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Sonia Faleiro is a journalist, writer, and activist based in London who has long been dedicated to digging deeper into pressing, underreported themes, like the “honor killings” of two girls in India’s rural Uttar Pradesh and the hidden world of Mumbai’s dance bars.
A decade ago, Faleiro began closely following the rise of religious nationalism in Asia and found that she couldn’t turn away. Raised Catholic in a Hindu society that also embraced Buddhist history, she became interested in how faith, power, and politics intersect—and how some Buddhist communities across South and Southeast Asia have embraced extremism. Her new book, The Robe and the Sword: How Buddhist Extremism Is Shaping Modern Asia (Columbia Global Reports, November 2025), weaves personal experience, historical analysis, and on-the-ground reporting f...
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