NavDharmyug

The year is 2018. It is 72 years since we made the tryst with destiny. Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru made that tryst with destiny, and as it turned out, with the passage of time it became a tryst with dynasty. The history was appropriated with a clinical precision. My intention is not to judge, or reduce the exalted stature of those who fought for the freedom and eventually came to believe that the nation they had emancipated is their fiefdom, and that the people of the nation are bound to remain indebted to them, in perpetuity, generation after generation, for their real  or imagined heroics of the past.  Every independence day is marked by two things- perfunctory remembrance of the heroes of the past who could add to the glory of a pathetic polity of the present, a new tendency of the people to belittle the nation on the grounds that we are not the best nation in the world. The first category of people will appropriate the glory of the past, claiming the credit of all the g...

We live in a world of dwarfs. All great battles have already been fought; all great thoughts have already been debated; all great arguments have already been settled. We live in a world where terrorists and murderers are called freedom-fighters, while all they have on offer is another cage which they claim to be holier and more beautiful. Nationalism has been made, by the crafty, conniving, so-called conscience-keepers, nasty and patriotism, petty. It is no wonder that the youth of this nation is so disenchanted with the world around him. We like it or not, we identify ourselves with the world we live in, the society that sustains us, the country that is our custodian. When we badmouth and belittle them, we abuse our roots. Devoid of our roots, we are nothing more than helpless, floating balloons in a hostile, or at least, indifferent skies. We struggle to settle our feet on the slippery ground which is fast turning into quagmire. We shout at the poor auto-rikshaw driver who has br...

हे मातृवत् वसुंधरा।   हे सप्तसिंधु की धरा।। भरत की सिंह-गर्जना सुलक्षणा सुदर्शना।  शिव की योग-दृष्टि तुम  प्रथम रचित सृष्टि तुम।  हो भूमि तुम अशोक की  हो वत्सला त्रिलोक की।  हो शून्य तुम, अनंत तुम  ग्रीष्म तुम, वसन्त तुम।  सागर का जो विस्तार है  सो राष्ट्र का आधार है।  उत्तर में हिम प्राचीर है  निर्भय अविचल वीर है।   विंध्य की सुप्त -श्रंखला  ज्यों सुंदरी की मेखला।  पश्चिम का प्रखर प्रताप हो  पूरब से उठी आलाप हो  आज़ाद का अभिमान तुम  बिस्मिल की अक्खड़ शान तुम।  सुभाष का बलिदान तुम , एक अनवरत अभियान तुम।  माता तुम्ही में प्राण हैं  श्रद्धा हो तुम, विश्वास तुम।  निर्भीक तुमको सौंप दूँ  मांगो जो अंतिम श्वास तुम।  जो शीश भी तुम मांग लो  संशय ना लूँ मन में ज़रा।   हे मातृवत वसुंधरा।  हे सप्त-सिंधु की धरा।।          - साकेत Click the Link below for the Audi...

There is an advantage of being a blogger over being a columnist. One is not tied up to events and deadlines. I have earlier also written on Independence Day. This time, I thought I would take it easy. I thought, I would rather let myself laze out through Rain-drenched days of Delhi, read Virginia Woolf, watch kites flying high, and take pride in the sight of Tricolor fluttering in the enthusiastic Monsoon Breeze. But here I am writing again. On Independence day.  I am writing on account of some unsettling things which have happened over the last two months, gets worse over the day. And no, I am not talking about the intolerance. In a nation, where soldiers are shot everyday on border, women get raped and killed, without a whimper, unless they fit the political agenda of political and thought leaders, the mass outrage on beating of people is more outrageous than the beating itself is. Further the same people who are working on the well-designed, although largely exposed agen...

Patriotism is the flavor of the day. Social media is fun place- an amazing place to be a patriot. The time found between visits to Cafe Coffee Day and a well-stocked fridge with supply of beer on a dry day, a strong, eloquent vocabulary makes a good post on Independence Day.  The ease of endorsement has made everything much commonplace as well. Many times I post a blog and in a split-second, I get a favorite. It is obvious that the post has not been read. I do not mind it much. It expands the reach of the post. Getting followers on a platform like Twitter is some kind of crazy algorithm and we have experts called SEO experts and Social Media Experts who understand that. But for a person to begin believing himself, or herself beyond what one is really stupid.  There is a Twitter celebrity, who at first tweet of opposition, retorts with 'Moron'. His arguments begins and ends with the word. Insult is his chosen form of debate and his followers bend down in musica...

Courtsey: The Hindu Liberty means many things to many people. That is not new. We all know that. We all strive to liberate ourselves internally and externally. Being liberated mean many things to us at many times. Liberty is like a fragrant air which cannot be explained well enough in words. It is an idea which escapes the understanding like the most subtle and profound things in life. That is not a matter of concern. Unbearable is not multiple interpretation of liberty, unbearable is to have no interpretation of liberty, to not know what liberty means. It is no wonder that philosophers have been aspiring to define liberty which toggles between the extreme definitions of Thomas Hobbes “A free man is he that… is not hindered to do he hath the will to do.” and the more moderate one of Locke “In political society, liberty consists of being under no other lawmaking power except that established by consent in the commonwealth…Freedom is constrained by laws in both the state of nature ...

It is 15th August, 67th Independence Day of India. It was a keenly awaited event mostly by marketers promising amazing Thailand on the long weekend day, which extends into Raksha Bandhan next week.  There is nothing much happy about this independence day as we are sorely made aware of how fickle this independence is. Last fortnight has been particularly bad for the country, with the soldiers losing their heads, in real term in border skirmishes and the political leadership running around, somersaulting like headless chicken. The country which perpetrated these skirmishes went ahead and passed a resolution condemning India, while Indian leadership keen to earn a legacy, dithered and then shame-faced shouted- Same to same from our side, like two kids thumbing the noses. The loss of human life in the middle of these two juvenile leadership, celebrating independence day one after another has become another statistics. The two nations having lost any sense of self-respect are c...