Podcast Summary: New Books Network
Episode: J. Barton Scott, "Slandering the Sacred: Blasphemy Law and Religious Affect in Colonial India"
Host: Dr. Raj Balkar
Guest: Dr. J. Barton Scott
Date: December 31, 2025
Episode Overview
In this episode, Dr. Raj Balkar interviews Dr. J. Barton Scott about his new book, Slandering the Sacred: Blasphemy Law and Religious Affect in Colonial India, published by University of Chicago Press (and Permanent Black in India). The discussion revolves around the historical origins, implications, and contemporary resonances of Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalizes the outrage of religious feelings, and explores how legal secularism intertwines with the emotional and political dimensions of religion in colonial and postcolonial India. Dr. Scott’s narrative-driven approach to historical scholarship is highlighted, as is the book’s broader relevance to global debates about injurious speech, secularism, and religious affect.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. The Narrative Style of the Book
- Accessible, Storytelling Approach:
- Dr. Balkar notes the unusually narrative-driven, engaging prose for an academic monograph, making it a "page turner."
- Dr. Scott shares his commitment to “writing that has some kick to it,” emphasizing the importance of narrative flow and multiple revisions (04:22).
- Quote:
“I like writing that has strong narrative propulsion to it… you have to first figure out what your ideas are… and then just revise, revise, revise until it flows smoothly.”
— Dr. J. Barton Scott [04:22]
- Pedagogical Value:
- Both speakers agree that strong storytelling enhances learning and scholarly engagement (05:03).
2. Genesis of Interest & Methodology
- Personal and Scholarly Origins:
- Dr. Scott, aware of how Section 295A “shadowed” both scholarship and public life in India (including incidents like Wendy Doniger’s book controversy), decided to confront his anxieties head-on by making the law itself an object of study (06:33).
- Quote:
“I decided for this project, I was going to lean into the paranoia and in fact write about the thing that was making me paranoid, which is this law…”
— Dr. J. Barton Scott [06:33]
3. Substance and Argument of the Book
- Section 295A and Enduring Challenges:
- The core argument: Section 295A symbolizes a set of enduring, unsolvable problems about regulating injurious speech in society—questions that persist from colonial times into the present (08:38, 10:00).
- Discussion on parallels between colonial dilemmas and contemporary issues such as hate speech, trigger warnings, and cancel culture.
- Quote:
“It just represents a set of problems that have no easy solution…How is a modern state meant to regulate or proscribe injurious speech?”
— Dr. J. Barton Scott [08:42]
4. Secularism: Promise and Regulation
- Secularism’s Double Face:
- Drawing on Talal Asad, Hussein Ali Agrama, and Saba Mahmood, Dr. Scott frames secularism as both a promise of freedom and an impulse to regulate (12:18).
- The book emphasizes the “regulatory impulse” often obscured by focus on freedoms.
- Quote:
“Often when we think about secularism, we really only see the liberal promise of freedom. We have a hard time paying attention to this other face of the state. But arguably that other face…is actually more important.”
— Dr. J. Barton Scott [13:02]
5. Historical Narrative & Case Study: The Rangila Rasool Affair
- Key Legal and Religious Drama:
- The narrative centers on the 1927 Rajpal/Rangila Rasool Affair in Lahore, which triggered the creation of Section 295A after a pamphlet mocking Prophet Muhammad provoked public outrage but found no remedy in then-extant law (14:44).
- The story zooms back to the 1830s with Thomas Macaulay, architect of the Indian Penal Code, and follows through the entwined histories of legal regulation and Hindu reform movements like Arya Samaj.
- The book examines the colonial state’s secular/legal efforts to manage religious insult and the concomitant rise of new forms of public religious contestation (14:44-16:37).
6. Surprising Discoveries & Conceptual Shifts
- Secularization of Blasphemy:
- Dr. Scott was surprised to find how Section 295A intentionally secularized the notion of blasphemy, even as blasphemy laws lingered in the UK into the 21st century (17:05).
- The realization that colonial India was a vanguard site for developing British legal secularism, with ideas often flowing back to the metropole.
