Its origins are truly shrouded in the mists of time. Some believe the Hindu spiritual leader Adi Shankaracharya started the Kumbh Mela in the 8^th century by organizing regular gatherings of ascetics. Others trace its roots even further to the Vedic period. According to Hindu mythology, a great cosmic churning of the ocean produced a pot (kumbha) filled with amrita, the nectar of immortality. A war between the gods and the demons broke out over the possession of the amrita. During this struggle, drops of the nectar spilled onto four earthly locations which now serve as the rotational sites for the Kumbh Mela. Every three years, one of these four sites hosts the festival, but the Maha Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj remains the grandest of them all. 

Sacred texts like the praise the purifying power of these waters, and believers trust that a dip at the sangam washes away all sins, granting the spiritual liberation. Legend tells of a conversation between the river Ganga and Lord Shiva where Ganga expresses concern over accumulating the sins of those who bathed in her waters, saying: “People bathe in me to purify themselves – but then how do I get rid of all these sins?”. Shiva reassures Ganga, “when the saints come and take a bath in you, you will be purified”. True to this belief, on three especially auspicious days (this time on January 14, January 29 and February 3) revered holy people, including the photogenic Naga sadhus—ascetics from the Himalayas who come naked and covered in ash—descend upon the sangam to take their sacred plunge.��

Maha Kumbh Mela 2025

While the Maha Kumbh Mela is held every 12 years, this year’s gathering is particularly special because it happens during a rare alignment of the sun, the moon, Jupiter, and Saturn – a conjunction that takes place only once every . Such a rare occurrence amplifies the spiritual significance of this year’s event. The Bible says: “For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them”; now multiply this a million times and imagine the ‘I am there among them’ feeling at the sangam of these sacred rivers, and that is what you can expect from the festival this year.��

This Maha Kumbh Mela is expected to see nearly 400 million people over six weeks, with up to 30 million present on peak days. It is said to be the only gathering of humans that can be seen from , an awe-inspiring testament to human faith and devotion. Down here on earth, media outlets, photographers and YouTubers eagerly capture the event, sharing of its grandeur with the world.��

Attendees range from sages, saints and sadhus to politicians, celebrities and experience-seekers. Some visit to participate in religious history, while others seek salvation, personal enlightenment or simply the energy of being part of something monumental. Regardless of their motivations, all who attend share in the collective spiritual experience. 

Finally, Moksha

Although I’m fairly irreligious, I’m surprised by how often I feel a surge of emotion upon entering any crowded place of worship – whether a temple, mosque, gurudwara or church. It’s not necessarily the presence of God that moves me, but rather the sheer magnitude of human belief. I can only imagine the surge of emotion while standing on the banks of the waters in Prayagraj, feeling the weight of centuries-old faith and that of the millions surrounding me. 

The Maha Kumbh Mela is not about witnessing a performance, electing a leader or even hearing someone preach the word of God. It is about being present and praying at, what is believed by more than 1.2 billion people, a sacred place and time, absorbing the blessings this holy locus has to offer. The belief is that if you immerse yourself in the waters here at the confluence of these three sacred rivers and now when these celestial bodies are aligned, you will receive Moksha— liberation from the cycle of rebirth and eternal union with God. This goal contrasts sharply with modern technological pursuits that are trying to extend our lifespan and keep us out of the hands of God for as long as possible. 

I find this massive gathering of pilgrims and the grand accumulation of their faith awe-inspiring and hopeful. While I lack the belief, courage or endurance to attend in person, I hope just sitting alone in my study and watching nightly updates on YouTube will be enough to bestow upon me some remote blessings. 

Special thanks to Mr. M.V. Subramoni – retired civil engineer and unretired armchair religious scholar – for his fountain of knowledge on the Kumbh Mela and his enduring faith.

[ edited this piece]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Today, more than two million Hindus of Indian origin live and work side by side with their fellow American citizens. Hindu temples, like Jewish synagogues and Muslim mosques before them, have cropped up in cities and suburbs throughout the country. Americans increasingly do business in India. Perhaps most importantly, ever since the 1960s, millions of non-Indian Americans have become deeply engaged in Hindu-related practices such as and , for both spiritual and secular reasons. In this context, what seems like a narrow scholarly debate about a long-dead mystic, in fact, takes on extraordinarily broad significance.

Swami Tyagananda and Pravrajika Vrajaprana’s 2010 , Interpreting Ramakrishna: Kali’s Child Revisited, is a painstaking attempt to refute the central thesis of American scholar Jeffrey Kripal’s earlier , Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna. Published in 1995, Kripal’s book roiled political and cultural waters that academic volumes seldom disturb.

Based on Kripal’s doctoral dissertation, Kali’s Child took as its subject the legendary 19th century mystic, Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa. Ramakrishna was one of the most colorful, enigmatic and revered holy men in India, where such figures are as much a part of the landscape as the ornate temple towers looming above dusty villages or the unassuming shrines tucked into alcoves in teeming cities.

Intrigued by the man so many consider a modern saint, Kripal set about dissecting the sage’s psyche with the scalpel of psychoanalytic theory. He argued that at the secret heart of Ramakrishna’s life and work was homoeroticism and sexual abuse.

Objections to academic texts are typically voiced by the author’s colleagues in journals, books and conferences. But Kripal’s conclusions were different because Ramakrishna is worshipped by devotees in both India and the West. He is regarded as a spiritual exemplar by seekers of all kinds, thanks to the of mission centers established in his name by his chief disciple, Swami Vivekananda, and the writings of illustrious Western devotees like Christopher Isherwood.��

Hindu controversy and scholarly debate

The reaction of many Hindus to Kripal’s thesis was similar to that of certain Christians to Martin Scorsese’s controversial , The Last Temptation of Christ, or to those who speculate about what Jesus and Mary Magdalene may have been up to when the apostles weren’t looking. To attribute sexual impulses to a figure many consider a divine avatar — or at least an apostle of self-realization who had transcended base desires — was, to some minds, an insult verging on blasphemy.

Some critics treated Kripal to the same facile psychoanalysis that they accused him of applying to Ramakrishna. Attempts to his book went all the way to the Indian Parliament, though they were unsuccessful. He even faced personal threats in the closest thing to a that one can imagine in the land of Mahatma Gandhi.

Kripal’s critics within the academy were less emotional. They either disagreed with his conclusion on intellectual and methodological grounds or dismissed his assertions as mere speculation. But critics were in the minority. Most scholars of religion greeted Kali’s Child with kudos; the book was honored with prestigious , including the American Academy of Religion’s History of Religions Prize for the Best First Book of 1995. Even those who were indifferent to the subject matter rallied around Kripal on the grounds of academic freedom.

For his part, Kripal maintained that he held Ramakrishna in the highest regard and was merely doing what any scholar should: analyzing a phenomenon through a particular theoretical lens and following the inquiry to a well-reasoned conclusion.

To scholars, disagreement and argument are both expected and desirable. But book banning? Personal attacks? Threats of violence? Beyond the pale. In a name-calling standoff, Kripal’s critics were labeled homophobes, Hindu fundamentalists and right-wing Indian nationalists, while his defenders were branded Hinduphobic, sex-obsessed cultural imperialists.

I interviewed both Kripal and the authors of Interpreting Ramakrishna for my own 2010 , American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation: How Indian Spirituality Changed the West. As such, I can confidently state that none of those charges apply to any of the three. Over time, cooler heads prevailed, but the debate never died. Kali’s Child became a symbol of the tension between academic critiques of Asian religions and the practitioners of those religions, who claim that Western interpretations seldom reflect their actual beliefs and practices.

In light of the controversy, Interpreting Ramakrishna, although it is merely one reaction to one scholar’s take on one Hindu luminary, has a far larger resonance. The book is an exhaustive effort to refute Kali’s Child on its own terms by two monastics in the Ramakrishna order: Swami Tyagananda, an India-born monk who runs the Vedanta Society of Boston in Massachusetts and serves as Hindu chaplain at both MIT and Harvard; and Pravrajika Vrajaprana, an American nun at the Vedanta Convent in Santa Barbara, California.

While neither author occupies an academic position or has earned a doctorate, each is deeply immersed in scholarly pursuits. Fifteen years after the appearance of Kripal’s casus belli — the act that provoked, in this case, a war of words — they released their multi-pronged rebuttal.

Tyagananda and Vrajaprana’s critiques of Kali’s Child

One line of attack in Interpreting Ramakrishna is on Kripal’s translations of the recognized source texts on Ramakrishna. The authors regard the Bengali-to-English rendering in Kali’s Child as significantly flawed. For his part, Kripal contends that his mistakes were few (some were corrected online and in a second printing) and do not affect his salient arguments. Tyagananda and Vrajaprana beg to differ, arguing that Kripal, consciously or unconsciously, made linguistic choices that bolstered his predetermined conclusions.

Words and phrases that the respective authors translate differently are many and varied; they are not inconsequential. Perhaps the best example is the Bengali phrase, ���峾����ī-����ñ�����Բ�. Previous translators have rendered the phrase, “women and gold.”

