CHARVAKA DESK
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“Hindu Science”: Vivekananda’s Strange Volte-face
Ashish Lahiri Particularly susceptible to summer heat, Swami Vivekananda went to Mount Abu in mid-April 1891 where he met Raja Ajit Singh of Khetri. From 25 July to 3 August he spent with Ajit Singh there and went on to stay at the King’s palace at Khetri where he remained till 28 October, fully enjoying…
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Critiquing Timpanaro’s Concept of ‘materialist pessimism’
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya Sebastiano Timpanaro One of the novel and surprising concepts proposed by Sebastiano Timpanaro (1923-2000), the well-known Marxist philologist-cum-philosopher, is that of ‘materialist pessimism’ (p.66). His plea is to recognize this concept as a part of the Marxist worldview. Time and again he comes back to it in his book, Sul Materialismo (1970, translated…
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The Base Text and Its Commentaries: Problems of Representing and Understanding the Cārvāka/Lokāyata – PART II
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya I apologize to learned readers for this disproportionately long proem. They certainly know all this from their own experience. Like them I too had to pay a price — a very heavy one at that — for placing absolute trust on the words of the base texts on some occasions as well as…
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Painful Path to Justice: Travails of Zakia Jafri
Ram Puniyani The metropolitan court on 26th December 2013 exonerated Narendra Modi and 59 others for their complicity in the Gujarat carnage. Fully accepting the report of SIT (Special Investigation Team) the court endorsed the view of Modi and Government about their role in the carnage. The Court rejected a petition seeking the prosecution of Chief Minister Narendra…
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The Base Text and Its Commentaries: Problems of Representing and Understanding the Cārvāka/Lokāyata – PART I
Ramkrishna Bhattacharyya ABSTRACT The base texts of most of the philosophical systems of ancient India are in the form of a collection of aphorisms (sūtra-s). The aphorisms are so brief and tersely worded that their significance can seldom be understood without the help of a commentary or commentaries. Sometimes, the literal meaning of an aphorism…
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Kashmir: Understanding Article 370
Ram Puniyani Those gripped by religious nationalism are unable to understand the regional-ethnic aspirations of the people. Many an ultra-nationalists of different hues also fall into this trap many a times. With formation of Indian nation the integration of regions like Himachal Pradesh, North Eastern States and Jammu& Kashmir created some challenging situations. Though…
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Honoring Hate: Public Felicitation of Riot Accused
Ram Puniyani Communal violence has tormented our country, more so from last three decades in particular. From the decade of 1980s its form has taken very menacing proportions and the country bleeds from time to time with the death of innocents, and at the same time takes place political ascendance of those behind engineering the…
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Modi on Rampage: Reckless Abuse of History
Ram Puniyani History is not just the past. It is a potent weapon for various political agendas in the present. It can be clearly seen in the use of history in rise of Hindu-Muslim rightwing in India. As far as presently dominant Hindu national politics is concerned, this abuse of history can be seen in…
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‘Statue of Unity’ on One Side: Asthi Kalsh Yatra on the Other
Ram Puniyani In the last week of October-first week of November, we saw two contradictory processes. On one side the foundation stone was laid for the statue of first Deputy Prime Minister of India, Saradar Vallabhbhai Patel, being called as Statue of Unity. On the other side the BJP in Bihar was taking out ‘Asthi Kalash’ (Pitcher…
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Science versus Miracles: Holding Hot Electric Soldering Iron on the Hand.
B Premanand The psychic places the hot electric soldering iron across his hand without getting burnt. Experiment: 130 Effect: Hot electric soldering iron on the hand. Props: Electric soldering iron, petroleum jelly. Method: Smear petroleum jelly on your hand. Take the soldering Iron and lightly place it on your hand over the jelly. It…
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Modi’s-Abusing History for Political Mileage
Ram Puniyani The Politics of Modi’ parent organisation RSS is based on distortion of history, medieval history in particular. to begin with the projection of kings through the prism of religion, to demonise Muslim kings based on distortions and falsehoods of History, and then in turn spreading hatred against Muslims of today has been the…
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Love Jihad: From Illusory Slogan to Potent Weapon
Ram Puniyani The country is yet to recover from the aftermath of Muzaffranagar violence (October 2013). This violence was engineered over a period of time in the areas of Western UP, where Jats and Muslims had thick social interaction, despite belonging to different economic strata. Communal violence has been instigated, engineered earlier on various issues…
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Engels, Dialectics and Buddhism
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya The book that has come down to us under the title Dialectics of Naure is strictly speaking not a book but an edited version of four folders containing miscellaneous notes and jottings left unfinished by their author, Frederick Engles. The material was never published in Engles’s life time although parts of it were…
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Explained Series: Books and Exhibition on Communalism Explained and Terrorism Explained
Ram Puniyani Friends, Violence under the garb of religion has been the major expression of the politics in current times. Sharad Sharma, and myself are working on ‘Explained Series’. The aim of the series is to present the phenomenon in the form of graphic presentations, Comic Books. Two books in this series are already out…
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Science versus Miracles: Cutting the Body with a Knife.
