Hindutva is being embarrassed by the very people it has wooed, by means fair and foul. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attempt to further his deeply-sectarian and divisive agenda at Belur Math, global headquarters of the Ramakrishna Mission founded by Swami Vivekananda, has backfired. His controversial defence of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019 at the … Continue reading Hindutva: Get Egg on Your Face and Say ‘I am Loving it’ →
Untouchability Walls keep rising and falling in Tamil Nadu. BR Ambedkar wrote in Annihilation of Caste that “…the world owes much to rebels who would dare to argue in the face of the pontiff and insist that he is not infallible. I do not care about the credit which every progressive society must give to its rebels. … Continue reading Whatever Happened to Struggle Against Untouchability →
The dispute will linger until India learns coexistence from history. Coexistence between social groups was a social reality and a primary tenet of Indian life, long before the word secular was included in its Constitution in 1976. Now that a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court has delivered a “historic” judgement on the Babri Masjid … Continue reading Ayodhya: Can a Dispute Reach Closure if it Still Causes Pain? →
It is hard to describe the mood that the unbelievably timid judgment leaves me in. One has to stop, really, hoping that some institution will be saved from the ongoing collapse of all decency in the country. My article in The Wire.
Even at the breakneck pace at which its proponents are rewriting history in the Hindutva mould, its real past will habitually catch up with it. Last year, a statue of freedom fighter and first education minister of independent India, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, was destroyed by Hindutva mobs at Kankinara in North 24 Parganas district, … Continue reading Exit Azad! Enter Savarkar!! →
Their fantasy is to control India’s fate by distorting historical events. History is witness that Buddhism, which originated in the Indian subcontinent, posed a challenge to brahmanical Hinduism. It is also recorded history that Buddhism was completely wiped out of this region centuries later, through means violent and non-violent. But the Hindutva supremacists, compelled by … Continue reading Politainment : Why Hindutva Brigade Spews Lies →
The Sangh Parivar has supported Tipu when it needed to. Ghatam Bhindyat, Patam Chhindyat, Kuryat Rasbharohanam Yenken Prakaren, Prasidho Purusho Bhavet (Break earthen pots, tear clothes, ride a donkey: Men try to achieve popularity by any means.) It was 2006 and DH Shankarmurthy, a nondescript swayamsevak, was handling the higher education ministry in the HD … Continue reading Goodbye, Tipu Sultan →
क्या ऐसा शख़्स, जिसने अंग्रेज़ सरकार के पास माफ़ीनामे भेजे, जिन्ना से पहले धर्म के आधार पर राष्ट्र बांटने की बात कही, भारत छोड़ो आंदोलन के समय ब्रिटिश सेना में हिंदू युवाओं की भर्ती का अभियान चलाया, भारतीयों के दमन में अंग्रेज़ों का साथ दिया और देश की आज़ादी के अगुआ महात्मा गांधी की हत्या की साज़िश … Continue reading सावरकर को भारत रत्न देना आज़ादी के नायकों का
Home Minister Amit Shah, while inaugurating a two-day seminar at Banaras Hindu University, emphasised that Indian historians should “rewrite history from an Indian perspective”. There is one thing unique about the present dispensation holding reins of power at the Centre. What one witnesses that the cabinet ministers—who go by the principle of collective responsibility—follow the … Continue reading History as Storytelling →
BJP’s poll promise of Bharat Ratna for Savarkar, who inspired a wide spectrum of fanatic individuals and violent organisations, shows the moral vacuousness of the Hindutva project “The curious fact is that as we move into the 21st century, historians have become central to politics. We historians are the monopoly suppliers of the past. The … Continue reading Savarkar, India’s ’Ratna’ of a Different Kind! →
