First posted December 05, 2017 Pratap Bhanu Mehta The 25th anniversary of that fateful day in Ayodhya when the Babri Masjid was demolished brings a sense of foreboding. The psychological and historical significance of that day is complex. But when all is said and done, it has to be admitted that the worst of our… Read More Events of December 6, 1992 assaulted both secularism and Hinduism
First posted December 15, 2019 His appeal to the protesters not to cause discomfort to ordinary people or harm public or private properties has been circulating on social media since Sunday morning. NB: This gentleman deserves our respect, gratitude and admiration. I would like to salute him and ask that we all learn from him. His… Read More Bengal Imam who lost son to communal clashes calls for peace / Students Across India Rise Up To Protest Citizenship Act And Police Brutality
First posted June 13, 2014 ‘A persuasive and a totally new way of thinking about a difficult subject, a truly significant achievement‘ Beyond Caste: Identity and Power in South Asia, Past and Present (2013) by Sumit Guha Reviwed by Tirthankar Roy EPW vol – XLIX No. 24, June 14, 2014) Three building-blocks structure this book.… Read More Book review: Sumit Guha’s new book on the history of caste
Sabrangindia Laced with quotations from Golwalkar and Savarkar of the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha themselves, this work, now available in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and English, sharply critiques the far right’s worldview on caste exclusion and discrimination [Devanur Mahadeva, The RSS- The Long & Short of It is available in English; Price Rs 199. To obtain a copy… Read More How the RSS, Golwalkar & Hindu Mahasabha glorified caste: Devanur Mahadevan
First posted on November 12, 2019 I am back in Gangtok after many years. As I grew up here, I call it home. During a whirlwind book tour in India to talk about my new book, The Camel Merchant of Philadelphia, I decided to take a few days off to go home. It is raining… Read More Sarbpreet Singh: The Curious Connection Between Sikkim’s Lake Guru Dongmar & Guru Nanak
For Ram Manohar Lohia, Shiva was more than a mythical persona, ‘without birth and without end’, compassion incarnate, an ardent lover. Despite being an atheist, Lohia’s political imagination drew from stories around Shiva Chandan Gowda The myths of a people are a record of their dreams and their sorrows, an inerasable register of their most… Read More More Than A Mythical Persona: An Atheist’s Take On Shiva
First posted June 10, 2019 NB: I was sent this by a friend who saw it on Facebook. I post it without permission of the author as I am sure he will not mind. It is meant for us all to read. It is one of the most beautiful stories I have read in many years.… Read More SECULARISM IN A HOUSE OF GOD
Apoorvanand One can only sympathise with the vice chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University when she denies the originality of her ideas to defend herself. When attacked for thoughts expressed during a lecture on BR Ambedkar and gender on August 22, she said in exasperation, “I am only a professor, not an original thinker.” Which meant… Read More Are professors not expected to be original thinkers? How the JNU VC has undermined her own role
First posted on May 18, 2016 NB: The late and much revered Professor Sabyasachi Bhattacharya’s Rabindranath Tagore: An Interpretation appeared in 2011. His most recent essay on Tagore deals with the much-discussed theme of nationalism. DS Antinomies of Nationalism and Rabindranath Tagore In our endeavour to understand Rabindranath Tagore’s approach to nationalism we have to recognize three… Read More Sabyasachi Bhattacharya: Antinomies of Nationalism and Rabindranath Tagore
NB: An excellent review of an excellent book. Purushottam Agrawal has done us a public service. DS Kabir, the famous religious poet of Varanasi, lived from roughly 1440 CE to 1518 CE. He first became well-known outside of India in 1915 when Rabindranath Tagore published an English translation of 100 songs, or bhajans, attributed to Kabir. Tagore’s translation… Read More Book review: Kabir and the Question of Modernity
After the truth-shower 