Talk:Brian Hatcher

By Anirudha patel

Brian A. Hatcher is a Professor of Religion, Packard Professor of Theology, Religion at Tufts University as of April 2023. According to his university profile, his research interests include modern and contemporary Hinduism, religion, and colonialism in modern South Asia, Bengal, and Sanskrit learning.

As per his bio, he has published no books, papers or research pertaining to Hindus, rights of Hindus, the impact or relationship between Islam and Hinduism / Hindutva, India or the Indian Government in the context of BJP government.

In 2021, he endorsed the "Dismantling Global Hindutva" conference and made the allegation

"the current government of India [in 2021] has instituted discriminatory policies including beef bans, restrictions on religious conversion and interfaith weddings, and the introduction of religious discrimination into India’s citizenship laws. The result has been a horrifying rise in religious and caste-based violence, including hate crimes, lynchings, and rapes directed against Muslims, non-conforming Dalits, Sikhs, Christians, adivasis and other dissident Hindus. Women of these communities are especially targeted. Meanwhile, the government has used every tool of harassment and intimidation to muzzle dissent. Dozens of student activists and human rights defenders are currently languishing in jail indefinitely without due process under repressive anti-terrorism laws."

Publications Related to India

Books

1. Hatcher, Brian A. Idioms of Improvement: Vidyasagar and Cultural Encounter in Bengal. 2nd ed., Primus Books, 2020.
2. Hatcher, Brian A. Hinduism Before Reform. Harvard University Press, 2020.
3. Hatcher, Brian A. Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian. Pathfinders Series, Routledge, 2014.
4. Hatcher, Brian A. Bourgeois Hinduism, or the Faith of the Modern Vedantists: Rare Discourses from Early Colonial Bengal. Oxford University Press, 2008. Paperback ed., 2014. Oxford Scholarship Online, 2008.
5. Hatcher, Brian A. Eclecticism and Modern Hindu Discourse. Oxford University Press, 1999.
6. Hatcher, Brian A., translator. Hindu Widow Marriage: An Epochal Work on Social Reform from Colonial India by Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar. Columbia University Press, 2012. South Asian edition. Permanent Black, 2012.

Edited Volumes

1. Hatcher, Brian A., editor. Hinduism in the Modern World. Routledge, 2016.

Journal Articles

1. Hatcher, Brian A. "Rekindling the Gayatri Mantra: Rabindranath Tagore and ‘Our Veda’." International Journal of Hindu Studies, vol. 23, no. 3, 2019, pp. 239-58, doi: 10.1007/s11407-019-09263-2.
2. Hatcher, Brian A. "Imitation, Then and Now: On the Emergence of Philanthropy in Early Colonial Calcutta." Modern Asian Studies, Special Issue: Charity and Philanthropy in South Asia, vol. 52, no. 1, 2018, pp. 62-98, doi: 10.1017/S0026749X17000324.
3. Hatcher, Brian A. "Translation in the Zone of the Dubash: Colonial Mediations of Anuvāda." Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 76, no. 1, 2017, pp. 1-28, doi: 10.1017/S0021911816001571.
4. Hatcher, Brian A. "India's Many Puritans: Connectivity and Friction in the Study of Modern Hinduism." History Compass, vol. 15, no. 1, 2017, doi: 10.1111/hic3.12369.
5. Hatcher, Brian A. “The Shakuntala Paradigm: Vidyasagar, Widow Marriage and the Morality of Recognition.” Journal of Hindu Studies, vol. 6, no. 3, 2013, pp. 363-383.
6. Hatcher, Brian A. “Father, Son and Holy Text: Rabindranath Tagore and the Upanisads.” Journal of Hindu Studies, vol. 4, no. 2, 2011, pp. 119-143.
7. Hatcher, Brian A. “Sanskrit and the Morning After: The Metaphorics and Theory of Intellectual Change.” Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol. 44, no. 3, 2007, pp. 333-361.
8. Hatcher, Brian A. “Bourgeois Vedanta: The Colonial Roots of Middle-Class Hinduism.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, vol. 75, no. 2, 2007, pp. 298-323.
9. Hatcher, Brian A. “Remembering Rammohan: An Essay on the (Re-)emergence of Modern Hinduism.” History of Religions, vol. 46, no. 1, 2006, pp. 50-80.
10. Hatcher, Brian A. “What’s Become of the Pandit? Rethinking the History of Sanskrit Scholars in Colonial Bengal.” Modern Asian Studies, vol. 39, no. 3, 2005, pp. 683-723.
11. Hatcher, Brian A. “Looking for Bridges and Taking Detours: John Braisted Carman and the Comparative Study of Religion.” Journal of Vaisnava Studies, vol. 10, no. 2, 2002, pp. 11-18.
12. Hatcher, Brian A. “Sanskrit Pandits Recall their Youth: Two Autobiographies from Nineteenth-Century Bengal.” Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 121, no. 4, 2001, pp. 580-92.
13. Hatcher, Brian A. “Kali’s Problem Child: Another Look at Jeffrey Kripal’s Study of Sri Ramakrishna.” International Journal of Hindu Studies, vol. 3, no. 2, Aug. 1999, pp. 165-82.
14. Hatcher, Brian A. “Getting into Hinduism: A Look at New and Revised Survey Texts.” Religious Studies Review, vol. 24, no. 4, 1998, pp. 377-383.
15. Hatcher, Brian A. “Indigent Brahmans, Industrious Pandits: Bourgeois Ideology and Sanskrit Pandits in Colonial Calcutta.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Special Issue: Divergent Modernities, vol. 16, no. 1, 1996, pp. 15-26.
16. Hatcher, Brian A. “‘The Cosmos is One Family’ (vasudhaiva kutumbakam): Problematic Mantra of Hindu Humanism.” Contributions to Indian Sociology, vol. 28, no. 1, May 1994, pp. 149-162.
17. Hatcher, Brian A. “Eternal Punishment and Christian Missions: The Response of the Church Missionary Society to Broad Church Theology.” Anglican Theological Review, vol. LXXII, no. 1, 1990, pp. 39-61.

