Gitanjali Surendran, Democracy’s Dhamma: Buddhism in the Making of Modern India, c. 1890–1956. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024.

Democracy’s Dhamma is a theoretically ambitious and empirically sound intervention into the intellectual and political histories of modern India. By tracing the genealogy of Buddhism during late colonial and early postcolonial period through ‘itineraries and political projects’ of a wide range of transregional Buddhist activists, reformers, and intellectuals – such as Anagarika Dharmapala, Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, Jawaharlal Nehru, Vinayak D. Savarkar, Rahul Sankrityayan and B.R. Ambedkar – Surendran argues that Buddhism served as ‘democracy’s dhamma,’ or the moral and cultural foundation for a new Indian democracy and nation in making, rather than merely as a relic of India’s ancient past.

This central objective makes it an intriguing read, for it delves into a complicated yet interesting history of how imported ideas of democracy and nationhood were Indianized in the colonial context through native cultures and traditions, involving a rich history of exchanges, conflicts, and contestations. This review locates the book within broader debates in South Asian historiography, political theory, and the study of religion and secularism while offering a thematic overview and critical-theoretical assessment of its central arguments.

One of the central claims of the book is that Buddhism was conceived as a ‘religion of democracy’ by the makers of modern India, a normative framework that could underwrite both constitutional republicanism and a substantive social-democratic ethos. In this reading, Ambedkar’s embrace of Buddhism, or Nehru’s deliberate admiration for the Buddhist ethos, is not a retreat from secularism into religiosity but an active affirmation and strengthening of their democratic project. Chapters five and six reveal how Nehru co-opted Buddhist motifs, values, and spatial-symbolic repertoires in order to cultivate a ‘civil religion’ for the emergent modern Indian nation – ‘Buddhism was to form the very foundation of a new secular, tolerant, democratic, egalitarian, internationally progressive and science- and rationality-loving state and polity’ (186). Highlighting the international significance of Buddhism, the author also shows how Buddhist relics were central to Nehru’s Buddhist statecraft in post-independent India, where they were used for soft diplomacy with other countries in South and Southeast Asia.

This reading of Nehru’s ‘civil religion’ can be seen in the context of Martha Nussbaum’s (2013) seminal work on Political Emotions, where she argues for civic love as the foundation of democracy and justice, and thus invites us to think beyond the abstract framework of reason and rationality in order to strengthen democratic commitments in citizens. Nussbaum argues that success of democracy significantly depends on citizens’ capacity to feel compassion for one another and their commitment to democratic values and principles – which can be achieved by cultivating an emotionally inspiring public culture. Surendran shows that “Nehru too was absorbed with the idea of generating a ‘public emotion culture’ based on values and rituals” (220). And Buddhism offered useful symbols and narratives for attaining this goal.

Chapter 7 provides details on early conversion efforts and discursive engagement of various ‘theorists of Buddhist democracy’ such as P. Lakshmi Narasu, Bodhanand Mahasthavir, Rahul Sankrityayan, and Dharmanand Kosambi, who articulated ideas for a socialist and casteless society. The last two chapters highlight another important facet of Buddhist politics in modern India. Surendran argues here that Buddhism in the early 20th century began to be put in conversation with radical political and social ideologies, such as socialism and anti-caste movements.

The discussion of Dalit assertion in the early part of the 20th century and the space it gained within Buddhism remains one of the central themes for the author in this book. Analysis of Ambedkar and Buddhism discussed in chapter 8 merits special mention here. Surendran reveals Ambedkar’s deep attachment to Buddhism, an association inspired by his adoration for the figure of the Buddha, which evolved organically over the years as Ambedkar discovered Buddhism and its social philosophy in his life. Hence, the author observes, Ambedkar’s ultimate act of embracing Buddhism in the mass-conversion of 1956 was not just a pragmatic choice but was inspired by the idea that a new morality based on a different ‘theologico-socio-political philosophy’ (219) was needed in order to truly attain justice for Dalits and achieve a harmonious society. And Buddhism was a natural choice given its democratic and ethical potentials.

But what the author fails to address is how one reconciles a social-moral vision with the ritualistic demands of a religion in which divine figures and practices acquire sacred and godly status. This paradox manifests most starkly in the contemporary trajectory of Navayana Buddhism – that Ambedkar thought could be the religion of a new democracy – where even this new sect could not completely resist the ritualistic tendencies of religion. So much so that the figure of Ambedkar himself has acquired a somewhat god-like status in the contemporary Dalit assertion. The author avoids addressing this tension and passing any evaluation on this aspect.