The authors of Interpreting Ramakrishna say it was often used by Ramakrishna to symbolize lust and greed, or, more generally, the worldly distractions that spiritual aspirants are advised to avoid. Kripal’s translation is “lover-and-gold.” For Tyagananda and Vrajaprana, this is an attempt to reinforce Kripal’s portrait of Ramakrishna as a misogynist who feared sexualized women (as opposed to women as maternal figures). Kripal, in turn, accuses translators who use “women” as merely a symbol for lust of participating in the cover-up of Ramakrishna’s secret homosexuality.

To the lay reader, each side can sound convincing on these issues of textual fidelity. This should not be surprising. Why should Bengali texts be different from Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, Arabic, Sanskrit or any other source of sacred literature whose meaning is debatable? The larger issue is the ambiguity of translation itself. Try as they may to be objective, translators invariably bring a boatload of cultural and ideological assumptions to their work. That is a matter of no small import in any conversation about religion.

Tyagananda and Vrajaprana also go after Kripal’s reliance on psychoanalytic theory. The question of whether any Western framework is entirely adequate for understanding Hinduism is a matter of considerable debate, but when the theory in question is as as Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud’s, the atmosphere gets even more contentious. Are psychoanalytic concepts valid and universal enough to be applied by anyone to anything? More specifically, can those concepts be applied to a Hindu renunciate who lived over a century ago in a culture vastly different from Freud’s Europe or today’s America?

As with translation arguments, this is a matter for scholars to adjudicate. Non-experts can readily see the appeal of Freudian ideas, but they can also see why psychoanalytic concepts might produce an incomplete portrait of an individual, or even a radical distortion. At issue, among other things, is the relationship between the erotic and the mystical. That the two might be connected is easy to see; that they are inextricably and causally linked, as Kripal would argue, is a leap that many — including the authors of Interpreting Ramakrishna — are unwilling to take. To them, Freudian interpreters of religion are the proverbial hammer carriers, finding nails wherever they look.

Finally, Tyagananda and Vrajaprana accuse Kripal of making bold assertions that are unsupported by the available evidence. In their view, Kali’s Child is more a product of speculative imagination than of rigorous deduction, the inference being that Kripal’s conclusions owe more to his own psyche and his philosophical biases than to the facts at hand. Needless to say, Kripal’s supporters make the same claim about Ramakrishna’s devotees, many of whose descriptions of the master can accurately, and unsurprisingly, be described as hagiographic — representing a revered person as perfect or ideal.

My two cents

I myself do not approach these disputed issues as either an academic or an expert on the life of Ramakrishna. But I have more than a passing interest in how religions, especially Hinduism, are understood by the general public, so I am glad that Tyagananda and Vrajaprana have presented their argument in painstaking detail and readable prose. I hope that academic scholars, for their part, will critique their work honestly and vigorously and let the chips fall where they may, rather than summarily ignoring the book because the authors are devotees and not fellow academics. That would be a shame, as their voices, like Kripal’s, deserve to be heard.

For a long time, something called “The Insider/Outsider ” has raged in the ivory towers of religious studies. To religious practitioners (“insiders”), scholars of religion who rely primarily on textual analysis (“outsiders”) lack the direct experience necessary to comprehend spiritual beliefs and practices. For their part, scholars tend to see insiders as lacking the objectivity necessary to see their own religions without nearsighted distortion.��

Each side makes a strong case, but each is weighted down with preconceived notions. This begs the question: Is there such a thing as objectivity in matters of religion? As Tyagananda and Vrajaprana themselves acknowledge, “objectivity cannot exist where personal interests, agendas, political and religious biases, and personal priorities intersect. Like all holy grails, true objectivity exists only in mythology.” One wishes that statement could be read before every clash over religion begins.

Adherents of Christianity, Judaism and Islam have also been perturbed by scholarly depictions of their faiths, but Hindus are at a particular disadvantage. Very few have been trained in Western schools of religious studies, and their tradition has not been well represented in the academy. In recent decades, the imbalance has been somewhat ameliorated by the advent of Western practitioner-scholars — mainly baby boomers who got involved with during the 1960s and 1970s and went on to graduate school. But there is still a dearth of religious studies scholars who were born into Hinduism. Lay scholars, primarily Hindu Americans of Indian descent, have attempted to pick up the slack, and they have not always been welcome in academia.

It goes without saying that in a global, plural world, it is vitally important that individuals come to understand religions other than their own. That understanding will be derived, in large part, from university-based scholars. But if those scholars ignore the insiders’ viewpoint, what they teach the rest of us is bound to be incomplete.

As someone who stands outside both traditional religion and academia and benefits immensely from both perspectives, I can only hope that diligent insiders, such as Tyagananda and Vrajaprana, can find a place at the table, where their work can be judged on its merits. These researchers appear to have left no stone unturned, and herculean efforts like these should add to the discussion of Ramakrishna studies (yes, there is such a sub-discipline) and to our understanding of modern Hinduism in general.

As for the holy man at the center of the controversy, I suspect he would view it all with amusement and sublime detachment. To generations of seekers, Ramakrishna remains the most versatile of mystics — a saint for all seasons, and a symbol of ecstatic devotion, rational nondualism and elastic, eclectic spirituality. He not only espoused the core Vedic dictum, “Truth is one, the wise call it by many names,” but lived it by diving into a variety of Hindu pathways and practices, as well as, famously, Islam and Christianity. 

For the millions who continue to draw inspiration from Ramakrishna’s life and work, the claims of Kali’s Child and the counterclaims of Interpreting Ramakrishna are sideshows. To them, the sage’s sexuality — whether conscious or unconscious, acted upon or sublimated, homosexual or heterosexual — is about as relevant as Michelangelo’s or Johann Sebastian Bach’s. In the end, what matters is what he did, what he said, what he created, what he became. I suspect the authors of both Interpreting Ramakrishna and Kali’s Child would agree.

[ first published this piece.]

[Naveed Ahsan and edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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When I was eight, I was drawn to the Mahabharata TV show by BR Chropa. My parents loved watching the show, but it sent eight-year-old me either sobbing to my room or gasping in wonder more times than I can count. Flashes of quivering mustaches and fiery red saris encrusted with jewels haunted my nightmares. Oceans of tears gushing down porcelain faces, accompanied by blaring trumpets and angry crescendos, elicited emotions I had never experienced before. 

Even in those early years, I found myself constantly analyzing the roles played by the characters in the infinite versions I saw. From Duryodhana to Yudhisthira, I believe it’s worth it to examine the course of the characters’ lives and the extent to which their own misgivings and flaws led to their eventual demises. Draupadi, the main female protagonist, fascinated me in particular: time and again, the actions of the men and women in her life affected her greatly, yet she still remained strong-willed and steadfast.

One particularly interesting source I will consider is The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, a chronicle of the life of Draupadi in the first person. Accordingly, I’ll also be focusing primarily on Draupadi as an individual.

Everything begins with a fateful game of dice

In the serial Mahabharata, I could only watch Draupadi’s cheerharan, or undressing, through the gaps in my fingers. It utterly discomfited me as a child. A single piece of cloth clings to the dips of a woman’s body as she stands in a royal hall. Her hair is tight in the grasp of a man, and he reaches in glee to disrobe her for all to witness. Some of the men in the room watch with enjoyment. Others watch with helplessness. Though surrounded, the woman is utterly alone.

Just as Draupadi is on the precarious edge of losing her womanly dignity, she ends up preserving it by the grace of Lord Krishna. Krishna thwarts the men by blessing her garment to remain endlessly long. Ultimately, Draupadi escapes humiliation, but the scene makes one think of how it could have been prevented in the first place. Who was truly at fault for setting it into motion? Let’s rewind a little and examine the scene, like my own parents often did during the particularly dramatic moments.

The ordeal begins with a succession crisis, a warring family and a fateful game of dice. The ancient kingdom of Kuru had been split down the middle. One half had gone to the Pandavas, a group of five brothers, and the other half had gone to the Kauravas, their cousins. Originally, the father of the Pandavas, Pandu, had been king of Kuru. His older brother Dhritarashtra, father of the Kauravas, had given up his birthright due to his blindness. However, an incident with a rishi, or sage, left Pandu humiliated and exiled. Dhritarashtra regained the throne. To avoid a succession crisis between Dhritarashtra, the Kauvaras and the Pandavas, the kingdom of Kuru was split down the middle.

Duryodhana, eldest son of the Kauvaras, grew angry at the perceived unfairness. His maternal uncle Shakuni urged the Kauvaras to take advantage of Yudhisthira, the eldest Pandava son, and his gambling addiction. Several sources assert that wily uncle Shakuni possessed a pair of magical dice. Initially, Yudhisthira was on a winning streak, but his euphoria fueled his greed for more. That’s when things went downhill. With Shakuni’s help, the Kauravas won game after game and Yudhisthira lost and lost. His palace, the lives of Pandavas, the clothes on their backs were all gambled away, but he never stopped playing. Eventually they had nothing to their names — not even Draupadi, wife to all five Pandavas, who Yudhisthira had bet and lost. Eventually he had to gamble off their wife too, and the rest, as they say, is history. 

