Being Hindu: Understanding a Peaceful Path in a Violent World

Winner of the 2018 Wilbur Award

There are more than one billion Hindus in the world, but for those who don’t practice the faith, very little seems to be understood about it. Followers have not only built and sustained the world’s largest democracy but have also sustained one of the greatest philosophical streams in the world for more than three thousand years.

So, what makes a Hindu? Why is so little heard from the real practitioners of the everyday faith? Why does information never go beyond clichés? Being Hindu is a practitioner’s guide that takes the reader on a journey to very simply understand what the Hindu message is, where it stands in the clash of civilizations between Islam and Christianity, and why the Hindu way could yet be the path for plurality and progress in the twenty-first century.

Hindol Sengupta is the author of ten books. He won the Wilbur Award in 2018 for Being Hindu: Understanding a Peaceful Path in a Violent World, the first book on Hinduism to win the prestigious prize given by The Religion Communicators Council of America. In India, he has wonthe Valley of Words prize for The Man Who Saved India, the Kalinga Literature Festival award for Sing, Dance and Pray, and the PSF prize for public service through writing. He has been shortlisted for the Hayek Prize given by the Manhattan Institute in memory of the Nobel laureate economist F. A. Hayek for Recasting India. He has been a Chevening Scholar at the University of Oxford, a Knight-Bagehot Fellow at Columbia University, and has a doctorate from the Geneva School of Diplomacy. He is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. He has been a senior journalist at the Indian edition of Fortune magazine, Bloomberg TV, CNBC, and CNN.