Said then HRD Secretary S C Tripathi: “We believed there was no need for Intelligence Bureau to clear Fulbright scholars.” So on content, too, official records show that unlike in the UPA regime, the NDA wasn’t playing the thought police. Consider some of the subjects cleared by the NDA:

1999-2000

• Interface between religion and medicine in Tibetan transformation of Indian medical models

• The production of pilgrimage maps in Haridwar and Varanasi

2000-01

• Modern Indian history

• Periyapuranam and Rise of Tamil Saivism

• Kerala’s labour migration to the Middle-East

• Remembering Nawabi rule and the rebellion of 1857 in Lucknow

• Preservation of historical monuments in India

• Local roots of religious nationalism

• Interaction between Hindu, Jain and Muslim communities in Western India during 1300-1500

• Competing cultures of the Math: New sectarian institutions in the social re-education of Hindu Karnataka

• Beyond Buddhist and Brahmanical activity: The place of Jain rock-cut excavations at Ellora

2001-02

• Celebrating the Living goddess: Durga, Lakshmi, Kali and Saraswati

• Melding of the categories of religion and politics by the Hindu religious reform movement, the Arya Samaj, in the United Provinces and Punjab between 1875 and 1920

• The Jews of India: A documentary film

• Playing in the Lord’s playground: God, Salvation and play-acting the Braj raslila

... contd.