Prakash Shah
Biographic Data
| ID | 3663155 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Prakash Shah |
| GIVEN NAMES | Prakash |
| FAMILY NAME | Shah |
| SIGNATURE | SHAH P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Queen Mary University of London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2149-0040 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
The codependence of Orientalism and the social sciences: Durkheim on religion in India
Using Durkheim as an exemplary figure, this article takes up the problem of the entanglement of Orientalism with the social sciences. Durkheim is one of the classic theorists of the sociology of religion whose work remains relevant today. He drew on data relating to non-Western cultures, including India to a certain extent, in working out his theories of the division of labour and of religion. Durkheim's work is placed against the pioneering rese…
India in the Eyes of Europeans: Conceptualization of Religion in Theology and Oriental Studies, written by Martin Fárek
Caste studies today: Imaginary victims and perpetrators
Starting with an individual report in a leading British periodical of higher education, this article fans outwards to show how the contemporary field of caste studies reflects the degeneracy of its methods and claims. Rather than producing knowledge about India and the so-called caste system, caste studies has worked itself into a corner by creating a set of imagined victims and perpetrators of caste oppression, atrocities, violence and discrimin…
Caste in a new light: Jati in British multiculturalism
Advocates of multiculturalism claim that it supports the rights of cultural minorities and the public recognition of cultural differences. However, this article shows that this cannot be true of Indian culture as it has become transported to Britain, where multiculturalism actually poses a threat to it. Using the resources of the research programme of the Ghent School on the comparative study of India and Europe, this article substantiates this c…
Secularism's threat to tradition: A reading of Europe, India and the Limits of Secularism
This article offers a reading of Jakob De Roover's important book, Europe, India and the Limits of Secularism (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016). It invokes the way in which the English courts have re-described Sikh tradition as religion in order to illustrate the relevance of Jakob De Roover's hypothesis about secularism, explaining its dependence on Christian theology and its inbuilt normative dynamic, which reframes tradition and poses…
Transforming to Accommodate? Reflections on the Shari’a Debate in Britain
This chapter is a response to the widely reported speech by the chief cleric of the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, at the Royal Courts of Justice in London on 7 February 2008.1 It is an attempt to place the current debate on Muslims and the law in the UK within a wider jurisprudential frame of reference. The response to Dr Williams’ suggestions was already predetermined by certain constraints, subsequently cha…
A weak defence of an indefensible caste law: A reply to David Keane
Critiquing the Western Account of India Studies within a Comparative Science of Cultures
In pursuit of the pagans: Muslim law in the English context
A reconfiguration of law is taking place in the contact between Western and Muslim law. While Muslim law is itself a complex, pluralistic amalgam of different legal ‘bricks,’ in the context of the struggle for Islam to be acknowledged as a legitimate source of value pluralism in the Western context, the religious aspects of Muslim law, with their doctrinal justifications, are brought into sharper relief. The English case shows that customs among …
Asking about reasonable accommodation in England
Interviews conducted with leading actors in England asking a range of questions about religious diversity and the legal framework and, in particular, about reasonable accommodation, helped identify a number of areas of concern. There was some doubt about whether specific legal provision should be brought in to guarantee reasonable accommodation. However, there was broad support for having the principle adopted in the practice of employers, wherea…
Transnational Hindu law adoptions: Recognition and treatment in Britain
This article examines how the adoption of children under Hindu law in India is regarded by British private international law and immigration law. Through an analysis of case-law, it focuses particularly on how British judges regard the legitimacy of exclusion by the British immigration control system of children who have been adopted under a ‘foreign’ legal system which essentially permits private adoption arrangements. Examining the background t…
Legal decisions
Transnational Hindu law adoptions: Recognition and treatment in Britain
This article examines how the adoption of children under Hindu law in India is regarded by British private international law and immigration law. Through an analysis of case-law, it focuses particularly on how British judges regard the legitimacy of exclusion by the British immigration control system of children who have been adopted under a ‘foreign’ legal system which essentially permits private adoption arrangements. Examining the background t…