Now — who was at fault for this taking place? Let’s first look at Yudhisthira. Son of Kunti, demigod, with an undying belief in dharma (moral behavior and duty) and a passionate love of truth. Son of Yama, mild, with a crippling gambling addiction. Although it was Yudhisthira’s fatal habit that brought about the incident, that is not to say Yudhisthira gets off scot-free. There are other aspects of his person to be considered. How contradictory, how hypocritical, it was of this “moral” man to gamble off his entire life before his and his family’s eyes? His initial winnings spurred him to continue playing out of arrogance. For an upholder of dharma and a believer in justice, who is he to deal off his entire family? Out of arrogance? He treats his own brothers — and even himself — as objects, exchanged in the blink of an eye in the game of die. But there is no one he considers an object more than Draupadi.

To her husbands, Draupadi is property

Draupadi is a woman divided among five men. This polyandry may appear better off for her — she gets five husbands — but at the end of the day, she isn’t able to wholly love one man of her dreams. This is wonderfully elucidated in The Palace of Illusions, which states, like many sources, that she was actually in love with a man named Karna. Draupadi, like piecemeal, is fragmented, divided to be shared by her five husbands. Let’s not forget that she could only enjoy each man as her husband for one year until his turn came again. Most importantly, each husband took more wives for himself. She was simply the one common wife.

Even after serving as a dutiful wife, even after accepting that she might never truly have one loving husband who would devote himself entirely to her, the helpless Draupadi was gambled away by Yudhisthira. Was she truly his to gamble? Did he treat her as a husband should a wife? Sure, he regarded her with due respect. But she wasn’t — in the true sense of the word, in every sense of the word — his. Draupadi, considered one of the paragons in the Hindu feminist mythological narrative, was pawned off like she was nothing. Keep in mind that this is done by the same great upholder of dharma.

One fascinating point to note is that Yudhisthira had already gambled himself and his brothers away. They did not “own” themselves. Now, this leads one to believe that since they owned nothing now, not even themselves, they did not own Draupadi. Was it truly right for him to gamble away his wife, who he did not own now?

What is perhaps even more shameful is his brothers’ passive reactions to the whole incident. Their sense of duty and respect toward their brother outweighed the need to defend their wife’s honor. The Pandavas could have easily prevented their brother from making this lapse in judgment, but they were bound by their perceived dharma. Then what truly is dharma? Is righteousness truly obedience and passivity in the face of wrongdoing, or is it standing up for the defenseless? Their behavior begs the answer to the question of which holds more value in society. 

Who is truly at fault?

Some scholars suggest it was Draupadi herself that set things into motion. According to several sources, when the Kauravas visited Indraprastha’s famed Palace of Illusions, Duryodhana mistook a glossy river for a slab of glass due to its unmoving stillness. After attempting to walk on the “glass” and subsequently falling, allegedly Draupadi couldn’t hold in her mirth and exclaimed, “The blind man’s son is also blind.” A mortified Duryodhana vowed for revenge. However, according to Divakaruni’s book, it wasn’t Draupadi who laughed and made this statement but a handmaid of hers. Draupadi had simply smiled, but Duryodhana misconstrued the situation and assumed it was Draupadi, seeing her through her window watching him. 

Her smile or laugh may have been a deliberate act of defiance, reflecting her strong-willed nature. Duryodhana took this as her mocking him — something his ego simply could not handle — and this exacerbated already rising hostilities between the two sides. While Draupadi’s laughter is a notable incident, it is by no means an excuse to justify Duryodhana’s acts during the vastraharan. It’s important to understand that Draupadi, too, is human, and thus displays human emotion — her lighthearted laughter reflects her strong will; it may have been a moment of relief or defiance for her during a time of high tensions.

The women turned a blind eye

Draupadi isn’t the only woman who has agency — or lack thereof — in the story. Gandhari, mother of the Kauravas, is one who, in my opinion, isn’t talked about enough in the context of this incident. She’s regarded as a woman who isn’t afraid to undergo harsh physical torment to attain what she wants. According to legend, she underwent severe penance to attain a boon from Lord Shiva, who granted her the blessing of being mother to a hundred sons. (This raises questions of where the value of a woman truly lay in those times if a hundred sons was considered a boon, but that is a discussion for another time.)

A devout woman, she was married off to Dhritarashtra, older brother of Pandu and the blind prince of Hastinapur. In an act of solidarity and devotion she blindfolded herself so that she may live like her husband. This act has been widely debated by scholars, some stating that this was to rebel against her father and the Kuru dynasty for pawning her off to a blind man. The question now arises; why does Gandhari hide from reality? The act of blindfolding herself is an inherent abdication from responsibility. Instead of navigating the challenges of being married to a blind man, she retreats from the world and paralyzes herself. 

Some argue that true support for her husband would be to guide him and provide strength in areas he lacked. However much it can be argued that she was simply adopting the moral high ground, she has been proven to be a selfish woman by supporting her sons’ cruel ambitions. 

Gandhari could have utilized her sight to participate actively in her children’s lives and court activities, but she quite literally turns a “blind eye” to their actions. Being the mother of the Kauravas, it was Gandhari’s duty to instill in them values of respect for all and justice. It was her duty to identify the misgivings of Duryodhana and his moral and ethical lapses. His lack of a participating, seeing maternal figure may have contributed to his cruel disposition.

Moreover, she could have guided her disabled husband and exerted her authority as queen mother to stop the gambling match. It was her duty as the wife of a monarch to assist him in upholding dharma. Her inaction in the face of her son’s scheming against the Pandavas can be seen as a form of tacit complicity. She made no efforts to prevent his plans from escalating. As already underscored, she symbolically and literally blindfolded herself to remove herself from any blame and refuse to acknowledge the harsh injustices happening under her watch.

The scrutiny of maternal figures wouldn’t be comprehensive without a look at Kunti, mother of the Pandavas. Kunti was the firstborn of Yadava ruler Shurasena and was given to her father’s childless cousin Kuntibhoja at birth due to a promise made earlier. She, not unlike Gandhari, gained a boon (through her hospitable treatment of a sage), to summon a celestial being at will to beget children. 

She begot her first and eldest son Karna through the impetuous satiation of this boon while she was still a virgin. The father of Karna was Surya, the sun god. Kunti, who was just testing out her boon, begged him to go back, but nothing could be done. And the son of the sun was born. 

To untether herself from her newborn child, Kunti made a decision that would affect the years to come in ways unimaginable. She abandoned him on the Ganga.

The men encouraged malicious behavior

The unknowing Karna, adopted by a poor charioteer, grew up to become one of Duryodhana’s staunchest allies. As the Kauravas’ ally, he became one of the Pandavas’ deadliest foes, and strengthened the Kauravas’ military position. Kunti’s deep-rooted efforts to keep her eldest son’s lineage a secret only bolstered the hostility between the Pandavas and the Kauravas and increased familial discord.

Furthermore, Karna grew insecure of  his ostensibly poor lineage due to the subsequent discrimination he would face. The most obvious evidence of this is shown in Draupadi’s swayamvar, or presentation of suitors, where he was not allowed to participate due to his lack of status. This injustice compounded his yearning for recognition, which in turn contributed to his future decisions and persona. All of this because Kunti refused to face her mistake.

Karna’s insecurity and subsequent hatred of Draupadi due to his humiliation at the swayamvar may have contributed to his inaction during the proceedings. He was an active perpetrator at the vastraharan — the disrobing — directly contributing to it by demeaning Draupadi and encouraging Duryodhana. He humiliated her by calling her a “whore” for being wedded to five men. Karna’s argument was that since Draupadi now belonged to the Kauravas, she had no rights, no dignity, and her disrobing was justified. This point becomes especially controversial when viewed through the lens of Divakaruni’s Palace of Illusions, where it is stated that Draupadi and Karna loved each other. How, then, was this an act of love? His mortification is justifiable, but his action was not. Draupadi continued to love him in the book, even after this incident. Was this heinous act of disrespect really forgivable? 

Karna had the power to stop the violence. Duryodhana paid rapt attention to Karna’s every word according to most sources and this book as well. Had Karna made efforts to stop the act, the whole incident could have been avoided. The escalation of the conflict and the resultant Great War itself could have been a possibility.  

Inaction from others aside, Duryodhana and Dushasana were the most obvious perpetrators in committing the shameful act. Duryodhana commanded for Draupadi to be brought to the court for her public humiliation. Draupadi was, at the time, going through her menstrual cycle, during which she was a Rajaswala, a menstruating woman, and had to wear a single garment. 

In Dushasana, I sometimes think that true evil is manifest. He is a symbol of the darker shadowed regions of the Kaurava clan — representing greed, envy, aggression and an utter disregard for justice. He callously slapped Draupadi and dragged her by the hair even as she protested, showing no remorse for his actions and gleefully reveling in her mortification. Duryodhana proceeded to verbally abuse and demean Draupadi in court along with his brothers. Warnings from the older and wiser courtiers like Vidura and Bhishma fell on deaf ears as he insisted on her disrobing. Where was dharma in all this? 

The elders of the Kaurava court are also to blame. Dhritarashtra, the father; and Bhishma and Vidura, both family members; are not as helpless as they seem. Bhishma Pitamaha is supposed to be a beacon of wisdom and authority. Why, then, did he not stop the vastraharan? Dhritarashtra may have been crippled but he was certainly not powerless. His weakness in yielding to Shakuni’s manipulation and his son’s follies cannot be ignored. Vidura, as an elder, could have provided more forceful counsel to Duryodhana and ordered him to stop. 