Book Chapters

1. Hatcher, Brian A. “The Era of Vidyasagar.” In A Comprehensive History of Modern Bengal, 1700-1950, volume 2, edited by Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, Primus, 2020, pp. 125-59.
2. Hatcher, Brian A. "Take me to the River: Religion Seen and Unseen in Early Colonial Bengal." In In Quest of the Historian’s Craft: Essays in Honour of Professor B. B. Chaudhuri, Part II: Polity, Society and Culture, edited by Arun Bandyopadhyay and Sanjukta Das Gupta, Manohar, 2017, pp. 593-616.
3. Hatcher, Brian A. "Eka Ādhunika Naciketā: Rabīndranāth o Upaniṣad" (in Bengali). In Itihāser baicitrya: Adhyāpaka Binayabhūṣaṇa Caudhurī sammānāgrantha, edited by Gautam Niyogi, Nirbāna Basu and Saumitra Śrīmānī, Kolkata: Bangiya Itihāsa Samiti, 2017, pp. 172-82.
4. Hatcher, Brian A. "Situating the Swaminarayan Tradition in the Historiography of Modern Hindu Reform." In Swaminarayan Hinduism: Tradition, Adaptation and Identity, edited by Raymond B. Williams and Yogi Trivedi, Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 6-37.
5. Hatcher, Brian A. "Pandits at Work: The Modern Sastric Imaginary in Early Colonial Bengal." In Trans-Colonial Modernities in South Asia, edited by Michael S. Dodson and Brian A. #Hatcher, Routledge, 2012, pp. 45-67.
6. Hatcher, Brian A. "Better a Rebel than a Beggar: Tagore and the Quest for Freedom." In Rabindranath Tagore—A Timeless Mind, London: Tagore Centre, 2011, pp. 135-143.
7. Hatcher, Brian A. "Current Approaches to Colonial Hinduism." In Continuum Companion to Hinduism, edited by Jessica Frazier, London: Continuum, 2011, pp. 171-199. Reprinted in Bloomsbury Companion to Hindu Studies, edited by Jessica Frazier, New York: Bloomsbury, 2014, pp. 171-199.
8. Hatcher, Brian A. "Sastric Modernity: Mediating Sastric Knowledge in Colonial Bengal." In Modernities in Asian Perspective: Polity, Society, Culture, Economy, edited by Kausik Bandyopadhyay, Kolkata: Setu Prakashani, 2010, pp. 117-151.
9. Hatcher, Brian A. "Contemporary Hindu Thought." In Contemporary Hinduism: Ritual, Culture, and Practice, edited by Robin Rinehart, New York: ABC-CLIO, 2004, pp. 179-211.
10. Hatcher, Brian A. "Great Men Waking: Paradigms in the Historiography of the Bengal Renaissance." In Bengal: Rethinking History. Essays in Historiography, edited by Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, International Centre for Bengal Studies, no. 29, New Delhi: Manohar, 2001, pp. 135-163.
11. Hatcher, Brian A. "No Slave to Custom." In The Golden Book of Vidyasagar, edited by Manik Mukhopadhyay, et. al., Calcutta: All Bengal Vidyasagar Death Centenary Committee, 1993, pp. 127-134.
12. Hatcher, Brian A. "A Rock for Conduct: The Theological Roots of Morality in the Thought of Isvaracandra Vidyasagar." In Vidyasagar Death Centenary Commemoration Volume--1991, edited by S.K. Adhikari, Calcutta: Vidyasagar Research Centre, 1991, pp. 20-31.