2021
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Activism, Monotheism and Intolerance
Published on 17th October, 2021, in Mid-day. Have you noticed that academicians who say Hinduism is casteist, and promotes inequality, rarely talk about intolerance of monotheistic faiths like Christianity and Islam which dominate the world? Monotheist religions endorse the worship…
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Collaborators Succeed in History
Published on 16th October, 2021, in Economic Times. In Hindutva’s political history, the Mughals were dacoits, who came from the North-West. A peer-reviewed history of India, of course, says that is not true. Foreign tribes have been entering through the…
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Rivalry of Sants and Naths
Published on 10th October, 2021, in Mid-day. In 13th Century Maharashtra, Dyaneshwar translated the Bhagavad Gita into the local language. It was a great cultural revolution. He encouraged people to use emotions and feelings to connect with the divine. This…
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Should a Deity Have Two Arms or More?
Published on 9th October, 2021, in The Hindu. In Kushan coins, minted over 1,800 years ago, we come across images of a woman holding the horn of plenty. She is identified with the Roman Goddess Fortuna, the Greek goddess Tyche,…
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The Courtesan’s Autonomy
Published on 3rd October, 2021, in Mid-day. In Mohenjo-daro, archaeologists found a tiny bronze statue of a young naked girl, with bangles in her left hand, standing erect with an attitude, right arm on a hip. Despite no evidence, they…
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When Does Krishna Justify War?
Published on 2nd October, 2021, in Economic Times. Mahatma Gandhi famously argued that Bhagavad Gita needs to be seen as a metaphor of internal war, and has nothing to do with violence. Western scholars argue that the book does the…
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Is Shiva the Destroyer of Evil?
Published on 26th September, 2021, in Mid-day. In popular understanding of the mythology, Brahma is called the creator, Vishnu, the preserver and Shiva, the destroyer. When you ask people why Shiva is called the destroyer, they will answer, it is…
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Is Criticism Of Caste the Same As Hinduphobia?
Published on 25th September, 2021, in Times of India. Recently, a conference was held on the theme of ‘Dismantling Global Hindutva’. It was sponsored by American universities tired of Hindutva bullying. However, the decision to hold it immediately after the…
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Tombs of Holy Men
Published on 19th September, 2021, in Mid-day. Since the time of the Buddha, when a holy man would die, he would be buried. His burial site would become a shrine, or a memorial. This shrine would be visited by people,…
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View: Understanding Economies and Their Role In Rendering Old Models Of Caste Irrelevant
Published on 18th September, 2021, in Economic Times. Caste (jati) is how resources and respect was inherited and distributed in traditional Indian society. The distribution pattern varied across India. The thousands of jatis were classified neatly into a four-fold varna…
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Festival Of Women, By Women, For Women
Published on 12th September, 2021, in Mid-day. The word ‘teej’ refers to the third day of the lunar cycle when women fast, stay awake in all night vigils, hoping to find good husbands if not married, and praying for the…
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Is Hinduism Answerable to Western Gaze?
Published on 10th September, 2021, in Times of India. The word religion initially applied to only Christianity. Everyone else was either heretic or pagan. But in the 19th Century, Europeans were forced to acknowledge the validity of Japanese faith if…
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Taoism and Tantra
Published on 5th September, 2021, in Mid-day. There is much in common between the Chinese path of Taoism and the Indian path of Tantra. Both value the body and the material world. Both see all power coming from nature. They…
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Why India Needs To See Marital Relationships in Political and Economic Terms
Published on 4th September, 2021, in Economic Times. Zeus, king of the gods, in Greek mythology had children by many women, both mortal and immortal, nymphs and goddesses and titans. But he had only one wife. The Roman Empire celebrated…
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Dharmo Rakshati Rakshitha
Published on 29th August, 2021, in Mid-day. Dharmo Rakshati Rakshitha is a line that is found in Manusmriti. If you assume dharma to be religion or state or law, it means if you protect religion or state or law, the…