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Veer Savarkar: The Historian Extraordinaire
Veer Savarkar was primarily a historian. He was a also a revolutionary and later a politician of extraordinary foresight.
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Hurdles in Discovering the Real India
Rediscovering the real Indian cultural heritage.
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The false symmetries of Hey Ram
The film ‘Hey Ram’ was released in 2000. Written and directed by Kamal Hassan, he also played the protagonist – Saket Ram. The film speaks of Saket Ram’s own odyssey that involves descend into hatred propelled by the rape and death of his wife at the hands of Muslims during...
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Anbe Sivam (Love is Sivam)
In this series two films by Kamal Hassan (starred as well as written by him) are studied. While recognizing and respecting the freedom of an artist, the aim of this study is only to show how a particular school of thought Kamal Hassan prescribes to, views Hindus, their history and...
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White Smoke – Black Record!
Give unto every Caesar… March 13th of 2013 saw Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio become Pope Francis and the 266th head of Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican city-State. Amidst euphoric celebrations of a first ‘Latin American’ and ‘humble slum loving’ humanist becoming a Pope, his past also slowly started surfacing. It was the...
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Vernadsky, Noosphere and Vivekananda
Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky the Russo-Ukranian geologist was more than a geologist. He was one of the earliest systems-thinkers and a pioneering inter-disciplinary scientist. His book ‘The Biosphere’ was published in Russian in 1926 and in French in 1929. With 150 pages and unassuming cover, the book’s importance was not understood...
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Some thoughts on Darwin Day
Marvin Olasky – the “spiritual advisor” of former U.S. President George W. Bush is certainly an avowed enemy of Taliban and now slain Osama Bin Laden. But he shares one passion with Talban. It is opposition to evolution. Seemingly on either side of the famed “clash of civilizations”, the fighters...
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Swami Vivekananda: A Hindu Supremacist?
Outlook is at it again. It has unleashed a camapign of calumny against India’s most venerated spirtual icon Swami Vivekananda, exactly at the time when the nation is celebrating his 150th birth anniversary. In a conclusively titled cover story ‘Hindu Supremacist’, the magazine published excerpts from a book on Swami Vivekananda by...
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Lal Salaam comrade editor
Dear Mr.Editor, Your newspaper is now at the forefront of the secular crusade of ‘taking the aggression out of masculinity’. This is really a worthwhile cause. Your newspaper has been doing a wonderful work in this direction by identifying the elements of aggressive masculinity lurking behind the corners of that...
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Swami Vivekananda, Indian Culture and the charge of Male Chauvinism
Yesterday (03-Jan-2013) scores of Indians were pained by the way ‘The Hindu’ presented an article of pop-psycho-social analysis by a sociologist by name Sanjay Srivastava. Titled ‘Taking the aggression out of masculinity’, the article in a typical western way of looking at Indian society finds Indian culture as deficient and...
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December Meditation
December of 1892 saw a young mendicant meditate in solitude for three days and three nights on the rock, the last piece of Indian landmass, with waves roaring around him. Like Nachiketa who waited in solitude at the gates of Yama to penetrate the mystery of the very existence, the...
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Delhi Shame : Beyond agendas
After a brave but futile fight the New Delhi rape victim has died. The loss of life and the inhuman circumstances of that tragedy which happened in the national capital make us all feel ashamed. We all share the grief and pain of her near and dear ones at this...
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Rama Patriarchy, Feminist criticisms and the Politics of Freedom of Expression
On how the Congress becomes Ram Bhaktha. Indian politics is full of paradoxes of the absurd kind. We witnessed one such recently when Indian National Congress (INC) criticized Modi for not attacking Ram Jethmalani for his remark in which he termed Ram as a “bad husband”. Some days earlier Karan...
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Caste Wars in Tamil Nadu: a Sanghathan Perspective
The film was a typical mediocre one even by the standards of 1980s. The screen play smacked of inability to free from the stranglehold of the stage drama influences. As if that is not enough, it was a film on the miraculous powers of the Goddess worshipped widely by villagers...