and argues that Indian thought haunted him, representing a nemesis to his own philosophy.’​ ​

— The Sunday Guardian, 15-21 October 2017 

India figures in Hegel’s classic writings - The Caravan

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'India figures in Hegel’s classic writings on the philosophy of history and the modern state. He also wrote on the caste system, the Bhagavad Gita, Indian art and other topics. Scholars of postcolonialism have often dismissed these works as Orientalist and essentialist. This new book includes of all of Hegel’s essays on India, as well as explanatory essays about his writings, to reassess the significance of India in the philosopher’s larger body of work.' ​​

— The Caravan, 1 April 2017

A fusion of horizons - Hegel's India in the Jadavpur Journal of Philosophy ​

'There seems to be a fusion of horizons between the Hegelian absolute and ​Indian Brahman.' ​

— Prasenjit Biswas, Jadavpur Journal of Philosophy, ​Volume 27, Number 1, 2017-18

Excites, Provokes, Ignites: Journal of Contemporary Thought

‘What the authors manage to reveal . . . is the earnestness with which Hegel had in fact engaged with India . . . Hegel’s India surely manages to excite, provoke and ignite a spark.’ 

— P. G. Jung, Journal of Contemporary Thought, 

Winter 2016, Number 44

Indian Philosophy, Western Perspective: Hegel's India in The Tribune

‘Hegel, as the authors in an excellent comprehensive introduction in the book show, wrote a great deal about India . . . While [they] offer a reinterpretation of Hegel’s writings on India, what is most compelling about this volume is reading ​an influential 19th-century thinker’s creation of the oriental outlook that was to dominate western scholarship and even fashion sustaining the self-image which many orientals imbibed under colonial rule.’ 

— Vijay Tankha, The Tribune, 8 April 2018

An important book at a significant time: The Book Review

‘This is an important book at a significant time. It makes some incisive points on how the Anglophone world has refused to, and continues to ignore, the contributions of “far-reaching philosophical systems” that arose outside the so-called western traditions.’ 

— Ajay Gudavarthy, The Book Review, VOLUME XLI, NUMBER 6, JUNE 2017
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Hegel’s India in Biblio: A Review of Books

‘Hegel’s India is an attempt to deal with one of the most complex and systematic of philosophers that many have chosen to ignore on the basis of mere indirect references to his work . . . This is one of the most striking things about the book—the ease with which the authors attempt to bridge the gap between worlds hitherto thought of as unbridgeable.’ 

— Sunil Kumar, Biblio: A Review of Books, January-March 2018, Vol. XXIII, Numbers 1-3

Hegel's India: Reactions

​‘Promises to be the most thorough and incisive treatment of the topic since Tibebu’s Hegel and the Third World.’ 

— Makarand R. Paranjape 

‘Intriguing and original’ 

— Dilip M. Menon

Hegel’s India in the Journal of Indian Council ​of Philosophical Research

‘Hegel’s India . . . helps go beyond the orientalist and power/knowledge frameworks, and think of philosophy in a new way.’ 

— Ranabir Samaddar, Journal of Indian Council ​of Philosophical Research, September 2018, Volume 35, Issue 3, pp 497–512


The book is available here.

A book that speaks of and to the times - IIC Quarterly

​‘A book that speaks of and to the times . . . Hegel’s India makes Hegel both accessible and pertinent to the Indian reader who may be looking to constructively find distinctions between Indian philosophy, religious doctrine and hegemony.’ 

— Navtej Johar, IIC Quarterly, Autumn 2017, Volume 44, Number 2

The Hindu: Sunday Feature of Hegel's India

‘Shed[s] new light on Indological and Hegelian studies . . . including translations of [Hegel’s] lesser-known essays on the Bhagavad Gita and Oriental Spirit.’ 

— The Hindu, 5 November 2017

The Land of Desire: The Indian Express​

‘It is wonderful to have access to these writings in one volume. The introduction gives a tour d’horizon of the sources Hegel consulted and the interpretive controversies surrounding his work on India . . . Reading Hegel is always challenging. If the difficulties are great, so are the stakes. Even in his most prejudiced criticism, he could shine a light ​on unusual questions.’ 

— Pratap Bhanu Mehta, 'The Land of Desire', ​The Indian Express​, 11 February 2017

Hegel's India in The Owl of Minerva

‘That [a] long-neglected essay [Herbert Herring’s translation of Hegel’s 1827 review of Humboldt’s work on the Bhagavad Gita] . . . now appears in a good English translation is a boon to ​Hegel studies.’ 

— Eric v.d. Luft, The Owl of Minerva, Volume 48, Issue 1/2, 2016/2017

Hegel’s India - Oxford India Paperbacks

‘Hegel’s India takes the challenge of a detailed reading of Hegel’s texts with a surprising result: behind Hegel’s dismissal of India, there lies not only his profound fascination with India but also an uncanny proximity between India’s ancient wisdom and Hegel’s speculative thought. Beneath Hegel’s India, we can discern the traces of what would have been India’s Hegel. [This book] provides a model of how a dialogue between different cultures should be practiced, beyond the confines of Eurocentrism and historicist relativism.’

— Slavoj Žižek, International Director, the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, University of London, United Kingdom
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'From the very beginning the depth of Hegel’s engagement with India and with Indian philosophy has been consistently underestimated. This volume makes a compelling case for a reassessment and it does so at a time when Western philosophy faces renewed challenges for its Eurocentrism. Hegel’s India belongs front and center within that debate for the new perspective it offers.'
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— Robert Bernasconi, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of  Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University, USA


Now available in Paperback! 

Montage Evening

Bombay. January of 2016, half past five in the evening. You are in a taxi, passing along Marine Drive. The afterglow of sun packs itself for later. That way it might last longer. Amblers and wayfarers gather at the sea. The city faintly buzzes in the horizon, a loud arc of traffic extends behind you. A sleepless skyline stapled with the sun and a metropolis. You are not sure yet if you talk, watch, rush, or savour the ocean’s quiet. A multitude of stories that throb like unknown hearts. An indifferent sea as witness. It’s a mixture of a thousand things. Maybe it’s the crashing waves, maybe it’s the calm.

[Photographs from a moving taxi. A tribute to sunlight that let the silhouettes form. This montage catches glimpses from a Black and White dream.]