- Quote:
“India was at the forefront of the development of British secularism. The British were always more secular in the colonies than at home…”
— Dr. J. Barton Scott [18:00]
7. Contemporary Relevance and Global Parallels
- Not Just a South Asian or Colonial Problem:
- Section 295A’s logic and dilemmas echo globally in debates about hate speech and offense, both within South Asia (e.g., Pakistan’s adapted blasphemy laws) and in broader theoretical considerations of religious affect and public emotion (19:38-22:45).
- The “affective” dimension—how laws and media practices shape what it feels like to be part of a religious community—bridges past and present, print and digital cultures.
8. Interdisciplinary Appeal & Theoretical Stakes
- Fields in Conversation:
- The book speaks to scholars of South Asian religions, historians, anthropologists, scholars of secularism, religious affect and feeling, and media studies (23:18).
- Aim: To connect conversations in South Asian studies to global theoretical discourses.
9. Policy, Critique, and Reflection
- On Changing the Law:
- Dr. Scott demurs on direct policy prescription, asserting that his task is genealogy and critique, not advocacy (24:51).
- He points to historical complexity and warns against oversimplified contemporary critiques that miss the law’s secularizing (rather than theocratic) genealogy.
- Quote:
“People when they critique this law, are often unaware of the kinds of histories that their critiques participate in… The history of secularism is complex. Its politics are not always as savory or as clean cut as we want them to be.”
— Dr. J. Barton Scott [24:51-27:00] - Dr. Balkar humorously references the need to attend to secularism’s “Siamese twin”—religion—echoing Scott’s earlier theoretical framing (27:00).
10. Future Projects
- What’s Next for Dr. Scott:
- His next major project will examine “global transnational Hinduism,” focusing on the friendship between English novelist Christopher Isherwood and his Bengali guru, Swami Prabhavananda, in Los Angeles between the 1920s and 50s, exploring the political form of the guru in a transcolonial context (27:17-28:13).
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
-
On Style:
“You’ve somehow written a page turner about a penal code. No small feat.”
— Dr. Raj Balkar, quoting a reviewer [05:32] -
On Fear and Scholarship:
“For years I'd been working on topics in and around modern Hinduism and had been writing under the shadow of just this paranoia…will I be dragged to court or have my things pulped? … I was going to lean into the paranoia.”
— Dr. J. Barton Scott [06:33] -
On colonial legal innovation:
“The British were always more secular in the colonies than they were at home, and maybe especially in India…”
— Dr. J. Barton Scott [18:00] -
On the twin faces of secularism:
“There is no secularism if you can't identify something in the world to call religion, and then try to map, manage, and regulate that religion.”
— Dr. J. Barton Scott [13:02] -
On public affect:
“What happens in these spaces is intimate and public at the same time. And so the book is trying to provide one set of theoretical vocabularies or narrative techniques for describing that kind of public intimacy.”
— Dr. J. Barton Scott [22:26]
Segment Timestamps
- Introduction & Book Context — 01:26-03:11
- Narrative Writing Discussion — 03:19-06:22
- Genesis of the Project & Section 295A — 06:22-07:58
- Core Argument & Relevance of 295A — 08:38-10:00
- Secularism and Regulation of Religion — 12:07-14:36
- Historical Narrative: Rangila Rasool Affair — 14:44-16:37
- Surprises & Secularization of Blasphemy — 17:05-19:10
- Contemporary Global Relevance — 19:38-22:45
- Fields and Theoretical Conversations — 23:18-24:16
- Policy, Critique, and Complexity — 24:51-27:00
- Future Work & Closing — 27:17-28:34
Final Thoughts
This episode offers a lively, richly contextual exploration of how colonial legal codes and secular ideologies continue to shape contemporary debates over religion, injury, and free speech. Dr. J. Barton Scott's work demonstrates that the past is not merely a prologue, but an active, affective presence in ongoing struggles over the sacred, the secular, and their entanglements. The conversation will appeal not just to specialists in South Asian studies, but to anyone interested in the complexity of modern law, public emotion, and the lived experience of religious and secular identities.