Colonial Consciousness

I was invited by some Sadhus from Swami Narayan Temple (BAPS) to visit the temple and have a discussion with them. Because they practice very strict Brahmacharya (eight types of avoiding women, each correlated to an organ: it is called Ashtanga Brahmacharya), the Sadhus said that women could not be present during our discussions, while they were welcome to visit the temple. As I remember the …

You suggest that calling Apsaras as “prostitutes in the court of Indra” is an extreme statement. Of course, you would be right if you mean that the English word does not carry all the connotations of ‘Veshya’ or even that our current usage of the word ‘Veshya’ is not as rich as the earlier uses of the same word were. You are right too when you point out that the word ‘Kama’, as a pursushartha, …

1.1. The Indian traditions did not have the same attitude as Christianity towards prostitution or adultery. And the Indians of yesteryears were not defenders of the Victorian (and Christian) morality. Of course, I approvingly said that the “Indians are not prudes” but this approval has to do with the thrust of Indian thought, as I have understood it: the impossibility of prohibiting or making …

Let me invite you to do a thought-experiment along with me. Imagine that all human beings seek happiness. Imagine too that they can all achieve this state of being. Because, as I said in one of my posts, there are no qualifications (or requirements) to reach this end-state; any and all ways are conducive to reach this end-state: thinking, meditation, music, dance, and, yes, even going to temples …

Traditions are inherited practices, which mean two things: they are both transmitted and learnt. The learning occurs through imitation, following instructions, through stories and so on. Consequently, traditions ‘change’ (i.e. undergo modifications) even as they are being transmitted and learnt. This makes traditions flexible and adaptive. Human practices conserve, that is, we do not go around …

If we take our English language use as a reference point, it appears as though we can speak sensibly about experiencing our feelings (‘I experience sadness’), experiencing thoughts (‘I can even now experience my jumbled thoughts when …’), experiencing colour (‘I experience a redness’), experiencing actions (‘I still experience my shaking limbs when I…’) and so on. That is, we can experience the …

In many cultures, especially in the Indian case, it is important to understand that stories are not explanations. They are neither true nor false because they do not describe ‘factual’ events; they do not claim that they do either. Unlike the Bible, the Puranas do not have to be true or known to be true for them to play the role they do in the Indian culture. The Indian myths neither allegorize …

It is an event because the colonial consciousness that I am talking about comprises of multiplicity of actions executed by indefinitely many Indians over a long period. It is a process because colonial consciousness reproduces itself, colonial consciousness is transmitted from generation to generation and it is learnt. Consequently, we need to understand the mechanisms of this process and the …

In this post, I want to reflect on what it means to access and think about experience. Perhaps, not so much on what these words mean but what is entailed by (or what happens when we indulge in) this kind of activity. I think the best way to begin this analysis is by asking the following two questions about an activity familiar to most of us: what do we do when we think about ourselves? Do we do it …

The first thing to note is that there is no distance between how we use corruption in our daily language and the way it is used in political and sociological theories of corruption. You see, the problem we (Indians) face is the asymmetry in the way the word is used while talking about us and the way it is used when talking about India. I want to signal this by putting up the red flag: I want to …

The first thing that is really striking involves what I will call the burden of proof. That is, I am being asked to prove that my assertions about corruption are true. In one sense, it appears an entirely reasonable demand to make: after all, one should not entertain gratuitous claims. But what seems to have escaped the attention of many is this: what precisely do I have to prove? Who has the …

(A) Consider the following sequence of sentences: All Indians are perfectly and fully moral. All westerners are perfectly fully moral. All Indians are immoral. All westerners are immoral. For sentences (1) and (2), all it takes is one instance of immorality to be proven wrong. Our proverbial municipal clerk would be immoral, and it would disprove the sentence (1). The same example could also …

One of the striking things about the British colonial rule is its success in developing certain ways of talking about the Indian culture and society. The British criticised the Indian ‘religions’, the Indian ‘caste system’, the Indian education system, practices like ‘sati’ and ‘untouchability’, and so on and so forth. They redrew the outlines of Indian intellectual history as indigenous responses …

What is western normative ethics? It is a structure or style of thinking about ethics. What is its structure? It makes use of norms. What are norms? ‘Rules’ or ‘principles’ which have a characteristic structure that use certain concepts like the moral ‘ought’ and moral ‘ought not’. That is, some actions ought to be performed (i.e. they are obligatory); some actions ought not to be performed (i.e. …