Hinduism And Human Rights

Offers Insights Into The Ongoing Debate On Hinduism And Its Relationship To Human Rights. Forges A Link Between Human Rights Discourses And The Normative Moral Discourse With In Hinduism To Establish A Conceptual Approach To The Issue In A Given Cultural Ethics. Examines The Place Of Human Rights In Hinduism From An Indisciplinary Perspective.

This volume examines the relationship between religion and human rights in seven major religious traditions, as well as key legal concepts, contemporary issues, and relationships among religion, state, and society in the areas of human rights and religious freedom.

Based on the author's first-hand experience as a UN Special Rapporteur, this thought-provoking and original book examines the values of Eastern civilisations and their contribution to the development of the UN Human Rights agenda. Rejecting the argument based on “Asian Values” that is often used to undermine the universality of human rights, the book argues that secularism, personal liberty and universalism are at the heart of both Hindu and Buddhist traditions.

Covering the world's major religions, these five volumes together provide a comprehensive examination of the way these faiths view human rights, from ancient times to the present.

This pioneering work examines the existing understanding of Hinduism in relation to human rights discourse. Written by a leading Hindu scholar, Hindu Narratives on Human Rights is organized around specific rights, such as the right to own property, the rights of children, women's rights, and animal rights. Within these categories and in light of the questions they raise, the book provides a guided tour of Hindu narratives on ethics, ranging from the famous religious epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, to various forms of secular literature drawn from almost a thousand years of Indic civilization. The realization that Hindu ethical discourse is narrative rather than propositional is a relatively recent one. Hence, the prevailing tendency in the West has been to overlook it in the context of the discussion of human rights. This book was written to correct that oversight. It shows that the presence of the universal in the particular in Hindu stories is a key to understanding Hindu thinking about human rights—and it indicates ways in which Hindu ethical discourse can interact creatively with modern human rights discourse.

Introduction - Irene Bloom