The struggle between orthodox religion and free woman, central to Blind Faith, is both old and current. In your novel how much of this conflict is shaped by what you see around you?

September 11, 2001 brought into focus the motivations of extremist religious ideology. But not just Islam but all orthodox versions of religion do, in my opinion, express themselves in a hatred of the woman’s body. The controversy over the veil, the Imrana episode, the exclusion of women from the Sabrimala temple, the Vatican’s approach to abortion, look at the way Muslim clerics have spoken of Shabana Azmi as a “naach gaana karne wali aurat”. All religions that insist on “purity” see the sexual woman as the “pollutant”, as “impure”. That’s why in my book, the fundamental conflict is between what I have called The Purification Movement and the so-called impure woman (the character of Indi). Even movements like the RSS, I believe, secretly detest the liberated woman.

You write about two sets of people. Men of religion who are intolerant and the people in denial, who shrug off their religious roots. Are both informed by a misreading of India’s past?

Yes, exactly. I believe that those who are rootless and cut off from their traditions sometimes adopt a born-again ferocity about India and her religions. I think the key to renewal, national and individual, is a greater understanding of what our religions actually mean and what our cultural traditions mean. I feel so bereft and handicapped that I have to read everything in English. We urgently need to read our own religion and our past. True religion is the key to awakening the conscience and leading us out of the terrible spiritual crisis we now find ourselves in. In that sense, the BJP experiment was valuable because it shifted the discourse away from Stalinist secularism, but of course I totally disagree with the BJP’s political ideology.

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