When we provide explanations, we should also look at their contrastive nature: why do puja to cows and not to buffalos? The problem in this case, however, is this: the explanation one gives about a tradition (you will soon see that one of the problems is to identify the explanandum itself) must also incorporate this contrast. Someone like Kanch Ilaiah has answered this question thus: the puja to …

I have discovered that there is a fundamental difference between arguments and theory-building. As a philosopher, I have come to think that one could argue almost any position, within reasonable limits. Mostly, they consist of putting across plausible, or even logically possible considerations in order to show that either some point is plausible or that it could be true. Up to a point, arguments …

What Brig SK Malik says supports my thesis about terrorism, instead of making it redundant, as one suggests. Here is how. In war, killing the enemy is considered a moral and justifiable act, even though ‘killing a fellow human being’ is considered immoral. (This includes many provisos, including that the war is justified.) That is to say, a theory of just war (and warfare) justifies what is …

“What is the relationship between religious intolerance and the acts committed in Mumbai?” This is an empirical question at many levels. If some or another religion is used to defend the attacks in Mumbai, then it depends very much on the kinds of justifications used; the kind of theology in question; the relationship between the belief-states of the perpetrators and their motives; the …

The first thing to notice is that I use the word “ideology” in a technical sense, which is both counter-intuitive and, for the time being, idiosyncratic. It is the first, namely counter-intuitive, because, as I use it, my use of the word does not refer to any theory, or to sets of beliefs, or to what one believes in. Normally, as we use the word in English, ‘ideology’ has multiple meanings: a …

Increasingly, the phenomenon of terrorism has begun to occupy the media, politics, and the lives of people in different parts of the world. The more the attention, however, the less the clarity: what kind of a phenomenon is terrorism? What generates it, what sustains it, and what allows it to expand on an ever-increasing scale? This lack of clarity has to do with the fact that our ideas about …

Is bhakti what the bhaktas do, or are people bhaktas because they ‘follow’ (bad choice of words, but there is no other way to put it) the ‘bhakti marga’, or is bhakti neither of the two? I mean: is the bhakta moved because, for example, the child who stole the butter happens to be the Kannan, or because the child, who also happens to be the Lord, stole the butter? If it is the first, it is …

The first thing is that my book is about the western culture and a specific religion, which brought the former forth. It is only indirectly about India because I interrogate the way India was looked at by the western culture. I proffer some hypotheses about India there by consciously remaining within the western framework. You are right in saying that I deny that ‘religions’ called ‘Hinduism’, …

Sasheej Hegde in his EPW article says: “A theory of secularism in the sense of a theory about possessing the concept ‘secular’ is quite distinct from a theory about how the concept secular represents.” It is downright incoherent. He obviously thinks that a theory about secularism (which is a political theory) is about ‘possessing the concept of the secular’ (which is a psychological theory about …

I do not assume that, as you put it, “we are living in complete barrenness of thought but for the light which Balu has thrown.” One would be doing the members of this forum a great disservice by attributing such an assumption to them. They do not believe in this claim anymore than I do. I do not accept this claim at all. From the many reasons I have for not accepting this ridiculous claim, let me …

Of course there are any number of stories in other cultures, ‘Hinduism’ included, about the creation of the world and what happened ever since. However, not every story about the creation of the world (let us stick to these kind of stories) has the quality of making the world ’the Cosmos, that is’ into an explanatorily intelligible entity. The Big-Bang theory is also a story about the creation of …

I do understand the anger that people feel when they read Jeffrey Kripal’s and other people’s assessment of Indian traditions. If someone were to come up with a similar distortion of my own cultural heritage, I would probably feel the same. However, I do feel troubled when people end up calling Kripal a “cheat’’, a “spiritual bandit” or begin to speculate about hidden ‘agendas’. My problem is not …

(1) What is called ‘mysticism’ in the western culture is not the same kind of experience that the different Indian traditions talk about. (2) I do think, as a corollary, that to describe the Indian ’enlightenment’ (let me use this word temporarily, the scare quotes indicate my reservations) as ‘mysticism’ is not to understand either. (3) There are different levels in and different ways to achieve …

Some have expressed the ‘opinion’ that we should all be properly grateful that people express a point of view, even if they do not enter into a debate with the readers, and that the reader should either take this or leave it. Such opinions are based on either a shallow or wrong understanding of what the ‘freedom’ to express one’s opinion is all about. The legal system does not allow one to …

Earlier, I suggested that the psychoanalytical explanations (like the transformation of Linga into a penis as a fertility symbol etc.) not only trivialize and distort but also deny access to our own experience. In this post, I want to highlight one of the consequences of transforming our experiences in this fashion. In at least two different ways, these explanations hinder the emergence of …

As I see it, the issue is not whether Arun Shourie is an intellectual (or whether Prakash Karat and EMS Namboodaripad represent intellectuals). The point I was trying to make is the one between a social movement and intellectuals. Any movement that captures the imagination of a people (or even of a cross-section of a people) has to have some or another kind of narrative. Normally, the crafting of …

The theories (and discussions) about secularism constitute a test case for the claims advanced in ‘The Heathen in his blindness: Asia, the West and the dynamic of religion’ about the universalizing drive of religion. I have suggested that religion spreads by secularizing itself, and that the distinction between the secular and the religious is drawn by and within a religion. If this is the case, …

Recently, the European Parliament hosted a meeting on “caste discrimination in South Asia”. At the meeting, participants stated that “India is being ruled by castes not by laws” and that they demanded justice, because there “is one incredible India and one untouchable India.” The EU was urged to come out with a policy statement on the subject. One MEP, referring to the caste system, said that …

[Original , published in ASIANetwork Exchange XVI (1): 57–63.] During the last two decades, I have been pursuing an unorthodox way of studying cultural differences, focusing mainly on the Indian and the western cultures. Because I believe that one can answer questions about the circumscription of the words ‘Indian’ and ‘western’ cultures satisfactorily (Balangangadhara, 1994), I will assume their …

The sustained efforts by certain Hindu groups in the west to redefine and “correct” long existing Hindu traditions are perhaps reflective of their desire to put in place a cogent and structured religious system that is able to hold its own against other scripture-based religions. Concomitantly, American identity politics and European political correctness is also “forcing” minority communities to …