With so many key figures contributing to the vastraharan, it is difficult to determine whether it would still have taken place under different circumstances. Duryodhana’s deep-seated animosity, Shakuni’s orchestration, the lack of intervention and above all perhaps some divine will all played their own parts in instigating the incident, and many, to different extents, are to blame.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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After your speech observing India’s 78th Independence Day on August 15, you may wish to convene the best and the brightest minds around you to respond to the country’s most pressing internal security challenge, one which no Indian political leader has had the courage to confront let alone take any steps to resolve: the sinister designs that Muslims on the Indian Subcontinent have for India.

Their plans are all the more dangerous given the overthrow of the Bangladeshi government, after which, quite expectedly, outfits like the came crawling out the woodwork. HuT is an Islamic terrorist organization that positions itself as a political party. On August 9, it organized a rally in Dhaka and demanded the establishment of the . Such Muslim fundamentalists see India as a colonizer state, in the same vein as the US and the UK. I am sure that your National Security Adviser Ajit Doval is telling you the same thing I want you to understand: India’s neighborhood has become exponentially more dangerous than before.

Some home truths for you to note��

Before I carry on, it is my duty as a well-wisher and as a concerned citizen to point out some important truths.

First, you insisted on making the 2024 elections a referendum on your name. Now, there are no prizes for guessing where the buck ought to come to a grinding stop for the underwhelming result.

Second, ten years have vanished since 2014, the year when you won a historic first mandate. In another blink of an eye, the next election will be upon us in 2029. Soon, it will be 2047, the target year you have set for Viksit Bharat (Developed India). Even you know that this is your last term and that you are running out of time.

Third, Hinduism’s holy texts repeatedly warn of the perils of (ego). Both and enemies have accused you of this failing. So, I advise you to get a grip on your ahankara. Shrink-wrap and freeze it. Instead, adopt , Mr. Prime Minister. This will do you good and, more importantly, it will bring the nation tremendous benefit.

Fourth, you tried to win the Muslim vote through massive welfare schemes. Yet, unlike Jawaharlal Nehru, you did not win their hearts and minds. You certainly did not win Muslim votes. Indian Muslims , tactically and effectively against you in 2024. Consider it carved in stone they will never vote for you and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Fifth, you underestimate your enemies. The opposition, thuggish, bereft of all scruples and decorum, will do anything — anything — to defeat you and obtain power. The English media in India follows the country’s strange brand of secularism that has a romantic view of sharia. This scotch-drinking elite is happy for Muslims to marry four times and, together with their friends and family members in academia, wants the BJP out of power. The same holds true for Bollywood and left-leaning non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Sixth, the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), more appositely known as the Indian Arrogant Service, is India’s deep state and is implacably opposed to you. IAS officers have come through an examination system designed by the Congress Party’s left-leaning ideologues. For their entire careers, they have benefited from rent-seeking by embodying a still-colonial state. They do not want any change. You have succumbed to their flattery and are surrounded by an IAS mafia that does not allow anyone access to your presence. Hindu organizations and devout Hindus have little standing in your administration, but IAS officers who were communists during their St. Stephen’s College days can get things done in hours, if not minutes, by calling IAS officers who work in the Prime Minister’s Office.

Seventh, the international ecosystem of the Left is your mortal enemy. For them, you are the butcher of Gujarat who slaughtered thousands in 2002. The American press calls a “Hindu supremacist” and “Hindu fascist.” For them, you are an Indian version of Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini. Yet you crave approval from this ecosystem and ignore your supporters. 

Eighth, centuries of colonization have made Hindus indifferent to their long-term civilizational interests. Extracting all the salt from the earth’s oceans is an easier task than awakening the fractious, argumentative and chronically ineffective Hindus. Under your prime ministership, we had a shot, but you have blown that opportunity most spectacularly. If and when voters turn to the opposition, it’s highly unlikely your party will ever return to power. EVER. Then it’s over for India and her Hindus.

The pathetic state of Hindus

Allow me to dwell on the division and weakness of Hindus here for a moment. And no, this is not some fake, doomsday, clickbait claim, but rather extrapolated from the views of two of India’s greatest leaders: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. The first is credited (falsely) with winning our independence, and the second is credited (rightly) with being the chief architect of our constitution. Love them or loathe them, but dismiss their views at your peril, Mr. Narendra Modi.

Gandhi , “Hindus are cowards and Muslims bullies.”��The venerable leader offered no solution to this conundrum. Gandhi suggested that Hindus could sacrifice their lives for the Muslims if they wanted to establish their rule over India. Gandhi did not believe in fighting back even during the darkest days of pre-Partition violence.

Ambedkar, who was no friend of Gandhi but his political and ideological adversary, was a bare-knuckled on Islam and Muslims. His are as relevant today as then: “To the Muslims, a Hindu is a Kaffir. A Kaffir is not worthy of respect. He is low-born and without status. That is why a country which is ruled by a Kaffir is Dar-ul-Harb to a Musalman. Given this, no further evidence seems to be necessary to prove that the Muslims will not obey a Hindu government.” He commented on the “adoption by the Muslims of the gangster’s method in politics” and stated, “The fact remains that India, if not exclusively under Muslim rule, is a Dar-ul-Harb and the Musalmans according to the tenets of Islam are justified in proclaiming a jihad.”

That jihad is underway not only in Pakistan but also in India. The now-banned Popular Front of India (PFI) plans to make India Islamic by 2047. Authorities have seized PFI plans that “creating a civil war-like situation” in India. They also uncovered “a short course on how to make improvised explosive devices (IEDs) using easily available materials” and pen drives containing videos related to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

In India, few leaders have taken on the problem of Islam like their European counterparts. French President Emmanuel Macron has against “Islamist separatism” and the dangers of Muslims forming a “counter-society” in France. Retired French generals have of “civil war” in the country.

Note that Muslims have marched in Germany Sharia law. In the recent UK elections, Muslims organized themselves on exclusively Islamic issues through the “The Muslim Vote.” The BBC on a Labour candidate who faced “abuse and intimidation” from supporters of an independent Muslim candidate. Australia has also started “Islamic sectarianism.” Muslims self-separating in non-Muslim countries is inevitable given the Quranic not to befriend Christians and Jews. We Hindus are much worse because we are not People of the Book, but idol-worshippers.

When the Muslims of India plan to make India by 2047, they are not trifling. World history records Islam’s consistent pattern of lethality towards non-Muslims. Shia Iran has targeted the peace-loving and Sunni Saudi Arabia still has no space for non-Sunni communities. In India, Muslims conducted ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Kashmir in the early 1990s.

That ethnic cleansing is a precursor to what many Muslims plan for the entire subcontinent. The PFI of 2047, when political power is to return to the Muslim community from whom it was unjustly taken away by the British. It’s entirely in character, given that Muslims also dream of getting back — most of which they have not held since the Middle Ages. The saying that Muslims never forget and Hindus never remember has an element of truth.

Alarming trends call for immediate action, Mr. Prime Minister

Al Jazeera, the flagship media organization funded by gas-rich Qatar, has emerged as the voice of the Muslim world. It , “Between 1951 and 2011, the Muslim population [of India] rose from 35.4 million to 172 million. The Hindu population rose from 303 million to 966 million in the same period.” That works out to a 391% increase in the Muslim population as compared to a 218% increase in the Hindu population. In short, the Muslim population increased at almost double the rate of Hindus for decades after independence.

Demography is destiny in a democracy. If Muslim populations increase, then politicians have to appeal to them. Obviously, some will promise sharia, as Muslims are calling for in Europe. We are facing a clash of civilizations as Samuel Huntington after the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

Given the times of strife and struggle that lie ahead, we need a good successor to you, Mr. Prime Minister. I take the view that your successor must be Yogi Adityanath, the popular chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. Yogi, as this charismatic leader is known, is young (yes, age matters and you are now old, Mr. Modi), dynamic and strong. Yogi is the only political leader in India who has had the courage to shine the light on and the atrocities against Hindus in Bangladesh. Just as you were the future once, Yogi is the future now, and you must give way.

As your parting gift to the nation, you must give Hindus administrative control over their temples. Most of my Western friends are shocked to learn that mosques and churches are autonomous and temples are . Muslims and Christians have the right to run their religious establishments. However, the government controls Hindu temples and even runs them. The IAS lord it over Hindu places of worship but do not dare to intervene even if there is murder or rape in Muslim or Christian institutions. Similarly, Christians and Muslims have the right to run educational institutions whilst Hindus have the same right. Mr. Narendra Modi, free the Hindus finally in their own land.

Mr. Prime Minister, you are a visionary and farsighted politician. So, get your act together and let’s see some bare-knuckled action. Borrow your friend Donald Trump’s phrase and say, “You’re fired,” to Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP party chief Jagat Prakash Nadda — they are both utterly incompetent, and you know it. 

Instead, make alliances, soothe bruised egos and bring back sulking Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leaders. Once, you were a committed RSS worker. Today, you have abandoned the RSS for the IAS. Go back to your roots, Mr. Narendra Modi.

My advice is straightforward: Reduce ahankara; embrace �ٲ��岵��; announce Yogi as your successor; give Hindus long-awaited religious freedom; fire your two cronies; return to your roots. If you do this and nothing else, history will remember you as the prime minister who successfully prevented India from falling to Islam yet again.

Will you listen and act?

