NavDharmyug

We have been taught, largely since independence, a Hindu needs to be docile, fearful and timid. If a Hindu is anything like valiant, proud or assertive, he should be ashamed of himself, else he or she will be likened with a Godse and called a terrorist. This tendency took more shape during a decade of UPA regime under the Sonia Gandhi. Not much protest came about as we have largely accepted this caricature of a Hindu who can not have it in him to hit back. As No-Go areas began springing in the society, under the influence of Wahaabism supported by a power lobby which worked at two levels- the obvious, which was the Congress and the subtle, which was the Communists; taught by Marxist historians, Hindus slowly and slowly began believing that the Hindu race had no trace of Martial strength in it. There cannot be a bigger lie than this.  It is true that Hindus were not culturally and historically inclined to be in a state of perpetual war readiness, Hindus were no cowards, as h...

"The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.- George Orwell" There are some words which come to you in a way that they keep coming back to haunt you at the most uncertain hour. As these words revisit you time and again, they look newer and fresher than before as if they have come having bathed in a some pond of eternal truth which has cleansed them off any rare blemish of untruth that might have been left in their being when they were written. These words of Orwell stand like a far away lighthouse in the in the middle of the darkest of the night, standing forlorn, yet silently serving the purpose of showing the path.  Recently there was a debate on the Television, with Pakistani guests, on the subject of terrorism (what else?). An interesting thing happened. When an Indian debater tried referring to shared history of thousands of years, so as to make Pakistani guest contemplate how Pakistan has turned in...

“ Too proud art thou to kill these sweet-tooths. But take care lest it be thy fate to suffer their poisonous injustice!... ..Because thou art gentle and of upright character, thou sayest: “Blameless are they for their small existence.” But their circumscribed souls think: “Blamable is all great existence.” … …Thy neighbours will always be poisonous flies; what is great in thee- that itself must make them more poisonous, and always more fly-like. Flee my friend into thy solitude- and thither, where a rough strong breeze bloweth. It is not thy lot to be a flyswatter. ”  – T hus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche When politics fails to find answer, philosophy offers the way. A noise in the aftermath of a disgusting crime is unavoidable. However, too much of noise has its own problem. It drowns saner thoughts and it falls on its own head. Two soldiers have been martyred and beheaded on the border. Pakistan’s infamous BAT division infiltrated, attacked, killed an...

“Once you label me, you negate me.” – Soren Kierkegaard Today is the birth Anniversary of Dr. Bhimrav Ambedkar . Whole of Indian landscape is dotted with statues of Dr. BR Ambedkar, while it is very rare to find anyone who has read him. The father of Indian constitution has been pigeonholed into “Dalit” thinker and leader. This disservice to his memories and this grave injustice to a great scholar, philosopher and sociologist has been done by none other than people who themselves go with the label of “dalit” writer and thinker. As a writer, I have always found such labels as absurd as I find them insulting to the profession of writing, in general. Since when your birth began flowing through your pen- is what I always want to tell those people. Most writers who proudly tag themselves such have largely done so to pass off their shrill, poorly-researched work as literature, succeeding in captive market, separated from the large open literary space. They thrive on ghettoizing an...

Vande Mataram is the outrage of the day. Unfortunately, this happens on the day which marks the death anniversary of great writer and revolutionist, Shri Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya. We have come to a decisive state in the life of our nation. A nation which gained independence in 1947, and struggled to get on its feet for seventy odd years, scraping through periods of emergency, has come on its own. There comes a time in the life of its nation, where it stands up on its feet and asserts itself. A nation is not a piece of land, nor is it about its building. Nation is an idea, always an idea. Secure minds create an idea of nation which is unapologetic, independent, guiltless, proud and assertive. Such an idea is always open and stands above the ideology. Insecure minds imprison that Idea. Then they try to tell you as a nation how you should behave. That is my problem with forty second amendment to the Constitution, which was sneaked in by Congress leader and then Prime Minister...

“ I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail…The poet’s, the writer’s duty is to write these things. It is his privilege to help men endure by lifting his heart. ”- William Falkner , Nobel acceptance speech, December, 10 th , 1950 The moments of crisis brings out the best and worst of human spirits. Then there are moments which rewrite the course of a nation. For India, the wars of 62, 65 and 1971 were such moments, so was the Emergency imposed in the late seventies by the Congress government. When we look at those moments, we wade through the old, black and white pictures of those family photographs and wonder where our parents were when these events were unfolding. I am writing this on #Demonetization, which is one such historic event. Before you sigh, roll your eyes upwards and throw your arms up in despair, and walk away, let me put forth the disclaimer. I am not an all knowing economist; I am also not an all-feeling journalist. I am the common man, wh...