Standing up
Each and every word of this is excellent (“‘My lecture was anti-RSS and anti-Hindutva. Therefore, I hold it was in fact utterly patriotic...”) Kudos for being fearless while expressing the right thoughts to intelligent young students. They must know the reality and should be able to analyse things logically instead of behaving like bigots! Congratulations to Nivedita Menon for her fearless views on the present-day situation. – Jagdish Mahajan
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The distinction between Hinduism and Hindutva is as important as that between Islam and Islamism. Kudos to this brave academic for her principled stand and she has the support of all those who want a secular, progressive and united India. Political ideologies based in religion will bring an end to the nation that we secured for ourselves in 1947. It is time we all stood up to those who wish to poison the national discourse with identities, perceived historical slights, and so on; and develop a mature understanding based on relevant issues of today. – Amit Chowdhury
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What does this biased and communal communist professor know about Bharat, Bharat Mata, Hindutva and RSS? She needs to go to primary school and start learning once again to become professor in the correct sense. – Kuyog T
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I admire your objective analysis of RSS, Hindutva, Bharat Mata etc. It never fails to amuse me that so-called learned people like you would never dare to analyse shortcomings of other religions or their political outfits. When a Hindu goddess is painted naked it is art, but why have revered figures of some other religions not been depicted in the same manner?
Do artists feel that everything Hindu can be interpreted according to their perceptions, but nothing from other religions is worth a second look? Or is it that they would not dare to do anything to religious figures of other religions?.
Students and teachers of a particular university can bad mouth the country and shout slogans for a neighboring country, but that’s freedom of speech. Let them try to do the same in any other country. Anyway it is a pseudo-intellectual projection and we cannot all clap for it, sorry. I did not find your analysis objective. I dare you to analyse other dominant religious bodies and their beliefs. Believe me, you will not have the guts to be objective. Only Hindus and Hindutva will let you get away.
Happy partisan intellectual observations. May your kind get courage to be truly critical. – Rita Dutta
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I am not in favour of branding any organisation in India as national or anti-national. You can argue that particular organisations like the RSS do more harm than good. But branding it anti-national is just prejudice. This is how the liberals are doing great harm to the concept of liberalism itself. – R Venkat
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What pleasure can the author get by hurting the sentiments of ordinary Indians? I don’t see any sense in giving such writers an opportunity to rant, much less the publicity she gets from sites like yours. Shame on you both. And I am not RSS or even BJP – just a self respecting Indian. – Ashkapur
English education
This is a nice article and gives an insight into the Colonial-era education policy (“Thomas Macaulay won the debate on how to shape Indian education. So who were the losers?”). One more thing that swung the debate in the Macaulay Minute’s favour were changes that were taking place in England.The monopoly of the East India Company over trade in the East was coming to an end. There was bitter competition in England for trade to India. So, there was a huge pressure on the government in England to find ways to expand the market in India for British products. One way this could be ensured was by anglicising Indians, hence, the Macaulay Minute on Education. Thanks for giving an in-depth srecord. – Himanshu Agarwal
Eye on polls
I have read many of your articles and all are balanced and intelligently written. Thanks for your support in the revival of Punjab and Punjabi spirit (“The jury’s still out in Punjab, but AAP seems to have won the hearts of Punjabis in Canada”). –Ken
Simmering state
Please get your facts rights – people are not opposing the 33% reservation for women in civic polls but the municipal act that includes property tax at a rate of 15%, which was copied from Punjab’s municipal act (“Nagaland: Protestors set government buildings ablaze over reservation for women”). Each state should have its own municipal act. VCorruption at the highest level is also one of the factors for the civil unrest. – De Ronz
Yoga roots
I found this article amusing, to say the least (“Yoga isn’t an all-Hindu tradition – it has Buddhist, even Sufi, influences”). The article’s intent, clearly, is to break the homogeneity of Yoga’s lineage to the Vedas and Adi Shankara’s teaching. Spreading such ignorance in the guise of western scholarship actually sends a bad signal – that western scholarship on Indic traditions is not factual and accurate.
Facts first
I understand that it is media’s duty to put the government and it’s supporters in dock, but in doing so, should it not carry out at least a basic fact check (“Video: A soldier responds to General Bakshi’s claim that social media complaints are a ‘mutiny’”)? This purported video of a soldier has been tweeted by Nilim Dutta and I haven’t found it posted by any other Twitter user. A simple Google search on Dutta leads me to this article. In my opinion, Dutta does not appear to be a person of integrity. And I think as a responsible media outlet, you should have carried out a little research and posted another link of the video, or the soldier’s post, if it existed. The issue is not about Dutta (he may be a saint for all I care), but that a responsible media outlet should independently verify the facts before reporting them. – Ashish Kumar
Looking back
Deliberately or unwittingly, some facts have been distorted in this piece (“Has Lahore forgotten why January 26 was chosen as India’s Republic Day?”). For instance, Lala Lajpat Rai did not die due to a blow to his head, he died after a blow to left side of his chest, for which he had to be hospitalised and then had a cardiac problem. Also, the Lahore Resolution did not start being called the Pakistan Resolution only after 1947. Hindus. while mocking it, had called it the Pakistan Resolution soon after it was passed.
Why Pakistan doesn’t celebrate January 26 the topic of a long discussion, but in a nutshell, it’s not appropriate for us to celebrate it. – Jamal Abdul Nasir
Northern Lights
The earth’s magnetosphere is what protects us from sun’s coronal mass ejections (“Northern Lights could be restricted to the poles in 30 years, says a new scientific study”). It is predicted that if CMEs will decrease in intensity and frequency, their impact will reduce on our power grids and all other systems, and the Northern lights will stay up North where they belong.