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Indian Science and Revivalism
G. Ramakrishna While laying the foundation-stone for a planetarium in Bangalore recentlyi the President of India explained how the Vedic lore is replete with astronomical knowledge. He almost felt that the Vedic people seemed to know more astronomy than we do. Shortly after the president’s revelation about Vedic astronomy came Maj. Ahluwalia’s analysis about the…
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Debating Elections, Debating Development
Ram Puniyani The ongoing elections have created turmoil and churning in the society at an unprecedented level. Media, social sites and whatever platforms are there, are full of the intense debate about the so called ‘Gujarat Model’ the failures of the UPA II and related issues. While there may be few who are sitting on…
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Some Loud Thinking about the Bhagavad-Gita
G Ramakrishna Karl Marx pointed out that truly human liberation is to be achieved only by breaking every kind of bondage that mankind has been subjected to in the course of the evolution of society through different social formations. Emancipation has its philosophers even as oppression has its agents and defenders. Marx as the most…
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A Man of Manifold Abilities: Remembering Sanjay Kumar Biswas
Tribute to Dr. Sanjay Kumar Biswas by Dr. G. Ramakrishna, highlighting his life as an eminent IISc professor, Marxist intellectual, and social activist. Tracing their friendship, the text underscores Biswas’s devotion to popularising science, organising study circles, and promoting self-reliant, people-oriented research for society’s marginalized sections.
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Worshipping Gods in the times of Elections
Ram Puniyani Arun Shourie, who was part of NDA, a fellow traveler and an ideologue of BJP wrote several books, many of them against minorities and dalits in particular. One of these which was strongly protested against by large sections of people, dalits in particular, was his “Worshipping False Gods”. In this book he expressed…
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Beef, Pink Revolution and Identity Politics
Ram Puniyani This time around (2014) the practitioners of sectarian politics had projected as if they will harp only on the issues related to development and Governance. But that surely is for sayings sake. While propaganda of development of Gujarat, strong leader, good governance is on the forefront, there is a lurking doubt that many…
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Symptoms of Fascism
Ram Puniyani Fascism, a phenomenon which emerged in Europe in Post First World War period has haunted the humanity since then. Its brutality, its crushing of democratic norms, its targeting of minorities, its megalomaniac projection of power of the nation, its ultra nationalism, projection of its leader as a ‘strong’ leader, the charisma built around…
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Gandhi Murder and Role of RSS: Debate Continues
Ram Puniyani Last week (March 2014) Rahul Gandhi in an election campaign meeting said that ‘RSS people killed Gandhiji and today their people and BJP talk of him…They opposed Sardar Patel and Gandhiji.” In a reaction to his statement RSS has lodged a complaint with election commission. This is not the first time that Rahul…
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Contemporary Dalit Politics and Ambedkar’s Goal of Caste Annihilation
Ram Puniyani On 28th Feb (2014) Ramvilas Paswan of Loktantantrik Jan Party joined the NDA alliance. Same Paswan had left the NDA twelve years ago with the beginning of Gujarat carnage, saying that with the violence in Gujarat he cannot be part of NDA. This time his son formulated the face saver when he said…
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Liberal Hinduism versus Sectarian Hindutva
Ram Puniyani Banning or attacking the books in current times has been aplenty. There have been many reasons given for this intolerant attitude by different social-political groups. The cases of Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, Taslima Nasreen’s Lajja, book on Sonia Gandhi Red Saree, A.K. Ramanujan’s Three Hundred Ramayans are some of the major examples.…
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Swami Aseemanand and Art of ‘Statement Withdrawal’
Ram Puniyani Swami Aseemanand emerged as the alleged kingpin in the series of blasts, starting from Malegaon, Makkah Masjid, Hyderabad, Ajmer Dargaah and Samjhauta express blasts, which rocked the nation from 2006 onwards. Just to recall, the initial investigations into series of blasts allegedly done by Hindutva groups, were led by Hemant Karkare, who was…
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Myth of Clean Chit: Gujarat Carnage and Narendra Modi
Ram Puniyani In a recently televised interview the Vice-President of Indian National Congress, Rahul Gandhi (Jan 2014) raised the storm when he said that some Congressmen might have been involved in 1984 Sikh Massacre and that Narendra Modi has a blame to take for the Gujarat carnage of 2002. There were multiple responses to this…
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Hemacandra and the Misunderstanding of Cārvāka Inference
This analysis reveals how Jain scholar Hemacandra and commentator Malliṣeṇa misrepresented Cārvāka epistemology by ignoring commentarial literature. Contrary to their claim that Cārvākas rejected all inference, commentators like Purandara, Aviddhakarṇa, and Udbhaṭa affirmed empirical inference for daily life while rejecting its use for unobservable, supernatural entities like heaven or karma.