Yours respectfully,

Dr. Sushil Kaul 

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Simple Lessons on Islam and Hindu Politics for Narendra Modi appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Knowledge of supernatural and divine powers and their local manifestation

Goddesses, gods and ghosts are transcendental powers with particular qualities that become powerful at specific moments of time and at specific places and then can interfere in the life of the community or an individual. These powers may be classified in the following manner:

1. Divine powers with sacred places

These are “Mother-goddesses” like Devli-madi, Gumai-mata, etc. and male gods like Ahindro dev, Govaldev, Kalakad dev or Kavadiyo dev. All these divine powers have a local character, i.e. they are worshiped mainly by the people living in the direct environment of their main sanctuary.

2. Divine heroes

Several narratives speak of male and female “creator-heroes” like Koldabio and Kuntarani, who are considered to have been powerful personalities of the past, responsible for introducing new techniques or customs, who, however, don’t receive much worship nowadays and who are by many thought of as being no longer active in this world. But their names appear often in invocations along with deities.

3. Powerful animal gods

The most dreaded animals are tigers, crocodiles and probably also poisonous snakes. They are considered to be spiritual powers with a strong influence on human welfare. They are not only directly destructive with their teeth and claws through attacks on humans and cattle; they can in addition send misfortune, cause but also prevent disaster.

4. Field and disease gods

There are strong supernatural powers whose activities are specialized, i.e. who are like Kakabalio, tough disease-bringers and at the same time healers or, like Himariyo, helpers in agriculture but also destroyers of crops. Contrary to the goddesses and gods with well-known sanctuaries open for worship to everyone, these “local” gods are worshiped everywhere nearby the farm houses and hamlets.

5. Souls of the dead

Because the souls of the deceased are considered to be active powers that can harm the living, they, too, are looked upon as supernatural powers, which need to be given regular attention – at least for some time until they have quieted down and are no cause for disorder anymore. 

6. Hindu goddesses and gods

Since the 1950s, Hindu gods and goddesses like Shiva and Ganesh, the Devi, Krishna, Rama and Hanuman replace more and more traditional divine powers. Several bhagats, priests, included in their stories names of gods like Ram, Mahadev (Shiva) or Bhagvan, replacing the ones of local traditions with these names of impressive Hindu gods.

Indigenous voices on divine powers

When a bhagat, a priest and healer like Honio bhagat of Ranveri spoke of an “unspecific deity”, he used the word dev, god, for the divine male and devi, goddess, mata, mother, or the diminutive madi, small mother, for the divine feminine power. Only one bhagat preferred the Hindu term bhagvan and another one used Ram for any male deity in narratives.

Most of these deities, whether they are connected with a well-known sanctuary or are animal gods, field gods or disease gods and goddesses, are present for everyone in the form of stones or natural rocks.

Likewise, Honio bhagat of Ranveri (near Valod) says:

Pathar no dev chhe, pan pathar nathi, god is of stone, but is not the stone.

It is likely that specific stones and rocks stand for divine powers, i.e. mark the spaces where these deities can become manifest; these gods and goddesses, however, “look” different. For them, the rock, where the goddess or god “lives”, is a golden palace, visible only to the devotee during a ceremony. The deity can move at her own will and becomes visible in human form.

Worship site for Himariyo Dev, marked by a terracotta horse offering. Via the Eberhard Fischer Photographic Archive, Museum Rietberg, Zürich.

Religious narratives

Whatever we heard from the bhagats were unconnected bits of knowledge about their own divine powers and their accomplishments, but we are not aware of any well-structured body of sacred knowledge. The stories recited were more entertaining than containing beliefs substantiating moral standards or cultural values.

Creation myths

How the earth had come into existence is told by Radatia Jethia, bhagat from Jamkhadi:

The sun (or Ram) asked karchelo, crab (or Mahadev, Shiva): ‘This flood and water is everywhere. So, what should we do?’ Mahadev-karchelo dug holes all over and the water seeped through these holes and thus the land came into existence.

How human beings and animals were created, Honio bhagat narrated:

(Once) Bhagvan sent two legs, two feet and one nose to the earth. They arrived separately. And he combined them here. One man and then one woman were made, in the same way. Both of them got together. By this the family grew, it became larger and larger.

Mulji Khura, bhagat from Khumbia tells another version:

Raja Bantol and Balvindhan made two statues of clay and gave them life. That is how we (humans) came into existence. Balvindhan and those people painted dots on stones and by that Ahindro (dev) and Kavadio (ghosts) came into existence. The first rain fell on Kalakakad.

[ has given 51�Թ� permission to publish this excerpt from Art for Tribal Rituals in South Gujarat, India: A Visual Anthropological Survey of 1969, Eberhard Fischer and Haku Shah, Niyogi Books, 2021.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Art for Tribal Rituals in South Gujarat, India: A Visual Anthropological Survey of 1969 appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Related Reading

What Happens When Nationalists in Israel and India Team Up

The authors then delved into Indian society, claiming that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu organization formed in 1925, engages in violence against “unarmed, unsuspecting civilians … using batons, machetes, strangulation, sulfuric acid to the face and rape, among other horrors.” They drew an ill-considered comparison between Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank and the actions of cow vigilante groups affiliated with the RSS.

The authors also referenced the horrors of the 2002 Gujarat riots but presented a biased account of the train compartment burning, an event that incinerated 58 Hindu sadhus. They labeled the communal riots as “state-sponsored terrorism.” The authors further alleged that the US has turned a blind eye to the “antidemocratic and all-too-violent national visions” of India and Israel.

As an Indian student, I’ve identified numerous inconsistencies in the article. I find many of these allegations baseless and inconsiderate. Therefore, I am presenting a point-by-point rebuttal of the article.

Muslims receive special treatment despite Islam’s violent past

India’s geographical landscape has a complex history shaped by over a millennium of military campaigns. During these, the Islamic invaders progressed relatively slowly compared to the rest of the world. For instance, the Arabs Sindh multiple times starting in 636 AD, and finally seized the province in 711 AD. It took Islamic forces over 300 years to capture Kabul and nearly 500 years to conquer Delhi. Nonetheless, after a valiant resistance, the Brahman Shahi Sultanate of Kabul fell to the Ghaznavid Empire in 1026 AD.

After that, Islamic invasions in the Indian heartland became more brutal and frequent. After the of Tarain in 1192 AD, Islamic rule was established in Delhi. It lasted until 1858 when the Mughal Empire was replaced by the British Empire. During these 650 years, it was the minority Muslims — mostly Turks, Central Asians and Persians — who ruled over the majority of Hindus. During this period, the official of India was Persian and the religion was Sunni Islam. Muslim rulers desecrated and countless Hindu temples. Surprisingly, this historical context is completely overlooked in contemporary debates of Hindu-Muslim relations.

From 1858, the British exhibited a preference for Muslims, recruiting them into civil and military positions in disproportionate numbers. This is evident in the Census of India, 1911 : Muslims constituted only 21.24% of India’s total population but made up 41.94% of the “service of the state,” and 50.33% of the police force. Even in higher salary ranges, Muslims were disproportionately represented, with 37.9% earning more than ₹400 salaries compared to 41.3% for Hindus. According to Pakistani military historian Major Agha H Amin, this policy of preferential recruitment a fundamental reason for the Partition of India.

The extraordinarily tolerant Republic of India

Driven by the demands of the Muslim League, the Partition of India resulted in the bifurcation of the ancient geography along communal lines. Post-partition India embraced Hindu values of inclusivity, tolerance and peace. This is reflected in Part III of the Constitution, containing four articles under to protect the freedom of religion. These articles serve as the foundation for India’s engagement with all religions, granting every religious group the right to manage their religious affairs without state interference.

Furthermore, the constitution safeguards the rights of minorities under Articles and , with the latter specifically designed to protect the rights of religious and linguistic minorities. However, the world’s longest constitution does not define the term “minority.” This empowers the Muslim community to establish and manage religious and educational institutions such as madrasas — schools that specialize in Islamic teachings — with little or no oversight. These schools also receive from the secular government of India, yet the state is not empowered to decide their and recruitment patterns.

Additionally, madrasas also receive largely foreign funding. India even allows establishments such as Darul Uloom Seminary, situated in Deoband, Uttar Pradesh. This madrasa is infamously known as the ideological of the Taliban. After independence, India disregarded any perceived animosity towards Muslims and granted them equal rights, if not more, in the newly established democratic republic.

Indian Muslims are governed under the Sharia

While independent India granted equal rights to all citizens, it faced challenges in reforming the Muslim society. The successive governments did not replace the British-era of 1937. Initially designed to create distinctions between Hindus and Muslims in the lead-up to the partition, this legislation granted numerous privileges to Muslims.

The act permits a Muslim man to have up to four wives, stipulates that Muslim men only need to pay alimony for three months, allows double inheritance for sons compared to daughters and includes several provisions that can never be permitted in other democracies. (, an Islamic form of divorce whereby a Muslim man can legally end a marriage by saying “talaq” — “divorce” in Arabic — three times, was allowed until the Indian Government repealed it in 2018.) The successive governments also viewed Muslim society as a vote bank. They continue viewing Muslims through the lens of maulvis, Muslim doctors of law. This meant abhorring any possibility of reforming the Muslim Personal Law. Hence, Muslims of the world’s largest democracy are still governed under Sharia.