B Premanand This ‘miracle’ is performed both by Muslims and Hindu oracles. They cut their body with a knife. Blood flows from the gashes. Later, the body is wiped with a towel and water and the cuts are healed. Experiment: 128 Effect: Cutting the body with a knife. Props: Ferric Chloride, Sodium Sulphocyanide, a…
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Science versus Miracles: Catching a Thief by Sorcery
Normal 0 B Premanand When a theft has occurred, the tantrik is called. He starts a havan by preparing a homa kunda with mud and firewood and lights the fire, chanting mantras for some time. After the prayer, he fixes a four-foot long stick in the ground and asks the assembled people go into the…
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Development of Materialism in India: The Pre-Cārvākas and the Cārvākas
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya The existence of more than one materialist school before the Cārvāka (eighth century) has been admitted by modern scholars.[1] They have used different nomenclatures to denote the pre-Cārvāka and Cārvāka materialist systems. I prefer to use simpler names, «old materialism» and «new materialism».[2] Unlike them, however, I do not propose to confine…
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Formal versus Substantive Justice: Shinde’s Letter on Harassment of innocent Muslims
Ram Puniyani In his letter to all the Chief Ministers Sushil Kumar Shinde’s Centre’s Home Minster (30, 09, 2013), wrote that Government has been receiving complaints of harassment of innocent Muslim youth by Law enforcement agencies. He asked the state authorities to ensure that no innocent Muslim youth should be arrested or wrongfully detained in…
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“I Would Be Happy To See a Real Miracle Before I Die”:
Basava Premanand We are now moving to the end of the first volume of the series under “Science Versus Miracles”. All the experiments explained here are found in books on Magic and in scientific literature. Using these methods. unscrupulous godmen and psychics have been exploiting the gullible. Even scientists like Dr. Bhagavantam. P. K. Banerjee.…
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All India Anti-Superstition Bill: Letter from Prabhakar Nanawaty
We reproduce an email received from Mr. Prabhakar Nanawathy, Editor of “Thought & Action”, the organ of Andhashradda Nirmoolan Samiti (ANiS, founded by Dr Narendra Dabholkar), which was instrumental in getting the anti-superstition bill passed by the Maharashtra Assembly. The Samiti is now planning to have a similar bill passed by our Parliament. You may…
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Our Pledge to Kashmir
Jawaharlal Nehru I must express my gratitude to the many hon. Members who, in the course of this debate, have spoken generously about the policy that the Government has pursued in regard to the State of Jammu and Kashmir. While we have had an abundance of generous acknowledgement of our policy, we have had criticism…
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Polarization with a difference: Muzaffarnagar Violence
Ram Puniyani Communal violence has been the bane of Indian society, more so from last three decades. One can see its coming up prominently from 1893 to begin with and then it went through different phases. It became stronger after 1937, peaked in 1946 and then the post partition holocaust shattered the lives of lakhs…
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Are Goan Catholics Culturally Hindu?
Ram Puniyani Identity issues are at the fore in current times. Those basing their politics on the identity issues have lot of assertions about who the ‘others’ are. There is a constant ongoing attempt to assimilate them in the umbrella of their religion and culture. Current times, where religious nationalism dominates, the scene is that…
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Kashmir: Let the People Decide
Jawaharlal Nehru The house will remember that a few days ago I made a fairly lengthy statement in this House about the affairs of Jammu and Kashmir State. I do not propose to weary the House by a repetition of what I said then. But at this stage, I should like to emphasize certain aspects…