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Jayanta Bhaṭṭa’s Inconsistencies and Misrepresentations
This section analyzes Nyāya scholar Jayanta Bhaṭṭa’s contradictory polemics against Cārvāka epistemology in the Nyāyamañjarī. By shifting inconsistently between the base sūtra text and Udbhaṭa’s commentary, Jayanta obscured the Cārvāka acceptance of practical, worldly inference, misrepresenting their nuanced empirical position as absolute agnostic skepticism to undermine their materialist philosophy in debate.
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Modi’s Caste and Hindutva Political Strategies
Ram Puniyani As Narnedra Modi was close to being nominated the Prime Ministerial candidate, another Modi, Sushil Modi, flaunted Modi’s backward caste origins. Recently (Jan 2014) in a public rally in Delhi, Narerndra Modi himself brandished his caste while speaking at a public rally. At one level it is surprising that Modi is showcasing his…
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Secularism in India the Inconclusive Debate
Justice R. A. Jahagirdar During the freedom struggle and during the deliberations of the sessions of the Indian National Congress, prior to independence, there was little, if any, debate on secularism and on what character the State of India was to take. It was no doubt accepted that India, inhabited by many religions, will not…
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Religion, Peace and Violence
Ram Puniyani The global scenario is full of violence in the name of religion. The acts of terrorism are attributed to religious teachings at times. The local violence, the attack on religious minorities is also presented as a religious phenomenon. The last three decades have seen this tragic phenomenon where the political agenda of super…
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Contemporary Political Ferment: Aam Aadmi Party
Ram Puniyani The spectacular performance of Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi Assembly elections (November 2013) has changed the perceptions and anticipations about the forthcoming general elections to be held in 2014. It has also led to rethink about the equations of electoral politics in general. While BJP emerged as the single largest party and could…
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“Hindu Science”: Vivekananda’s Strange Volte-face
Swami Vivekananda’s views on Indian science shifted dramatically between 1892 and his Western lectures. Initially criticizing Hindu thought for lacking empirical observation, he later claimed ancient scriptures anticipated modern discoveries, including Newton’s gravitation. In contrast, scientist Jogesh Chandra Roy-Vidyanidhi strictly separated ancient cosmological speculation from rigorous Newtonian scientific methodology.
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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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Problems of Materials and Sources on Cārvāka/Lokāyata
This section examines the critical scarcity of primary materialist sources in Indian philosophy. Lacking continuous historical lineages and base texts, scholars must reconstruct early Cārvāka, Lokāyata, Bārhaspatya, and Bhūtavāda doctrines through fragmented quotations preserved primarily in hostile orthodox refutations, highlighting how opposing traditions frequently conflated distinct materialist lineages and commentary traditions.
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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/LokāyataAncient Indian philosophical sūtras are terse aphorisms requiring balanced reading alongside commentaries. Relying solely on either literal texts or commentaries leads to misunderstandings. Opponents of Cārvāka/Lokāyata like Jayanta Bhaṭṭa and Hemacandra failed to maintain this crucial balance, resulting in misrepresentations of materialist doctrines in their polemical works.
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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…