The Oceanic CircleThree things occupied Mahatma Gandhi all his life: God, truth, and Ahimsa. He did not see them in different compartments but as threads in the fabric of life. A life spent in pursuit of truth is a philosophical life. His efforts towards social and political reform do not subtract from his deeply thoughtful… Read More Gandhi’s Oceanic Circle. October 2, 2024
Revolutionaries on Trial Reviewed by Harish Jain Aparna Vaidik, a professor of history at Ashoka University, is among the few scholars genuinely and keenly interested in the stories of revolutionaries who, through their extraordinary deeds, captured the imagination of a disheartened nation but were subsequently marginalised. Over more than a decade of fieldwork, she has… Read More ‘Revolutionaries on Trial’ by Aparna Vaidik: Insightful new look at revolutionary past
First posted January 05, 2016 What Is Islam? The Importance of Being IslamicBy Shahab AhmedReviewed by Elias Muhanna Prominent Islamic scholar Shahab Ahmed laid to rest An Extraordinary Scholar Redefined Islam Ahmed described what he called a sixth madhhab, or school of Islamic law, beyond the orthodox five: the madhhab of love… Ahmed never overtly… Read More Has Islamic Orthodoxy Changed Over Time?
Eighty years ago, a middle-aged, mid-ranking diplomat sank into deep depression and watched his hair turn grey in days, as he saw the streets of Bordeaux filling with Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis… Among those who escaped occupied France thanks to his visas were Salvador Dalí, filmmaker King Vidor, members of the Rothschild family and… Read More Aristides de Sousa Mendes: Portuguese diplomat saved thousands from Holocaust and was punished by his government (2020)
NB: This is an account by Gandhiji of his visit to Amritsar just after the announcement of the Hunter Commission of Inquiry into the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 1919. It relates his experiences of interaction with the people when he visited the Golden Temple in November 1919. Further developments in his negotiation with the administration… Read More Mahatma Gandhi’s visit to Amritsar, 1919
by Brenna R. Hassett The human capacity for invention is unparalleled. We have developed technologies that have allowed us to survive and thrive far beyond the ecological niches that constrained our ancestors. While our innovation has allowed us to break loose from the constraints of our home continent, Africa, and even our home planet, the actual… Read More The Surprising Ways Inventions and Ideas Spread in Ancient Prehistory
During the presidential debate, Kamala Harris was asked to explain what she would do about Israel’s war on Gaza, and she said, “Let’s understand how we got here. On October 7, Hamas, a terrorist organization, slaughtered 1,200 Israelis.” This is false. As anyone with a basic working knowledge of the conflict knows, this war is… Read More From the Arsenal of Democracy to an Arsenal of Genocide / Six UNRWA workers among 18 killed in Israeli strike on Gaza school
NB: The Rev Daniel O’Connor was pastor of St Stephen’s College during the years I was there, in the 1960’s. He and his dear wife Juliet befriended me and my comrades, at a time we were considered trouble-makers. They did not agree with our politics, but for all that, never withdrew their affection. One of… Read More India and the End of Empire. Selected Writings of Daniel O’Connor
First posted May 27, 2012 Out of the mass experience of pointless death, a new way of speaking and writing, devoid of euphemism, arose, a plain style we associate with Hemingway.. The Great War chronicles the loss of the old rhetoric, of high pieties, of sacrifice and roseate dawns, in favor of “blood, terror, agony, madness, shit,… Read More Paul Fussell, ex-soldier, literary scholar & critic of war (1924-2012)
The moral distinction between liberal democracies and dictatorships is being flattened by the carnage in Gaza Suhas Chakma For most of human history human rights did not exist. The struggle to secure them arguably began in 1215 with the Magna Carta in England, which promised protection from illegal imprisonment as a right. But it took another 733… Read More Human rights are disappearing before our eyes