In 1973, the Muslim society formed the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB). This body acts as the highest religious and legal authority over Islamic laws in India. The AIMPLB’s stated is to “eradicate all non-Islamic rituals and customs in [the] Muslim community.”

This body is predominantly filled with ulemas, groups of Muslim scholars with special knowledge of Islamic theology and law. Their qualifications are generally shady. The AIMPLB has a checkered history: The organization has opposed , the right to , an increase in women’s age and marriages. They support return to Kabul and desire to open in a constitutional democracy, the latter of which would create a second judicial system that would diminish the value of the first. Most recently, the body called terror attacks a “natural reaction to Israeli atrocities.”

While AIMPLB lacks executive powers, their influence on Muslim voters makes them an extremely important part of Indian politics.

The Government of India also introduced a distinctive safeguard for Muslim religious bodies through the . First implemented in 1954, this globally unparalleled legislation grants governing rights over religious and charitable lands to Muslims. No other religious group in India has such a favorable regime for religious land management.

The necessity for this legislation arose in the aftermath of the Partition of India. Many Muslims migrated to Pakistan, leaving their properties in India behind. Consequently, the Indian Government decided that their properties should be allocated exclusively to Muslims. The Wakf Act, 1954 established , Muslim committees that dedicate property permanently to religious or charitable ends, to oversee this process.

This act was later replaced by the Waqf Act, 1995. It granted expanded powers to the waqf boards. Under this act, waqf boards practically have the authority to claim any in India as their own. Unsurprisingly, they rank as the third-largest landowners in India, following the army and railways. The shrewd nature of this act has drawn from legal luminaries and scholars, with concerns about its constitutionality. Regardless, it is still in effect in India.

As a result, the Muslim society enjoys not just constitutional equality but also preferential treatment in the form of Sharia-driven laws, AIMPLB and the Waqf Act, from the Indian state. Considering this, writers who make exaggerated allegations about discrimination against Indian Muslims demonstrate a poor understanding of history and contemporary events. When the Indian Government decides to reform Muslim personal laws, regulate the obscure functioning of madrasas and form AIMPLB to ensure proper representation of Muslim society, it is blatantly ignorant and hypocritical to claim oppression.

Too many communities engage in hate speech but the Indian state does not discriminate

In recent years, India has witnessed several incidents of against Muslims. The and have understandably noticed such events and have enacted stringent legislation to address this menace.

Regrettably, acts of hate speech have been a facet of India’s ugly political landscape, given its multi-ethnic composition. In South India, social activist EV Ramaswamy was known in his heyday for making vociferous hate speeches against the . A spokesperson from the , the ruling party of the state of Tamil Nadu, recently made a speech calling for Brahmin genocide.

Radical groups are equally involved in several incidents of hate speech. Just two years ago, Muslim groups rioted, committed arson and openly called for the of Nupur Sharma after she quoted Ḥadīth verses — statements of words and actions of the Prophet Muhammad — from Sahih Bukhari, a key Islamic text. In of India, every few months, radicals call for “sar tan se juda.” This Islamic slogan means, “separate the head from the body,” and is a for the decapitation of blasphemers.

Therefore, it is essential to understand that these incidents of hate speech do not necessarily reflect the larger policy of the state or a community. Many such incidents arise due to the politicization of local sentiments. Hence, these hate speeches should more appropriately be viewed as law and order issues rather than indicative of the national sentiment.

The status of Indian Muslims remains unchanged, resembling the situation before. Consequently, India is a unique place where all varieties of Muslims, including Shia, Sunni and coexist as equal citizens in the republic. They represent diverse ethnicities such as Pashtun, Punjabi, Bihari, Gujarati, Bengali, Kannada, Kashmiri, Tamil and more. They have equal opportunities for education, work, mobility and sustenance, like other religious groups. In fact, Indian Muslims have far greater rights than Ahmadis in Pakistan, Sunnis in Iran and Shias in Saudi Arabia. Critics of India in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the BBC, Al Jazeera and 51�Թ� might do well to note that everyone in India, including Muslims of all denominations, are equal in the eyes of the law.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Does India Oppress Muslims? Not Now, Not Ever. Here’s Why. appeared first on 51�Թ�.

For nearly a hundred years, from around the 1550s until the 1640s, silk embroideries from Satgaon, which the Portuguese commissioned for their homes in India and for the European market, were among the most coveted luxury goods. The Satgaon embroideries for clients in Europe were shipped to Lisbon, which city held a preeminent position in Europe in the trade of Asian luxury goods.

We do not know the designs on the early embroideries which the Portuguese ordered in Satgaon, but the iconography of most preserved examples, which are believed to date from the end of the 16th century onwards, is basically European. Drawings after European prints probably served as examples. Quite a number of the embroidered motifs are based on biblical stories and on classical mythology. They also include disparate images of mermaids, month-by-month rural activities in rural Europe, hunting scenes with European figures and marine scenes with European vessels. The double-headed eagle (symbol of the Habsburg dynasty) and the self-sacrificing pelican (symbol of the Eucharist and Christ), are also depicted, often rather prominently. Next to these European images, we find motifs derived from Hindu mythology, particularly from the Vaishnava legend of the Great Flood, as well as mounted elephants and tigers. The same images on several Satgaon embroideries indicate that drawn examples or stencils based on them were used repeatedly.

Almost all the embroideries are executed in pale yellow tussar silk, laid on two layers of white, plain-weave cotton fabric, with a layer of cotton wool occasionally sandwiched in-between. The motifs are embroidered in chain stitch, arranged in rows. French knots, a type of stitch where the thread is knotted around itself, are used in narrow borders and as fillings of non-figurative images. In a number of the embroideries, the space between the images is covered by tiny back stitches. The thread used, consisting of a number of S-twisted yarns, is rather thick.

The majority of embroideries made for European clients which are preserved in their complete form are colchas, the Portuguese word for coverlets (Fig. 2.1). Some colchas were kept in so-called Kunstkammern (‘Chambers of Art and Rarities’, also called ‘Cabinets of Curiosity’ and ‘Chambers of Art and Wonders’), which collectors installed in their houses, castles or palaces. When used, these embroideries served as canopies, wall hangings, bedspreads and floor coverings.

Capes made from Satgaon embroidery are preserved in much smaller numbers than colchas. They are generally pieced together from embroidered panels which are sewn together. However, a few examples made from a single length of embroidered fabric have also been preserved. The shape of these capes is based on the capes worn at the Spanish court. Although the ‘Satgaon capes’ look like copes, the iconography on the preserved examples is not specifically Christian, and there are no sources which indicate that they were used as ecclesiastical vestments.

Satgaon embroideries for European clients were shipped to Lisbon, which city held a preeminent position in Europe in the trade of Asian luxury goods. We know that as early as 1558, the Portuguese Queen Catharina of Austria (1507–1578), an avid collector of curiosities, received three Bengal colchas. These are probably lost.

Indeed, relatively few Satgaon embroideries survive, but thanks to their mention in inventories of the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs, the Kunstkammer in Prague of Emperor Rudolf II and in the inventories of the Medici in Florence and royal and noble families in Spain and Portugal, we know that they were present in a number of palaces and wealthy homes in Europe. The extended Habsburg family in particular used these precious embroideries as gifts. In London, Satgaon embroideries were already being auctioned in 1618 and 1619.

A colcha and a cape are preserved in the Kunstkammer in Schloss Ambras in Innsbruck, which Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria (1529– 1595) created in this castle. Both are mentioned in the 1596 inventory of the Ambras Kunstkammer. No other Satgaon embroideries have such a well-documented provenance.

In 1632, the Mughal army expelled the Portuguese from Satgaon. A number of Portuguese stayed on, however, and the production of embroideries for the European market probably continued for some time. Nothing is known about orders for Satgaon embroideries by employees of the Dutch and English East India companies who were engaged in the private trade of luxury goods. Both companies established various trading posts in Bengal in the 1630s, from which posts, however, hardly any Bengali luxury goods were shipped to Europe. Presumably, the embroideries no longer appealed to discriminating, fashion-conscious clients in northern Europe after the 1640s, as their representations, which were largely based on Renaissance imagery, had become obsolete.

[ has given 51�Թ� permission to publish this excerpt from When Indian Flowers Bloomed in Europe: Masterworks of Indian Trade Textiles, 1600–1780, in the TAPI Collection, Ebeltje Hartkamp Jonxis, Niyogi Books, 2022.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post When Indian Flowers Bloomed in Europe appeared first on 51�Թ�.

In the twelfth chapter, Krishna elaborates on the visible versus the invisible in response to Arjuna’s question. One of the shortest chapters of the Gita, the stress here is on devotion and dedication. People dedicate themselves to different missions and each one of us has a unique way of being devoted. While some may work for the needy by actually visiting their homes, others may raise funds for them, sitting in their own homes. Doctors cure patients by prescribing medicines but scientists help in the process by researching on drugs. People from varied cultures have their own way of praying, and follow different protocols for worship or offering prayers. All paths of bhakti, or devotion, that are adopted lead to the same destination; the routes, however, may be different from one another and thus give way to misconceptions about the goal of the journey.

