Dharma

Published on 2nd December, 2022, in The Hindu. The domesticated pig descended from the wild boar. The wild boar is a forager, the domesticated pig is a scavenger. Symbolically, they are a reminder of wild nature and cultivated culture. The pig was amongst the earliest animals to be domesticated across the world, and was a great source of protein and fat. Warriors and hunters preferred decorating their masks and crowns with the tusks of wild boar. However, as they settled down as farmers and herders, pigs got associated with scavenging, and uncleanliness. As a result, many communities prohibited the eating of pigs. This pork taboo ..

Published on 4th June, 2022, in Times of India. Though dharma is often translated as justice in modern translation, there is a fundamental error in such an understanding. Dharma presupposes karma, hence rebirth. Justice does not. In the dharma discourse, we are born with karmic debt that we have to either repay or reclaim. That is why there is diversity and inequality in the world. We work with this reality. In the justice discourse, we are born with a clean slate, as an equal to other beings. That we experience inequality around us is because some people have cornered all wealth and power, and that ..

Published on 7th January, 2022, in Times of India. Sanatan means something that is timeless. Dharma in colloquial parlance is religion. It can also mean culture and civilisation. So, sanatan dharma can mean “timeless civilisation”. In the Gita, Krishna describes the knowledge he shares as sanatana, timeless. Hindutva — a word that was invented in the late 19th century by Chandranath Basu — insists it is sanatan dharma, and so does not need reform. Chandranath Basu, like many Bengali intellectuals, opposed the social reforms spearheaded by the likes of Raja Rammohan Roy, who invented the term Hinduism in the early 19th century. In other words, ..

Published on 25th December, 2021, in Economic Times. In the Vedic world, to practice dharma meant performing yagna. Yagna was translated by European Orientalists as sacrifice. But in sacrifice, you give something to appease a deity who needs nothing from you but your loyalty and obedience. In yagna, you exchange. You give in order to receive. You feed a god and the god is obliged to feed you back. The assumption here is that the god is hungry. He needs praise and food. When he gets what he wants, he gives what you want. Exchange is an indicator of humanity, for it shows empathy for ..

Published on 4th December, 2021, in The Hindu. In a crime, the victim accuses the villain. But when the villain counter-accuses the victim, and insists the victim is villain too, we call it ‘whataboutery.’ This word is a neologism, first used in the 1970s in the context of violence in Northern Ireland. Whataboutery creates a moral ambiguity as to who is right and who is wrong. Those at the receiving end see it as the devil’s strategy. Those deploying it insist it is an act of wisdom, to replace a narrow revolutionary focus with a wider social and historical perspective. Whataboutery is most evident during ..

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 religion/state/law will protect you. Why does religion or state or law exist? In the jungle there are no rules, the strong can claim any territory and eat the weak. Imagine a society without rules. Anybody can claim your property. Anybody can take what you have and you can do nothing about it. The whole purpose of rules is to protect the weak. That is why ..

WHO IS A HINDU? How ‘breaking India’ started. Published on 7th June, 2020, in Mumbai Mirror. At the heart of Hindutva is the idea that Hinduism is under threat from external and internal forces and they must be countered at any cost. The proponents of Hindutva are wary of Muslims and Christians and Dalits, but ignore how ‘breaking India’ first began 2,000 years ago when Brahmins started popularising the ChaturVarna system, ie the four-fold division of society, mentioned in the Rig Veda. The Rig Veda is a set of hymns that were composed 500 years after the collapse of the Harappan civilisation, around 1,500 BCE, ..

Published on 26th April, 2020, in Mumbai Mirror People often speak of a civilisational rupture that took place when Islam came into India. The easiest way to understand this is to go back in history and figure out the different ways in which kingship was perceived, in medieval India and medieval Persia, before 1,000 AD. In other words, what constituted ‘Hindu rajdharma’, and how different was it from what was called Turuku rajdharma by Indian kings? A thousand years ago, Indian kings followed, what was called, the Rajmandala concept. At the centre of the Rajmandala were the king and his kingdom, and his patron deity ..

Published on 12th April, 2020, in Mid-day As we go through a global pandemic which demands a major change in our lifestyle and which will have a major impact on the economy, it is a good time to remember a conversation in the Mahabharata, where Bhishma tells the Pandavas, about Apaddharma, or dharma during crisis. In the Shatapatha Brahmana, dharma is defined as a state of being that reverses the jungle law. In the jungle, might is right; but, in a civilised society, the mighty take care of the weak. In the dharma-shastras, this principle is operationalised using the varna-ashrama guidelines. Varna means respecting and ..