September 29, 2007

There have been several major events in the last few days capped by the young Team India’s momentous victory in the T20 cricket final at Johannesburg that literally enthralled and electrified the whole country. We have also seen the row over the Ram Setu and Sethusamudram project taking an ugly turn with a prominent Sangh Parivar member, former BJP MP Ram Vilas Vedanti, allegedly issuing a death sentence fatwa against DMK chief and Tamil Nadu CM M. Karunanidhi for his pronouncements against (…)

As the fifth year of the US occupation of Iraq ebbs away, the farce on the ground deepens. A crisis, indeed, but more than a crisis: the number of US military troops dead approaching nearly 4000 and some 30,000 wounded; tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead, some four million displaced, with two million in exile abroad; mass ethnic cleansing of neighbourhoods; lack of water and electricity; the country on the verge of splitting apart along sectarian lines; the US military bribing Sunni (…)

The debate over the Sethusamudram project has gone completely off the rails. The debate thus needs to be brought back to good sense and relevance.
Let us start with the Ram Setu aspect as it has been the main subject of discussion. The question is not whether Ram was a historical figure; or whether he built the bridge; or whether he or the monkey army could have built it; or whether indeed the feature in question is natural or man-made. The crucial point is whether the site is sacred in (…)

Blessed are these who have no history. Condemned are those who forget their history. Damned are those who treat mythology as their history.
The instinct for survival precedes any notion of morality. The priestly class, which denigrated Rama, Krishna, Hanuman and the Hindu Triumvirate, had suddenly tried to apotheosise them for its survival.
In today’s context the episode of Anasuya and the birth of the trice-headed Dattatraya, written by Brahmins themselves, would put the Hindu (…)

The Common Minimum Programme of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) clearly stated: “Landless families will be endowed with land through implementation of land ceiling and land redistribution legislation. No reversal of ceiling legislation will be permitted.”
Such a statement makes it very clear that even though land reform is a State subject, the UPA Government is fully aware of its responsibility to ensure that land reforms remains firmly on the nation’s agenda. Any reversal of land (…)

As we approach October 2—which marks this year the one hundred and thirtyeighth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth—it is necessary to once again remember that great revolutionary who not only moved millions of our countrymen in the quest of freedom but also taught us the essence of our struggle: service to the Daridranarayan. While remembering him we offer our homage to that tallest leader of our battle for emancipation from foreign yoke with the following articles; former Principal (…)

The postmodern winds, which have been blowing since the 1920s, are influencing every branch of knowledge. As a result, now we have postmodern art and architecture, postmodern music and dance, postmodern philosophy and science and so on and so forth. Gandhian thinkers are also equally keen to evaluate their philosophy in this changing postmodernist scenario. Several new works in the field of Gandhian thought have emerged. Nicholas F. Gier wrote an article “Gandhi: Premodern, Modern or (…)

The Republic of India is now thirtyeight years old. It has weathered many a storm and has come to be recognised as a functioning democracy. The tremendous interest of the voter to exercise his right to vote is taken as proof of the enduring quality of our democracy. From this phenomenon, our Prime Minister seems to have drawn the conclusion that an unlettered electorate has a wider vision, a broader outlook. According to him, literacy, “does more to narrow the vision than it does to widen (…)

Gandhigiri is much in the air, nowadays. It is, of course, with the young new generation growing up and fortunately looking around to see what the lie of land is and how they fit into it, and what they should do about it to mould it to their hearts’ desire. I do not accept the utterly mis-conceived notion that the young generation is only concerned with itself and only with the reckless up-in-the-air fun of life detached from the realities—the stark realities—on the ground. The young (…)

RESPONSIBILITY OF THE MARGINALISED — MADHESIS, JANAJATIS, DALITS — TO MAKE IT HAPPEN
Jana Andolan-II of April 2006 unleashed three important developments in Nepal: first, the clipping of the powers and privileges of the monarchy drastically and declaring Nepal a secular country; second, the successful process of bringing the Maoists into the political mainstream; and third and the most unexpected, the assertion of their rights by the marginalised sections for an inclusive society. Seen in (…)