From the mouth of some babes, pearls of wisdom and truth fall like gentle rain from heaven. From the mouth of others, idiocies pour in a torrent and are considered truth only because they occupy positions of power. We leave it to the reader to decide to which group our minister of human resource development Smriti Irani belongs. Keep in mind that she determines to a large extent the course of …

There are three ideas in the West about Law that are taken as axioms. The first: all societies are founded on Law; if they are not, they ought to be. The second is that Law teaches and educates a people. Third is their corollary: only thus do a people become a Nation. As far as I know, none has shown their empirical truth or proved that they are logically necessary. But their truth-value is …

Check this: http://witness-to-our-times.org/

See Balu’s piece on Bihar elections, Nov 2015 .

Check Balu’s piece on Derrida’s the force of law .

What happens to the future of Indian intellectual scene when most of projects driven by its intelligentsia propagate perverted truths for self-seeking purposes? “Satyam Vada, Dharmam Chara”, “Satyameva Jayate” are but two of the well-known Sanskrit sayings that are supposed to indicate the values placed upon truth and truth-telling in Indian culture. It comes as a surprise, therefore, to read …

Check Balagangadhara’s paper on Caste-based reservations and ‘social justice’

social science debate in India has been hijacked by the struggle between secularism andHindutva for decades now. usually the Sangh Parivar is blamed for this turn of events. However, it could well be argued that the Hindutva ideologues simply adopted the stance of the secularists. Perhaps the best illustration is the case of anti-Brahminism. To be against “Brahminism” is part and parcel of the …

This has been a tumultuous decade for the academic study of India. In his recent Offence: The Hindu Case (2009), Salil Tripathi provides a timely overview of the growing censorship and harassment that scholars working on India have faced. Not a pretty sight to behold: people have felt the need to ban books and terrorize authors, hassle teachers and disrupt classes, toss eggs at some and blacken …

I When I took the caste-system as an example , what am I doing? I am showing that turning the standard story on its head is a child’s play: caste has been said to be an antiquated, rigid, dogmatic, etc social structure, which is “very difficult” to eradicate. If this is true, most of the rantings seem to subscribe to this text book story, then this can be put on its head very easily. A word of …

Today, India has become a global player of significant political and economical impact. Europe and India are facing each other as equal partners in pursuit of greater economic and political co-operation. This confronts both India and Europe with a challenge. The intelligentsia, the business world, politicians, educators and others, will have to answer the following question: What can India offer …

Read Jakob de Roover’s piece on reservations on dailyon.in & on swarjyamag . From the perspective of constitution, constitution debates, check https://www.academia.edu/16478230/Caste-based_reservation_and_social_justice_in_India The problem that has plagued India since Independence has flared up again: caste-based reservations for education, employment and career promotions. In the last four …

The relation between religion and politics remains one of the important issues of our time. The discussions on this relation swing between two extremes: religious fundamentalism and liberal secularism. These are regarded as opposites. As the liberal perspective sees it, the secular state and its principles of neutrality and toleration are antidotes to religious fundamentalism[1]. Recently, this …

The annual reports of the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) have long irked politicians and citizens from countries placed on its ‘watch list’. This is no different in India. In the 2015 report released about a fortnight ago, the country again occupies an unenviable spot in Tier 2, which includes countries where the religious freedom violations engaged in or tolerated by …

Rape of a Country Jakob De Roover Imagine. A filmmaker travels to Belgium because she has heard about the pedophilia scandals in the country. She directs a documentary film including an interview with an infamous pedophile, who says that the girls he raped had actually seduced him and that they really enjoyed it. The filmmaker then comments that Belgian society is responsible for creating such …

The religious idea I am talking about in chapter 3 is this: Concrete and abstract characterize human thinking in the different phases of its development. By the time we reach chapter 7, and start thinking in terms of ‘secularization’, I will be talking about secularizing religious themes with respect to the same. Neither the words ‘concrete’ or ‘abstract’, nor the concepts associated with them …

After the Paris attacks came the questions: Is this violence caused by Islam or unrelated to religion? Are the perpetrators believers or madmen? Do they represent the extremists that we find in any ideology? The responses were diverse: ‘Islam is a threat to free speech’. But many Muslims joined the protest marches in defence of the freedom of expression. ‘Not all Muslims are terrorists, but most …

As I have said before, my hypothesis is meant to guide the research and, as such, suggests that we find that the Brahmins will exhibit more of a heterarchical organization than a hierarchical one. Let us assume that what you say is true. In that case, this anomaly (or these anomalies) will become the problem(s) that my hypothesis has to solve. That is, the hypothesis will force one to look for an …

Two small points before I respond to your questions. One: all I have is a hypothesis that can guide research. In itself, it is not a theory and I cannot hope to convince anyone (at this stage) that this hypothesis is true. It requires years of research (of different kinds) before it can be made compelling. Therefore, please know that I understand your skepticism and find it only natural. Two: …

You ask whether “there is a perception of caste hierarchies among Brahmins”. My guess is that there is no such general perception, even if, regionally, multiple Brahmin jati’s fight for superiority. There is no way to establish, say, that the ‘Babburkamme’ is superior to ‘Havyaka’ in Karnataka. In fact, many from either of the two would not even know of the existence of the other. In Bangalore …