Tag: religion

No Notice Served: 600-Year-Old Mosque Razed in South Delhi’s Mehrauli Locality

Mosque’s Imam said the demolition operation was surreptitiously carried out before sunrise on Tuesday. Pieces of debris were meticulously removed to conceal the demolition from the public eye, he said. This shocking event unfolded amidst a broader demolition drive by the DDA and the Forest Department in the Sanjay Van area. Temples, dargahs, and graveyards… Read More No Notice Served: 600-Year-Old Mosque Razed in South Delhi’s Mehrauli Locality

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Nakul Krishna on A. K. Ramanujan: The literary legacy of an Indian modernist / The essay censored by DU’s Academic Council

First posted August 15, 2013 “Yes, I know all that. I should be modern” – begins Ramanujan’s ‘Conventions of Despair’. Others in India have felt this impulse, and it has pulled them in different directions. In politics, it has drawn them towards nationalism, socialism and fascism. In religion, it has had similarly contradictory effects: either… Read More Nakul Krishna on A. K. Ramanujan: The literary legacy of an Indian modernist / The essay censored by DU’s Academic Council

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तुलसी ने लिखा था ‘संत हृदय नवनीत समाना’, आज होते तो ‘संत हृदय बुलडोज़र समाना’ लिखना पड़ता

क्या हुआ जब राम स्वप्न में आए? कुलदीप कुमार रात सपने में रामजी ने दर्शन दिए. मैं डायरी में कुछ लिखने का कठिन प्रयास कर रहा था. एक हाथ में कलम थी और दूसरे में मैग्नीफाइंग ग्लास. अचानक लगा कि कमरा किसी दिव्य सुगंध से भर उठा है. सिर उठाया तो देखा कि रामचंद्र जी… Read More तुलसी ने लिखा था ‘संत हृदय नवनीत समाना’, आज होते तो ‘संत हृदय बुलडोज़र समाना’ लिखना पड़ता

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What Happens in Ayodhya Doesn’t Stay in Ayodhya

Mrinal Pande A cluster of photos printed in a major English daily, the day after the week long rituals began in Ayodhya’s new Ram temple, confirms that our ‘Beti Padhao‘ and ‘Stree Sashkteekaran’ and various ‘Matru Kalyan Yojanas’ notwithstanding, the traditional gendered hierarchies remain firmly in place both on the streets and in the temple in Ayodhya. In… Read More What Happens in Ayodhya Doesn’t Stay in Ayodhya

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Pratap Bhanu Mehta: What January 22 is, what it isn’t

There are moments in history that appear to drive wave after wave of people in a great torrent of catharsis, ecstasy, emotion and an elevated group mood that almost all conventional analysis, historical categories, moral measures and political prognosis seem beside the point. It would be foolish to deny that the pran pratishtha of Ram Lalla… Read More Pratap Bhanu Mehta: What January 22 is, what it isn’t

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Ramachandra Guha on the Chief Justice, Mahatma Gandhi and Saffron Robes

‘What would (Gandhi) have thought of a serving Chief Justice making public visits to temples and getting himself photographed and giving interviews about it in the process?’ Ramachandra Guha Ramachandra Guha, the well-known biographer of Mahatma Gandhi and one of India’s leading political commentators, discusses his articles criticising Chief Justice Chandrachud both for wrongly understanding… Read More Ramachandra Guha on the Chief Justice, Mahatma Gandhi and Saffron Robes

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Reading the Bible with the eyes of the Canaanites: Neo-Zionism, political theology and the Land Traditions of the Bible (1967 to Gaza 2009)

NB: If religious texts sanctify hatred and cruelty towards others, there is something wrong with them, and especially with us, for taking such injunctions literally. There is no such thing as my god versus your god, because the creator of the universe cannot possibly have chosen a small fragment of humanity to be regardful of,… Read More Reading the Bible with the eyes of the Canaanites: Neo-Zionism, political theology and the Land Traditions of the Bible (1967 to Gaza 2009)

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The religious persecution of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1945-2010) / Mahmoud Mohammed Taha & the Second Message of Islam

Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd was born in Quhafa, some 120 km from Cairo, near Tanta, Egypt on July 10, 1945. He died on 5 July 2010 in Cairo as a result of an unidentified virus infection and was buried in his birthplace, on the same day. He was 67. At the age of 12, Abu Zayd was imprisoned for allegedly sympathising with the Muslim Brotherhood. After receiving… Read More The religious persecution of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1945-2010) / Mahmoud Mohammed Taha & the Second Message of Islam

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