Some of the areas Krishna throws light on in the conversation here are:

• the significance of focus

• visible vs. invisible

• degrees of devotion

• devotees and devotion

• meditation as a tool

• deliverance as a reward

• restraining the mind

• striving for perfection

A phrase often used in translation is ‘surrendering of the intellect’. It may be useful to clarify here that, this by no means implies taking leave of one’s senses or indulging in mindless devotion. What surrender here stands for is complete acceptance and confluence of thought processes to focus on one idea, or reality.

Human beings are favourably inclined towards creating symbols for ideas. We go to the extent of personifying abstractions and emotions and like to keep photographs of loved ones close to us as we find this reassuring and heart-warming, especially so in case of those who may be far away, and, over a period of time the once familiar faces may start to become hazy in our minds.

A case in point is the ever-growing popularity of audio-visual learning for children. Present day learning outcomes are a considerable improvement on the days of yore when a black and white textbook was the only source of learning for children. Does the same hold good for keeping faith, and focusing on the greatest abstraction of them all—God himself? Probably yes. This explains the tendency to hold sacred a stone, a river or a mountain—indeed sometimes entire cities. Humanisation of the gods seems to work for us because that is the only form we can identify with and make our own.

So far so good. But trouble starts when we want our neighbour to also see divinity in the same tree as we do, or to feed the same animal that we do. We frequently forget and fail to understand, that others could be having their own symbols that could be as sacred to them as ours are to us.

Creating symbols for the purpose of better focus and identification is an innocuous activity per se. But it can become problematic when we try to convince the world that our symbol is better than theirs. If each devotee were to nurture a particular image of God and keep it strictly personal, the world might be a better place to live in.

Reverting to the narrative, by now Arjuna has recovered from his state of nervousness and despondency, and wants to know more from the fountain of knowledge, Krishna.

12.01: Arjuna enquired: Which is preferred—those who are sincerely devoted to your worship or those who worship the unmanifested form? Who do you consider to be more perfect in yoga?

In the previous chapter, Arjuna sees the cosmic form of the Lord, which encompasses the entire universe. Fascinating though the sight was, Arjuna is overwhelmed and he voices his preference for the more human form of the Lord and his wish is granted. Regaining his composure and accepting the reality that his friend Krishna was much more than what he appeared to be, now Arjuna wishes to know about the kind of devotees Krishna looks at more favourably. Some individuals worship the visible form of the Supreme Power as he appears on earth. As an extension of this, they may also see God in everything around them. Belief in idol worship, offering prayers to trees, rivers and nature as a whole are well-known phenomena.

There are others who do not follow this path and focus on the invisible, the unmanifested form of God. Such devotees may create their own image of the Lord, or simply pray to the invisible Force and chart their own path of devotion.

Arjuna is curious to know which of these devotees Krishna prefers, and subsequently bestows his blessings on. God has both aspects—the omnipresent and omniscient power, as also the incarnation in human form on earth. The latter has a specific palpable form which for mere mortals might be easier to relate to, while the former is invisible and thus for some might be difficult to focus on. 

This duality could well be compared to our own existence. While no one has ever seen or felt the soul, the human body is tangible and can be seen, felt and heard and so appears more real than the soul. But the reality is that both exist, the body and soul.

[ has given 51�Թ� permission to publish this excerpt from The Bhagavad Gita: A Life-changing Conversation, Vandana R. Singh, Niyogi Books, 2022.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post The Bhagavad Gita: A Life-Changing Conversation appeared first on 51�Թ�.

But not everyone in India enjoys it. Approximately 800 kilometers from the Indian capital of New Delhi, in a hamlet in the Ganderbal district of Jammu and Kashmir (or simply Kashmir), a gruesome event of horrific proportions takes place. Wandhama village is home to roughly 200 farmers, with about two dozen being Kashmiri Pandits — a minority community living in a few homes surrounded by Muslim neighbors. On this day, foreign mujahideen and domestic terrorists enter the village. These radicals pluck Kashmiri Pandits, assemble them in a line, and one by one. The deceased include four children, nine women and ten men. The sole survivor, a boy, escapes death because other victims fall over him and the killers assume the boy is dead. In the hamlet of Wandhama, the centuries-old Kashmiri Pandit community is wiped out in minutes.

Ghastly as the Wandhama tragedy is, an even more heinous crime took place a year earlier. On June 15, 1997, in the Ramban district, about 130 kilometers south of the state capital of Srinagar, terrorists a bus carrying passengers from Ramban to the nearby village of Gool. Four terrorists entered the bus and asked Hindus to step out of the bus. Six Hindu passengers did so. The mujahideen then shot three of them. All three victims were Kashmiri Pandits who were teachers in the Gool Higher Secondary School. The three Hindus spared were not Pandits.

The Wandhama tragedy of 1998 was followed by another massacre. On March 23, 2003, mujahideen members all Kashmiri Pandits in Nadimarg village, located in Kashmir’s Pulwama district. Of the 24 killed, 11 each were men and women while two were young boys.

An little-known story about a great tragedy

Western, especially American, media tends to forget one key fact about Kashmir. Fanatical Islamic mujahideen terrorists perpetrated genocide of Kashmiri Pandits. This fact was even forgotten by Indian media until the film came out in 2022.

Only a year ago did Indian moviegoers grasp the horrors of the genocide. Behind this brutal ethnic cleansing, lies a tale of betrayal and deceit. The dominant groups in the country — Indian political leaders, Indian media, Indian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) — did their best to hide this genocide. Their cover-up efforts were effective. To this day, even many Indians question whether Kashmiri Pandits faced genocide. Wikipedia erroneously still this genocide as an exodus.

Even today, Kashmiri Pandit massacres of the 1990s remain unsolved. Importantly, the Indian state in the 1990s was well aware of what was going on. On June 10, 1999, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) that the Kashmiri Pandit experience had been “akin to genocide.” 

Only in the last couple of years — 30 years after the Kashmiri Pandit genocide — has the Indian government finally started investigations into the killings of only a few victims. Even talk of genocide ignores the extent of the tragedy that Kashmiri Pandits experienced. They experienced their own version of Kristallnacht (the “Night of Broken Glass”) that Jews experienced on November 9, 1938, in Berlin. The Kashmiri Pandit Kristallnacht occurred in Anantnag district of Kashmir on February 20, 1986. Their homes, shops, temples and other property were in the district.

The government shamefully failed to act in Anantnag. After the Kashmiri Pandit Kristallnacht, there was no arrest, no investigation and no trial. Murderers, arsonists and ethnic cleansers got away scot-free. The morale of fanatical Islamists shot up. They now rightly assumed that Kashmiri Pandits were on the menu.

In 1986, the Congress Party was in power in New Delhi. In , a ragtag opposition coalition took charge. A certain Kashmiri politician took charge as home minister, the top job in the cabinet that oversees internal national security. Ironically, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed — the new home minister from Kashmir — was the rabble-rousing politician who instigated the Kashmiri Pandit Kristallnacht in Anantnag.

Sayeed belongs to the elite Kashmiri Muslim ruling class. Supposedly, he is a direct descendant of Muhammad, the prophet and founder of Islam. This ruling Muslim elite first systematically persecuted Kashmiri Pandits, then subjected them to a brutal campaign of violence, intimidation and terror, and then ethnically cleansed Kashmir of its original community: the Kashmiri Pandits. New Delhi appeased the Kashmiri Muslim elite, gave them a clean chit and turned a Nelson’s eye to the genocide of the hapless Kashmiri Pandits. Justice has not only been delayed but denied to these tragic victims by successive Indian governments.

Murderers got away scot-free, appeasement did not work

Sayeed and other members of the Kashmiri Muslim elite got away with murder. National politicians in New Delhi pursued an appeasement policy with this murderous elite. The Congress Party and the coalition that succeeded them wanted to retain support of the Kashmiri elite to keep control of Kashmir. They also thought this elite would be useful for getting the Muslim vote in the rest of the country. So, they colluded with national media to keep the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits out of the press.

During this period, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was in the ascendant. They were training jihadis to foment trouble in Kashmir. Since 1947, Pakistan has wanted control of Kashmir. As a Muslim-majority region, Pakistan sees Kashmir as a natural part of the nation. Kashmir is part of Pakistan’s foundational myth. Hence, the genocide of Kashmir Pandits is part of the grand plan of Islamizing this region and reclaiming it for the pure nation of Islam.

Before the genocide began, Kashmir had Kashmiri Pandits. By 2016, this number had declined to 2,764. Note that the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits has been a long, drawn-out affair. It began as early as the 14th century when Islam first came to Kashmir. The difference between earlier waves of violence and the one in the 1990s is the fact that this genocide occurred in the sovereign territory of secular, democratic and multiethnic India.

Two questions arise. 

Was the 1990s genocide of Kashmiri Pandits inevitable? Yes, given the stupidity of national politicians and the weakness of Indian democracy. 

Was this genocide avoidable? Yes, if leaders had acted bravely and wisely against fanatical Islamists, a messianic Pakistan and a diabolical, duplicitous local Muslim elite.

[ edited this piece.]

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The site reminded me of my visits to the in Berlin. The gate was built during Germany’s imperial era. At the time, the iconic Quadriga, a bronze sculpture of Victory riding in her chariot at the top of the gate, symbolized triumph. The Brandenburg Gate was destroyed and renovated several times throughout the course of time, most recently in 2002. Today, the Quadriga represents German unity and peace. Many global leaders have given addresses at the Brandenburg Gate, hailing it as a symbol of democracy.