The idea of ‘Democracy’s Dhamma,’ which remains a central theme in the book, is supported by the author’s rich historical account of the evolution of Buddhism in modern India in the initial chapters. At the heart of Democracy’s Dhamma is a set of interconnected theoretical claims about the relationship between religion, democracy, and modernity. To begin with, Surendran advances a thesis that Buddhism is not simply rediscovered in this period but is actively produced as a modern political tradition, reconfiguring older doctrines around themes of rationality, universalism, and ethical citizenship.

Starting with the Ceylonese Buddhist activist Anagarika Dharmapala’s idea of a Buddhist world in the first two chapters, the author provides a rich account of his contribution to the internationalization of Buddhist sites in India, such as the Mahabodhi temple, and to carving out a separate, independent, and pan-Asian identity for Buddhism. Positing Buddhism as a universal faith in a ‘landscape dominated by Hindu revivalism and revitalization’ (64), Dharamapala had to engage with other native ideas and traditions. Hence, the author provides a comparative analysis of the complex interactions and exchanges between the universalism of Hindu revivalists and Buddhist universalists, particularly by comparing Dharmapala and Vivekananda in chapter 2.

Let me now make some general comments about the significance of this text. Democracy’s Dhamma makes the following three major contributions to the historiography and political thought in modern India.

First, it brings Buddhism into the mainstream discussions on Indian nationalism, democracy, and secularism, rather than relegating it to the margins or treating it as merely a cultural memory. By tracing the ‘Buddhist circuits’ of travel, pilgrimage, and print culture, Surendran reveals how Buddhist activists helped shape the symbolic geography of the nation – from the national flag and emblem to the spatial imaginary of ‘India of the Buddha.’ This resonates with scholarship on modernity and secularism during the colonial era and on the politics of heritage in post-colonial states, and takes the discussion further by showing how a transnational religious tradition is folded into the very imagination of secular democracy.

Second, the book intervenes in the debate over religion and secularism in India by demonstrating that the boundaries between ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ are far more porous than conventional accounts suggest. A detailed description of Nehru’s deployment of Buddhist motifs and symbols – Ashoka, Sarnath, and the Wheel of Dharma – as part of a quasi-civil-religious lexicon challenges the view that Nehruvian secularism is a purely rationalist, anti-religious project. Instead, she demonstrates that Nehru’s ethical-scientific modernity is full of devotional and Buddhist imagery, thereby complicating the secularist dichotomy between reason and faith. In this reading, even Ambedkar, despite being a staunch supporter of rationalism, required a theological-ethical framework for his conception of social democracy.

And finally, the book makes a significant contribution to the intellectual history of anti-caste thought. What is particularly innovative is the way Surendran links this anti-caste project to broader debates about democracy, internationalism, and socialism, thereby locating Ambedkar within a global Buddhist and leftist intellectual milieu rather than a narrowly Indian ideological context.

Despite its many strengths, Democracy’s Dhamma also merits a critical scrutiny. One of the most pressing concerns is the conceptual treatment of the term ‘democracy’s dhamma’ itself. While the phrase is fancy and normatively appealing, the author does not adequately theorize the precise relationship between Dhamma (as an ethical and social category) and the institutional structure of democracy. For instance, it remains unclear in her analysis how far a moral, religious tradition such as Buddhism can function as the foundation of democracy without lapsing into a kind of moral authoritarianism or into a ritualistic, rigid, institutionalized religious doctrine. This tension is particularly crucial to be addressed since many of our Buddhist neighbors in South and South-East Asia have lapsed into genocidal majoritarianism over the last century.

Notwithstanding some of the theoretical and methodological challenges, Democracy’s Dhamma is a landmark intervention in the intellectual and political history of modern India. By demonstrating how Buddhism was re-invented as ‘democracy’s dhamma,’ Gitanjali Surendran reconfigures the conventional narratives of secularism and nationalism, and places the demand for a ‘civic religion’ as the cornerstone of a new democracy and the conviction of the Indian political class that it can be supplied by Buddhist ethical principles and aesthetics at its center.