I AND MY WORDS

When Aesthetics Are Meant to Exclude (courtesy, Economic Times) India is obsessed with cities in extreme forms - one part is in awe of it, while the other is completely aghast by what is happening. Smart city, heritage city, sustainable city, green city - so many terms are flying around these days without an inkling of the significance of these terms, their implications and any modicum of an execution plan being put into place. Even the rationale of why we want city a certain way seems to be missing from the discourse - we want something, but are unable to explain what it is, and even more hopeless at understanding what we want. What constitutes a city is clearly a matter of conjecture to quite an extent; in any case, any city cannot have an exact bullet by bullet powerpoint presentation of what its smartness, its resilience and its adaptation will mean. However, with all of this raging discussion, we seemed to have forgotten to discuss important points about the make up of such a...

The right wing narrative in India is full of contradictions, and struggles to have a united thought. It is mostly an umbrella of 'anything but the left', yet remains imbibed with scores of liberal leftist, Abrahmica rooted themes, ideas and memes, creating an environment where a huge population relies on borrowed terminology to express itself. The stark contrast with the contemporaries here, where the vocabulary is entirely self created and exclusive of any alternative ideas, cannot be missed by anyone. And yet, there is no attempt to address this question. Wherever attempts have been made, we tend to see a rash of silly terms being used, or transliterations being adopted in some format or the other to attempt being different. Truth is that the intellectual arguments needed to fight intellectual battles starts with the creation of the intellectual space. Further, the lack of any new ideas being penned down or written, while borrowing specific frameworks that come from outside,...

Letter from Mirabai and Tulsidas' Reply (courtesy 40kmph.com) The recent outrages and controversy over the history of Maharani Padmavati of Mewar and the aptness of her valiant action has created quite a storm. One particular accusation that has been thrown around callously is the position and role of women in Rajput society, one of the most influential castes in Rajasthan, and having significant clout in almost all parts of north and east India in one way or the other barring perhaps Punjab, Bengal, and the Kashmir and Indo-Tibetan regions. The ancestry of Rajputs, mostly from the Gurjara Pratihara times, also has been discussed significantly even recently in the Swarajya article on the Karni Sena too . The article also highlighted caste tensions, more on which will be dwelt in another aspect in this article. Of course, I must qualify that my caste too is Rajput, though not from Rajasthan, but it is my observation that we have broadly the same cultural sensibilities despite ...

Air Pollution Affects Everyone, and Needs Multi-Dimensional Solutions (image: Indian Express) There is enough discussion already on the politics of tackling the air pollution crisis that has engulfed Delhi-NCR right now. I am not going to dwell on that. What I will instead do is to explain the causes of air pollution in Delhi, and how a graded strategy plan much in line with the GRAP of the Supreme Court appointed EPCA is necessary to understand just what it will take to solve the problem. People may think that it is a problem only for Delhi. However, other cities should also take a leaf and tackle the problem, as in their case numbers are not necessarily under attention. CAUSES Air pollution in Delhi-NCR has always targeted two main culprits - transportation and industry. The role of industrial emissions and transportation has been discussed due to its evident nature for decades now, with the first public interest litigation being filed in this matter way back in the 1980s by th...

Gudi Pawda Procession (Courtesy: Times of India) R Jagannathan’s take on the idea of dissolving ‘inward looking Hindu varna-jati’ set up in order to create a million minorities for the larger benefit of Hinduism is an idea that seems to be getting traction, especially in the light of decisions pushed under the acutely problematic Right to Education Act. There is this belief that this will enable Hindus to probably survive the onslaught of Abrahamism inspired secular state. However, this argument is problematic at several levels, and often does not seem to take cognizance of history completely, while also suggesting that exploitation of loopholes in the current legal set up will allow Hindus to practice their traditions. However, these assumptions do not hold water when examined against the current set up, which we shall discuss. Overcoming the Caste Barriers - Dharma Has Always Been Fighting the Issue Caste barriers, caste and casteism are three distinct threads that often get co...

एक ही बात थी जो तुमसे कहना चाहते थे दिल की हर तह में बस तुम्हें ही रखना चाहते थे मगर ये मुमकिन न कर सके सच्चाई के पत्थर ने ख़्वाहिशों के आईने तोड़े थे उनके बेहिसाब टुकड़े किये थे कामयाबी की उम्मीदों के कुछ बुक्कल भी सिलवाए थे वो वक़्त की उभरी कीलों में उलझ कर सब उधड़ गए थे वो रात के चाँद को देख के कुछ सपनों के फूल महकाए थे बेमौसम हालात की आँधी ने गुलशन ही उखाड़ फेंके थे बस अब मायूँसी रह गयी है हाथ जिसे पूछने कोई न आता है वो ग़म की काली गहरी रात हर पल एहसास कराता है अब कुछ भी नहीं है मेरे हाथ जो था हालात उसे ले गए थे दो वक़्त की साँसे छोड़ पीछे मुझे तनहा छोड़ कहीं खो गए थे

In the first two parts of the series, we examined the Akali Movement to understand the key political and legislative lessons that can be explored and incorporated to some extent in administering Hindu temples. However, that is not to say that there are not any ongoing efforts to free as well as reform the administration of key temples. In this part, we shall examine two key judgments in this regard that led to outcomes in favour of the petitioners – the Chidambaram temple case and the Kamakya shrine case. We shall derive the key arguments that caused the Supreme Court to overturn government attempts at taking over the temples, and understand their implications for other bigger temples across the country. We shall also examine why the arguments against this freeing do not have any merit to them, and need to be dismissed altogether as they do not have any credibility to them. The Chidambaram Natarajar Case in Tamil Nadu Chidambaram Natarajar Temple in Tamil Nadu In January 2014, ...