Inner Metamorphosis

Even those not particular about following political speeches were moved to tears listening to the now famous ” Yes, we can! ” victory speech by Barack Obama in 2008.  I remember having printed copies of the speech and distributing them to my study-circle.   US had come a long way since abolition of slavery, since Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement and the final nail on the racial coffin was the election of a black to the topmost position in the nation. Since, any further criticism on the continuing poor treatment of blacks is rebuffed with: “How can you talk about racism any longer, when a black man is the president, the most powerful human being on earth?”   At least this is how legitimate concerns about the enduring racial discrimination are papered down, feels author Richard Crasta. In his latest offering The Many Faces of Barack Obama and Race in America: An Immigrant's View the author of the path-breaking Impressing the Whites: The New Internationa...

To sum up the story so far: Rohan Murthy, son of ‘Infosys’ Narayan Murthy, spearheading Murty Classical Library, an initiative to translate 500 volumes of traditional Indian literature into English, has refused to consider removal of Sheldon Pollock as the mentor and chief editor of the project. Rohan Murthy with Sheldon Pollock "It is quite rich to sit in the peanut gallery, pass comments and throw empty shells at those who are actually rolling their sleeves up and working on the ground," said Rohan of those 132 academicians and intellectuals petitioning them to reconsider their decision.  Many Hindus do not grasp the enormity of what’s at stake here and join the chorus to brand any indigenous attempt to question West’s stranglehold on Hindu academics as Hindu chauvinism (or is it Hindu nationalism of late?). Intellectual Colonialism One of Rajiv Malhotra ’s important points again comes to fore: other religions are “defined” by their practition...

The idea that government must be involved in family planning presupposes the inherent utility in having lesser population, which would presumptively put our resources to lesser strain. It is argued that since our resources are limited, the people would receive a better share of them, if lesser number were to compete for them.  Family planning has no cultural ethos in India as newly wedded couples are typically blessed to have as many children as possible by elders. Somehow, modern thinking (western to be accurate) has led us to this ‘realisation’ that more means trouble. This informs our basic understanding of the concept of family planning and remains so entrenched and few if ever have tried to question it. The utopian scenario that family planning aims for is a working couple with abundant resources having to spend them all on their one child as against a relatively poorer family struggling to meet ends with many children. This contrast in prospects bet...

Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer struck by the macabre expanse of turtle skeletons probably resulting from being eaten alive by wild dogs wrote,” For what offence must they suffer this agony? What is the point of the whole scene of horror? The only answer is that the will to live thus objectifies itself.”   All creatures are thus instinctively evolved to cling tenaciously to life (both hunter and hunted), notwithstanding the tremendous odds. The book in review is one such tale of survival amid unbelievably horrendous tribulations. A published author with critical acclaim chances upon his father’s handwritten manuscript in a rusting steel trunk and discovers a “tale of unmitigated horror”*. Besides stray references, the father would never reveal the true depths of despair he underwent. For this was a job his son was destined to undertake. After lying around for 50 years, these papers are found by the son who edits and publishes them and our grand old man who has seen it all in...

Among the most widely accepted notions is one that Political Islam is incompatible with democracy. The last few decades have corroborated this position given that there is no semblance of representative governance in the Islamic world spanning across middle-east Asia. The failure of Arab Spring to dislodge authoritarian rule appears to testify these notions. We will argue that the prevailing chaos in Middle-east is the result of discovery of oil which has been the main culprit that toppled democracy and people’s rights. While Islam’s core theology is indeed backward, what needs our consideration is that Christianity was equally if not more regressive in the pre-Reformation period. It is Reformation sparked the ascendancy of West. In fact, post World War II, it appeared that zeitgeist of global democracy will find its way in Islamic countries too. And things in early 50s and 60s actually moved in this direction, until one thing changed it at once – the discovery of oil. What ...