Paper short abstract:

Through an analysis of interpretive dilemmas generated by newspaper cartoons, this paper builds on the panel's question: How is religion redefined in contexts where modernity and secularism are gaining ground?

Paper long abstract:

Over the past ten years, I have been researching newspaper cartoons in colonial and contemporary India. This paper looks at petitions against cartoons of religious figures as a context and pretext for articulating the relationship between religion, modernity and secular politics. In particular, I will focus on these political and interpretive claims from Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, and Islamic positions to present the assertion of religious identity as part and parcel of a modern and secular sensibility.