Asking about reasonable accommodation in England
Interviews conducted with leading actors in England asking a range of questions about religious diversity and the legal framework and, in particular, about reasonable accommodation, helped identify a number of areas of concern. There was some doubt about whether specific legal provision should be brought in to guarantee reasonable accommodation. However, there was broad support for having the principle adopted in the practice of employers, wherea…
Legal decisions
Transnational Hindu law adoptions: Recognition and treatment in Britain
This article examines how the adoption of children under Hindu law in India is regarded by British private international law and immigration law. Through an analysis of case-law, it focuses particularly on how British judges regard the legitimacy of exclusion by the British immigration control system of children who have been adopted under a ‘foreign’ legal system which essentially permits private adoption arrangements. Examining the background t…
In pursuit of the pagans: Muslim law in the English context
A reconfiguration of law is taking place in the contact between Western and Muslim law. While Muslim law is itself a complex, pluralistic amalgam of different legal ‘bricks,’ in the context of the struggle for Islam to be acknowledged as a legitimate source of value pluralism in the Western context, the religious aspects of Muslim law, with their doctrinal justifications, are brought into sharper relief. The English case shows that customs among …
Asking about reasonable accommodation in England
Interviews conducted with leading actors in England asking a range of questions about religious diversity and the legal framework and, in particular, about reasonable accommodation, helped identify a number of areas of concern. There was some doubt about whether specific legal provision should be brought in to guarantee reasonable accommodation. However, there was broad support for having the principle adopted in the practice of employers, wherea…
Critiquing the Western Account of India Studies within a Comparative Science of Cultures
Transforming to Accommodate? Reflections on the Shari’a Debate in Britain
This chapter is a response to the widely reported speech by the chief cleric of the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, at the Royal Courts of Justice in London on 7 February 2008.1 It is an attempt to place the current debate on Muslims and the law in the UK within a wider jurisprudential frame of reference. The response to Dr Williams’ suggestions was already predetermined by certain constraints, subsequently cha…
A weak defence of an indefensible caste law: A reply to David Keane
Secularism's threat to tradition: A reading of Europe, India and the Limits of Secularism
This article offers a reading of Jakob De Roover's important book, Europe, India and the Limits of Secularism (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016). It invokes the way in which the English courts have re-described Sikh tradition as religion in order to illustrate the relevance of Jakob De Roover's hypothesis about secularism, explaining its dependence on Christian theology and its inbuilt normative dynamic, which reframes tradition and poses…
Caste studies today: Imaginary victims and perpetrators
Starting with an individual report in a leading British periodical of higher education, this article fans outwards to show how the contemporary field of caste studies reflects the degeneracy of its methods and claims. Rather than producing knowledge about India and the so-called caste system, caste studies has worked itself into a corner by creating a set of imagined victims and perpetrators of caste oppression, atrocities, violence and discrimin…
Caste in a new light: Jati in British multiculturalism
Advocates of multiculturalism claim that it supports the rights of cultural minorities and the public recognition of cultural differences. However, this article shows that this cannot be true of Indian culture as it has become transported to Britain, where multiculturalism actually poses a threat to it. Using the resources of the research programme of the Ghent School on the comparative study of India and Europe, this article substantiates this c…
India in the Eyes of Europeans: Conceptualization of Religion in Theology and Oriental Studies, written by Martin Fárek
The codependence of Orientalism and the social sciences: Durkheim on religion in India
Using Durkheim as an exemplary figure, this article takes up the problem of the entanglement of Orientalism with the social sciences. Durkheim is one of the classic theorists of the sociology of religion whose work remains relevant today. He drew on data relating to non-Western cultures, including India to a certain extent, in working out his theories of the division of labour and of religion. Durkheim's work is placed against the pioneering rese…
Political science (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Law (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Religious studies (5 works) · Caste (4 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · Religious Studies (4 works)