Swacch Bharat, Public Interest and Corruption
[Transcribed from Balu’s talk at World Hindu Congress Dec 2014 ] Chairman Sir, Ladies and Gentlemen, Good Morning. Actually I’m the odd man out. We have success stories. We have…
Read moreStupidity of Indian meanings of English words
Note: For a broader application and context, please read this paper: translation, interpretation and culture 1. The word ‘temple’ is not used in English to refer to a place where…
Read moreColonial Consciousness and Enlightenment
This post will use an imagery as its organising thread, which tracks the search for enlightenment in terms of notions known to us from our secondary and higher education. If…
Read moreVacuity of Intellectual Svaraj
In so far as one sees this article as a beginning of a certain type of enquiry, it is excellent. However, it is not adequate as a formulation of either…
Read moreWhy study the Western culture?
Two substantial questions have been raised in response to what I wrote: (a) why do we need to study and understand the Western culture in order to access our own…
Read moreColonial Consciousness: M.N. Srinivas and Sanskritization
1. M. N. Srinivas (MNS) claims that “a caste was able, in a generation or two, to rise to a higher position in the hierarchy by adopting vegetarianism and teetotalism…
Read moreHow to access Indian traditions?
1. As I have often said, the most intriguing aspect of the Indian culture is the kind of knowledge it produced and encouraged people to produce: experiential knowledge which emerges…
Read moreCreation: Spontaneous or Intentional
If we want to grasp the nature of the discussions in the Indian traditions, there is much we need to do beforehand: (a) identify the entity they were talking about;…
Read moreBJP does not have Intellectuals!
As I see it, the issue is not whether Arun Shourie is an intellectual (or whether Prakash Karat and EMS Namboodaripad represent intellectuals). The point I was trying to make is…
Read moreMantras of Anti-Brahmanism: Colonial Experience of Indian Intellectuals
[Published in Economic and Political Weekly, 38: 4611-17] Colonial Experience of Indian Intellectuals Opposing factions in the Orientalist-Anglicist controversy in the 19th century shared a common understanding of Indian religion…
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