I AND MY WORDS

  The Kashi Nandi, Staring Towards Gyanvapi  It is with irony that I note the manner in which the ongoings in Kashi are seen as some sort of weaponization . The thing that I find extremely depressing about Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s weaponization of academia to target a manifestation of the expression of faith repeatedly tells me more about the intellectual dishonesty that has been perpetuated by his comity for the last seven decades. If reclaiming temple sites is weaponization, how is it that temple demolition by the Islamic invaders in the name of jihad gets the term 'recontextualization' ? I don’t even need to take Mr. Mehta to Kashi – this is the case given for the formation of Quwat-ul-Islam mosque, which was built by ‘reusing’ rubble from destroyed Jain temples alongside Hindu ones in Delhi. The answer evades us to this day, except when one sees the blunt truth behind it. Over the past seven decades, there has been a rather blitheful effort bordering dishonesty to justify ac...

Wikipedia Photo of a Ravidassia Procession in Italy Of late, a campaign has been going on, somewhat unnoticed , by two factions of a single community — the Ravidassias — in the Doaba region. These groups have been urging the Centre government to provide them recognition as a separate religion, distinct from both Hindu and Sikh faiths. Both factions want a separate religion column for themselves and also a unique code for their respective sects. One sect that is making these demand includes two groups — the All India Adi-Dharam Mission led by Sant Satwinder Heera as well as All Indian Adi-Dharam Sadhu Samaj led by Sant Nirmal Das, and the Dera Sach Khand, Ballan in Jalandhar, Punjab. The Ravidassia movement, primarily based out of Jalandhar, is also incidentally home to the largest Dalit population within Punjab. The controversy, for those who follow Punjab's socio-political fabric, isn't new. The demand for a separate religion status for Ravidass followers first came up in 2010...

  There has been a lot of discussion about Vinay Sitapati’s book on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the pre-Modi era, especially the Jugalbandi of Atal Behari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani. From the excerpts available online , one is wont to feel intrigued by the manner in which there has been a fresh take on the party and its activities, unlike the lazy trope of communalism, Hindu nationalism, cultural fascism that gets thrown around rather casually. The problems with these narratives, and where Sitapati differs distinctly from the face of it is the fact that there is an attempt to look at the moorings of the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) from their paradigm, giving space for a change for an emic viewpoint. Moreover, he has been prescient in pointing out, in not so many words, that the BJP and RSS can’t be called right-wing in the traditional European sense; rather, they would qualify better with a term ‘non-left’ for a variety of reasons. However, the exc...

Image Courtesy (DNA) As the Delhi Police filed a chargesheet in the court with respect to the mayhem resulting from the Delhi Violence, the name of the organization Popular Front of India (PFI) has come up once again. Given this context,  I decided to look at the PFI and its history, and found a disturbing picture of Islamist supremacy emerging, with uncomfortable questions on its activities within India, its troublesome origins, and promoting religious bigotry. Troubling Origins of the PFI As per the website of the PFI, the organization came into existence after the merger of the Karnataka Forum for Dignity (KFD) of Karnataka, National Development Front (NDF) of Kerala, and Manitha Neethi Pasarai (MNP) of Tamil Nadu) among other after the a National Convention on Reservation in Higher Education was organized jointly with All India Milli Council at New Delhi on 29th August 2006. Once the leadership of these organizations decided to merge for better coordination among t...

It is interesting to observe the idea of seva or service in the Indic darsanas. Whatever be the outlook towards life, the importance to service of others is given a lot of importance. This definitely arises from the intertwined helical relationship between karma and seva. A succinct example of the depth of embedding of seva in the philosophy of karma can be be found in the Srivaishnava sampradaya’s understanding of the Advaita marga as put out first by reformer saint Sri Ramanujacharya, who lived in the 12 th century AD. As Mohan Sagar had elaborated in his short piece on Ramanujacharya’s darsana [1] highlights some important facts: ·     Each and every aatma or soul in a crude translation is in its essential nature, its svarUpam, a simple receptacle to the Lord's Grace, and a humble instrument to His Good. This nature of servitude is not only limited to the soul, but is indeed the nature of matter, as well. ·       Consequently, the Lord is...