Peter Heehs

Peter Heehs is an American historian living in Puducherry, India who writes on modern Indian history, spirituality and religion. Much of his work focuses on the Indian freedom fighter and spiritual leader Sri Aurobindo. His publications include eleven books and more than fifty articles in journals and magazines.

Peter Heehs was born and educated in the United States but has lived in India since 1971. He has worked as a researcher and editor[1][2] at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives since its founding, and has contributed to the editing of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library and The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo.[3][4]

As a historian, Heehs has written on the swadeshi period of the Indian independence movement and on the early phase of the Indian revolutionary movement. His 1992 study The Bomb in Bengal highlighted the importance of the Maniktala secret society, which was a predecessor of the Jugantar Group. In this book and other publications, Heehs made it clear that the Indian freedom struggle had a violent as well as a non-violent side, and that the violent revolutionaries helped prepare the country psychologically for the later mass movements led by Mahatma Gandhi. In the second edition of The Bomb in Bengal (2004), Heehs distinguished the aims and methods of early Indian revolutionaries from those of later terrorists in India and elsewhere.[5]

Heehs has also written on problems of Indian historiography in History and Theory,[6] Postcolonial Studies,[7] and other journals. He has also contributed to popular magazines such as History Today.[8]

As a scholar of religion, Heehs has edited the textbook Indian Religions[9] and has contributed to journals and edited volumes dealing with new religious movements in India.[10][11] He has also discussed the problems of Indian communalism.

Heehs's ninth book, The Lives of Sri Aurobindo (Columbia University Press, 2008) was intended for scholarly readers.[12] It received positive reviews in the United States,[13] but was objected to by certain devotees of Sri Aurobindo,[14] who have delayed the publication of the book in India.[15] Heehs's tenth book, Writing the Self, was published by Bloomsbury in February 2013. It has been named an Outstanding Academic Title for 2013 by Choice.[16] His eleventh book, Situating Sri Aurobindo: A Reader, a collection of essays by various scholars on Sri Aurobindo's writings, with an introduction, was published by Oxford University Press in October 2013.

Heehs was briefly in the news in April 2012 after the Indian home ministry declined to entertain an application for extension of his resident visa after April 15.[17] Learning of the affair on March 31, Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram said he would review Heehs’s case.[18] A number of prominent scholars, as well as union minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, wrote in support of Heehs to the home minister and to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.[19] Leading public intellectuals Ramachandra Guha[20] and Pratap Bhanu Mehta[21] wrote about the issue in their newspaper columns. On April 13, the home ministry announced that it had approved a one-year extension of Heehs’s visa.[22] The affair became a point of reference in discussions in the Indian and international press of freedom of expression,[23][24][25] book banning,[26][27][28][29] censorship,[30][31] xenophobia,[32] and visa policy.[33]

Books

References

  1. ↑ "Aurobindo's Biographer Speaks Out". April 21, 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2012.
  2. ↑ [http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/NE02Df02.html> "East meets West, again!"]. Asia Times. May 2, 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2012.
  3. ↑ "Biography - Sri Aurobindo Association of America". August 28, 1998. Retrieved February 22, 2010.
  4. ↑ "Peter Heehs - Biography & Resources". EnlightenNext.org. Retrieved February 22, 2010.
  5. ↑ Heehs, Peter (2004). The Bomb in Bengal (Second ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. ix–xxvii.
  6. ↑ Heehs, Peter (February 1994). "Myth, History, and Theory". History and Theory. 33: 1–19. doi:10.2307/2505649. Retrieved February 22, 2010.
  7. ↑ Heehs, Peter. "The uses of Sri Aurobindo". Postcolonial Studies. 9 (2 2006): 151–164. doi:10.1080/13688790600657827. ISSN 1466-1888.
  8. ↑ Heehs, Peter. "Articles from the History Today Archive". History Today.com. Retrieved December 1, 2010.
  9. ↑ Heehs, Peter. "Indian Religions: A Historical Reader of Spiritual Expression and Experience". New York University Press. Retrieved February 22, 2010.
  10. ↑ Heehs, Peter (2000). "The Error of all 'Churches': Religion and Spirituality in Communities Founded or 'Inspired' by Sri Aurobindo". In Copley, Antony. Gurus and their Followers: New Religious Reform Movements in Colonial India. Oxford University Press. pp. 209–224.
  11. ↑ Heehs, Peter (2003). "The Centre of the Religious Life of the World: Spiritual Universalism and Cultural Nationalism in the Work of Sri Aurobindo". In Copley, Antony. Hinduism, Public and Private: Reform, Hindutva, Gender, Sampraday. Oxford University Press. pp. 66–83.
  12. ↑ "Letter to the Managing Trustee, from Peter Heehs". Religious Fundamentalism and Integral Yoga. Retrieved January 24, 2015.
  13. ↑ "Academic reviews of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo by Peter Heehs". Religious Fundamentalism and Integral Yoga. Retrieved January 24, 2015.
  14. ↑ "An Outbreak of Fundamentalism?". Religious Fundamentalism and Integral Yoga. Retrieved January 24, 2015.
  15. ↑ "Court Cases". Religious Fundamentalism and Integral Yoga. Retrieved January 24, 2015.
  16. ↑ "On Modern Poetry and Writing the Self named Choice Outstanding Academic Titles 2013". Bloomsbury Literary Studies. Retrieved February 1, 2014.
  17. ↑ "Don't expel US historian, govt told". Hindustan Times. Retrieved April 14, 2012.
  18. ↑ "Chidambaram to decide on Heehs' visa tomorrow". Times of India. Retrieved April 14, 2012.
  19. ↑ "Let Heehs stay, scholars urge PM". IBNLive. Retrieved April 14, 2012.
  20. ↑ "Ramachandra Guha: Ban the Ban – The republic of India bans books with a depressing frequency". The Telegraph. Retrieved May 11, 2012.
  21. ↑ "Pratap Bhanu Mehta: Book clubbed". The Indian Express. April 12, 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2012.
  22. ↑ "Chidambaram intervenes, US historian gets 1-yr visa extension". Hindustan Times. Retrieved April 14, 2012.
  23. ↑ "The intolerant Indian?". The Times of India. Apr 10, 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2012.
  24. ↑ "Nilanjana S Roy: Behind the portrait". Business Standard. April 24, 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2012.
  25. ↑ "Mark Tully: Hay Festival 2012: Freedom of Speech". The Telegraph (London). June 8, 2012. Retrieved June 18, 2012.
  26. ↑ "Gautam Chikermane: Sri Aurobindo, Heehs and the fragility of faith". Hindustan Times. February 22, 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2012.
  27. ↑ "A little reason would help". India Today. April 10, 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2012.
  28. ↑ "Indian Academics Object to Treatment of American Historian". The Chronicle of Higher Education. April 3, 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2012.
  29. ↑ "Identify politics behind demand for banning a book, says Romila Thapar". The Hindu. May 4, 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2012.
  30. ↑ "Indian intellectuals report an increase in censorship". Deutsche Welle. April 18, 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2012.
  31. ↑ "Palash Krishna Mehrotra: Climate of touchiness augurs ill for India". India Today. April 22, 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2012.
  32. ↑ "Mihir S. Sharma: Xenophobindia". Business Standard. Apr 28, 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2012.
  33. ↑ "Rupa Subramanya: Should India Relax its Visa Rules?". The Wall Street Journal. April 4, 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2012.

External links

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