I AND MY WORDS

Of late, we have been seeing too many pretentious right wingers, who are essentially liberal wolves in the proverbial sheepskin, running around in awe of Dr B R Ambedkar. The group has no qualms in also placing him on a pedestal, claiming him to be the real father of modern India. This kind of fawning is utterly pretentious, completely devoid of facts, and misses out or ignores several inconvenient facts about the times, his political leadership and calculative decision making, and instead credits him with much more than is necessary. There are quite a few examples that could be highlighted about the role Dr Ambedkar truly played pre-1947, between 1947-50 and in the later periods. Suffice to say though that he was the last person who could be trusted, given his ever shifting stand on several topics. We may quote Ambedkar on his thoughts and views about Muslims, but he had openly advocated the partition of India, saying Indians would be better off without Muslims, utterly disregarding ...

"My lord, why do you bleed thus?" Trembled Loksaaranga, mouth agape He sat there silent, while dawn led to daybreak Frightened, Saaranga looked hither-tither, worries creased on his face Searching for an answer to a happening impossible in this holy space Knowing not what to do, Saaranga cried Till the tears were no more, and his mouth dried Falling into a stupor, he still held himself upright And started to chant Hari's name, his eyes shut firm and tight T'was then that those lamps standing therewent dim Paled by the brilliance of that unseen brilliance of the divine light Lo and behold! Hari stood firm and tall in front of him The scar on his forehead was still bleeding, the blood shining bright "Who was that poor soul that you hit with that stone?" He remonstrated "Know not what he means to me? How could you cast this sin on him?" "My Dear Hari, i know not who he is, what he means to you!" Cried Saaranga, scared in th...

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...