A few weeks ago, I made a hurried list that broadly categorized contemporary Hindus based on certain general parameters. Gurcharan Das of India Unbound fame adds to this list by slotting himself into a new category: Liberal Hindu. Much of what he says in that post is along familiar, “safe Hindu” lines but he does [...]
Newspapers give space to writers like Khushwant Singh mostly for antique value. I read this piece with the same mindset as I approach an antique piece: possibly priceless but I won’t risk buying it. Singh has made no secret of his support for the Congress party and hasn’t protested when he was termed an establishment [...]
My friends felt sorry for me when they heard that the Principal had rejected my scholarship. “Had you told us this earlier, we’d have stopped you from meeting him. The Principal gives any number of scholarships and freeships if you get a letter from Swamiji of his caste’s Mutt. Nothing else works with him,” they [...]
I rarely watch news channels. I’d rather go to a local car tinkering garage if I was that desperate for noise. I made an exception today because I fully wanted to experience the expected orgy of insanity that I was sure would be unleashed when a guy like YSR dies. The Congress party and its [...]
Assuming there are still visible traces of a vibrant civic society and media left in the US, what’d be the reaction to an incident like this? (link courtesy: JK) The Kerala High Court on Friday released two girls, who were allegedly detained for religious conversion, to their parents…In the petition, Jacob Thomas of Pallikkal, Kottarakkara, [...]
Hindu nationalism…is a self-description used in the post-Independence period by the main political embodiments of Hindu revivalism, the Hindu Mahasabha…the Jana Singh…and the BJP…in India, “nationalism” doesn’t have the negative connotations which it has in Western intellectual circles. On the contrary, the term is hallowed by its assocation with the freedom movement. It is also [...]
This was published in the Pioneer today about the USCIRF India chapter report released last week. Comments and criticism welcome as always. Surpassing Goebbels Sandeep B US uses fiction to slam freedom in India The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom’s India Chapter report on the extent of religious freedom in India released last [...]
Soon after, I wrote Jalapaata (Waterfall) and Tabbaliyu Neenaade Magane (You have been orphaned, my Son). A singular experience inspired both these works. A revolution of sorts was brewing in the cooperative sector in the Kaira district, which not just bettered the lives of the farmers there but supplied plentiful milk to far-off places like [...]
When I landed in Delhi sometime in the January of 1967, Indira Gandhi was already ensconced in power…almost every other day witnessed hordes of “associations”–the Footpath Vendors Association, the Autorickshaw Drivers’ Association, the Slum Dwellers’ Association, the Onion Sellers’ Association and so on– parading on the streets of Delhi, petitioning her with a list of [...]
We have several specimens of people who call themselves Hindus: Tearing-my-chest-Hindus: Firebrand Hindus whose commitment to, and faith in Hinduism is unquestionable but usually lack the intellectual rigour to defend attacks on Sanatana Dharma. Intellectual Hindus: Scholarly types who are up for a good debate anytime, and are willing to defend Sanatana Dharma on the [...]
