Revisit Dimensions of Past in Spirit of Present Exigencies
The year 2014 marks the 1,000th anniversary of the mighty Hindu monarch Rajendra Chola I’s ascension to the throne. The occasion calls for greater national and international commemoration. Rajendra I, described by Georges Coedès as “prince audacieux”, and by R C Majumdar as the “greater son of a greater father”, …
PRESERVING NATION’S HERITAGE IN WORDS
The Modi regime should seriously look into salvaging the National Mission for Manuscripts. An autonomous status will be welcome. It’s a civilisational imperative In 2007 it was largely because of the efforts of the New Delhi-based National Mission for Manuscripts that the collection of Rigveda manuscripts in the possession of the Bhandarkar …
DEVELOPING HERITAGE CIRCUITS IN INDIA
The Buddhist tourism project taps into the country’s civilisational repositories and can re-create bridges with regions that once fell within its cultural ambit The concept of cultural-religious circuits has been given a fillip by the Union Budget for 2014-2015. In a welcome move an amount of Rs 500 crore has …
‘Secular Nationalist’ is Nothing But Oxymoron
The past few weeks have seen some avid India watchers and academics based in the West come up with a rather confusing nomenclature—‘secular nationalist’. It is striking that these self-professed secularists have at least accepted the appellation ‘nationalist’, not as pejorative or reductionist, but worthy of appropriation, however anachronistic such …
FESTIVAL OF CULTURE AND SPIRITUALITY
The intrinsic message of the Hindu Service and Spiritual Fair is that Hindu society must address contemporary challenges through a definite civilisational approach Melas or fairs have, in the near past, played a pivotal role in India, especially in support of movements for national regeneration. The celebrated Hindu Mela in …
THE MAN AND HIS CONVICTION
Syama Prasad Mookerjee never bowed to Nehruvian pressures when it came to the larger good of the country Making an assessment of Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s life and personality, sometime in 1959, S Radhakrishnan, then Vice President of India, had perhaps come nearest to describing the essential and defining character trait …
THE MAN AND HIS CONVICTION
Syama Prasad Mookerjee never bowed to Nehruvian pressures when it came to the larger good of the country Making an assessment of Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s life and personality, sometime in 1959, S Radhakrishnan, then Vice President of India, had perhaps come nearest to describing the essential and defining character trait …
A TRIBUTE TO CULTURAL RECONSTRUCTION
The so-called intellectual mainstream relegated SP Mookerjee to an ideological corner and suppressed his versatility, his national acceptance and his vision for national progress Sixty one years after he was consigned to a confined and lonely death by free India’s first democratically elected Government on June 23, 1953, Syama Prasad …
BEGINNING OF THE ERA OF ASIANISM?
Prime Minister Modi’s trip to Japan could be more than a visit to a friendly nation. It has a potential to unlock civilisational synergies There is news that among his first visits abroad the Prime Minister of India has decided to include Japan. For those of us who wish …
TAKING A LEAF OUT OF OUR GRAND HISTORY
When a man who is our next Prime Minister espouses ideals that the Mahatma and C Rajagopalachari stood for and promoted, it is time to give him a chance Respected Shri Gopal Gandhiji, Though an ordinary and unknown Indian, I have gathered courage to address you an open letter primarily …
THE SYMBOLISM AND HISTORY OF VARANASI
In the consciousness of India, this city symbolises a seat of great civilisational churning which throws up new directions, leaders of new thought and of new epochs Varanasi has, in the last few days, assumed a certain centrality in the national political discourse. In the Indian civilisational experience Varanasi continues …
BHARATIYATA AND ITS MANIFESTATIONS
The spirit of Indianness finds expressions in many ways. But for the biased and the blinded, it has been reduced to symbolism and is exploitable When Mirra Alfassa (The Mother) of Pondicherry (now Puducherry) declared that India was her “true country, the country of my soul and spirit” and that …
INDIA MUST REALISE ITS DESTINY NOW
The country is yet to be comfortable with her culture and civilisation, and seriously engage in uplifting its people out of a long phase of deprivation and scarcity A few days ago, a motley group of activists and academics of the Left and extreme Left persuasion came together to issue …
Mamata Banerjee & Her Fascist Politics In West Bengal
The contours of a Fascist political system in West Bengal are fast crystallizing under Mamata Banerjee . What remains to be seen is when such a system poses a final challenge to Mamata Banerjee herself and to her degenerative brand of politics. It is difficult to say whether the periodic …