We admired the German approach of infusing national traditions with democratic ideas. It is relatable to us, as Indians, since it is very much similar to the Indian way of immersing our way of life in traditions. In many cases, the Western world has amalgamated monarchical traditions with liberal democratic legacies. These emblems consecrate the conviction that the march to the future must not be at the expense of the country’s culture and heritage.

India inaugurated a this year. This calls us to ponder the relationship between the new and the old in our country, which as a state is very young, yet harbors a millennia-old civilization. What do we value? Where are we going?

It is relevant to discuss these issues as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits France. France has invited Modi as the guest of honor at the Bastille Day Parade. Bastille Day, France’s national holiday, is celebrated on July 14. It represents the victory of the people against the rule of King Louis XVI.

A section of the French strategic community has suggested that it is a to invite Modi for the Bastille Day celebration. They have emphasized a missing link of common values between the French and Indian administrations. They stress that the Modi administration is keen to turn India into a Hindu nation.

France is a revolutionary nation. Its national day celebrates the overthrow of the old order and the creation of something untested and new. Even the of France has been facing the heat in the last few weeks. Indians, on the other hand, seek a more organic relationship between their democracy and their history. For a keen observer, the episode provides an insight into the workings of Indian political and social life.

Symbiotic bond of traditions with modern times

There is a dynamic character to Indian civilization. This dynamism has been manifested in Indian culture’s peculiar lifestyle decisions and philosophical perspectives on human existence and its problems.

The finest instances of these are to be found in the history of the drafting of India’s Constitution. On July 22, 1947, the first Prime Minister Pandit Nehru to adopt the Ashoka Chakra symbol on India’s national flag. The symbol represents the wheel of Dharma, the principle of order and law. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who would later serve as India’s second president, endorsed the adoption. In his beautiful speech, he synthesized the notion of progress with loyalty to India’s spiritual tradition:

We cannot attain purity, we cannot gain our goal of truth, unless we walk in the path of virtue. The Asoka’s wheel represents to us the wheel of the Law, the wheel of Dharma. Truth can be gained only by the pursuit of the path of Dharma, by the practice of virtue. Truth—Satya, Dharma—Virtue, these ought to be the controlling principles of all those who work under this Flag. It also tells us that the Dharma is something which is perpetually moving. If this country has suffered in the recent past, it is due to our resistance to change. There are ever so many challenges hurled at us and if we have not got the courage and the strength to move along with the times, we will be left behind.

The deliberations in the Constituent Assembly created a space for the harmonization of the country’s deep-rooted cultural traditions and symbols with modern-day, progressive advances. It hailed the possibilities of combining ancient wisdom with modern advancement.

The new parliament building has a larger seating capacity than the older building, and the voting process now uses a graphical interface and biometrics. As a “Platinum-rated Green Building,” the new edifice demonstrates India’s commitment to environmental sustainability. The Constitutional Hall’s gallery area houses another remarkable installation called “Foucault’s Pendulum,” adding to the distinctive features of the new Parliament.

The for the chamber of the Lok Sabha, or lower house, was inspired by the peacock, the country’s symbol. In the Mahabharata, one of India’s national epics, Bhishma Pitamah argues that a king should adopt forms like the plumes of peacocks in a variety of colors. For the upper house, the Rajya Sabha, the theme is India’s floral emblem, the lotus. The original document of the Indian constitution’s preamble also has motifs of lotus and peacock. The installation of the Sengol scepter, a powerful religious symbol, in the new parliament building unquestionably signaled the amalgamation of Dharma with democratic norms. 

What to make of Sengol?

As a Maharashtrian, I am familiar with scepters. In front of the Speaker or Chairperson’s seat in the legislative assembly and council of Maharashtra, there is a designated spot for the rajdand, a scepter. Union Home Minister Amit Shah revealed Sengol and reintroduced it into the national discourse. Sengol was by the Modi government close to the Lok Sabha Speaker’s chair. The act suggests that sovereignty rests with the people of India.

The new Sengol is not a symbol of royal authority or insignia of military victory. Instead, it serves as a metaphor for the, i.e., Dharma. The installation of Sengol in Parliament is a sign that the government is not unquestionable, that real power rests with the people in a democracy. It implies that a person or organization in possession of the Sengol is only a servant guided by the highest law, Dharma. Sengol alludes to a of power.

The transfer of power is comparable, metaphorically speaking, to the change from day to night. Indeed, a seamless and effective democracy is marked by a smooth handover of power. Sengol encourages the beholder to follow the path of righteousness by being devoted to it throughout the journey, just like the Sun does. Sengol reflects a subtle shift, and re-introducing native ideals that support democracy. This is part of the creation of a democratic vocabulary for Atmanirbhar Bharat, “Self-reliant India.”

Is India becoming a Hindu state?

The reintroduction of Sengol has drawn criticism from certain quarters who saw the move as anti-democratic. They held the view that new symbolism is akin to monarchy and that India under the Modi regime is abandoning the modern principles it espoused during the Nehru era. Supporters of the move, on the other hand, dispute these claims. Both parties have strong reasons on their sides. Real life, of course, can be somewhere in the middle.

Nehruvian intellectuals have faith in Western modernity and the secular world. Their story predominated for most of the period following independence. They look at tradition with contempt. For them, the installation of Sengol and the process of are comparable to the creation of Hindu Rashtra, a theocratic state. They believe Modi is changing the national narrative to emphasize regressive views rather than progressive ones.

In Germany, the monarchical icon of Brandenburg Gate is celebrated today as a democratic achievement. Similarly, Sengol, a scepter of righteousness, may aid in honoring the past and upholding the values of the rising India.  Nehru recognized the importance of Indian traditions. At the same time, he was an interlocutor of the European notion of modernity. He was mindful of maintaining a balance between Indian traditions and European modernity. His followers may have failed to understand these intricacies, blindly following what they see as Nehru’s ideals.

Modi appears to be questioning the universality of Western modernity and making Indian wisdom and knowledge relevant to the rest of the globe—consequently, making India a decolonial state. Modi is suggesting that the ideals of modernity and socialism succeeded in Europe because they were shaped by local circumstances. Modi wishes to construct Indian modernity within the context of the country’s history.  The Sengol installation underlines the narrative that Modi is regaining the self-identity of India in Amrit Kaal, the upcoming quarter-century golden age foreseen by Modi. along with modern advancements. Thus, modernity and traditions are not diametrically opposed; they coexist together.

Modi seems to be challenging the binary of choices. The Indian populace had two options during the last three-quarters of a century post-independence: the temple of development, which was focused on contemporary concepts, or the temple of tradition, which dabbled in rituals and caused barriers to advancement. Modi indicates that he is holding Sengol in one hand and progress, development and technology in the other hand. Modi is not a utopian that repudiates the West. Modi does not dream of an ideal Hindu state as like you might hear about from a right-wing foot soldier on social media. He wants India to interact and cooperate with the West and other stakeholders as a self-assured and confident nation.

Thus, it is better for anyone, including the French and other Western strategic communities, to understand Indian politics and social life before arriving at any conclusion regarding values. Two narratives are having a dialogue with each other and playing for space in the public imagination. The dialogue is like the noise produced when a train is changing tracks; it is perfectly in accord with the noisy and messy democracy of India. The outcome of the Indian General Elections in 2024 will help us to answer which narrative may win.

[ edited this piece.]

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The UCC in India’s constitution

Article 44 of the Constitution of India mandates that the state shall establish a “Uniform Civil Code” (UCC) for its citizens. This is one of the “Directive Principles of State Policy” enshrined as Part IV of the constitution. The constitution expects the government to make efforts to make legislate according to these directive principles, but no time frame is fixed for their implementation. Neither do the courts have the power to implement them or to order the government to do so.

Explainer: What Is the UCC Indians Are Talking About?

There are many other directive principles of state policy that have not yet been fully complied with, such as Article 48 which provides for the protection of cows. Although many state governments have enacted such laws, no cow protection law has yet been enacted by the central government.

Today, while the debate over the UCC is raging all over the country, we need to understand that it is in accordance with the basic concepts of our constitution. In our country, every citizen is equal before the law. But people having different faiths are governed by different personal laws. The majority Hindu society is governed by Hindu personal law, while minority societies (chiefly Muslims) are governed by their respective personal laws. Many of these codes, governing marriage, divorce, inheritance, adoption, etc., have been in use for a long time.

The necessity of personal law reform

For a long time, it has been felt that there is a lack of uniformity in society due to different personal laws governing people of different religious faiths. At the same time, due to some historical factors, some of these personal laws are not in the best interest of various sections of their community, such as women and children. This hinders the welfare of the whole society.

For example, for several centuries, the Indian Muslim community has had a very unequal and exploitative divorce system. According to custom, any Muslim man has the right to divorce his wife by uttering the word ṭa����� (“divorce”) thrice. This could be performed through a letter, over the telephone or even by sending a message on WhatsApp. Muslim women of all age groups are terrified by this system, under which they may have to suddenly move out of the houses of their husbands without warning.

The situation after divorce is even worse; if the husband wishes to re-marry his divorced wife, the only way is nikāḥ halāla (“marriage that is made acceptable”). In this custom, the divorced woman has to marry another man and had to go through the ordeal of consummating and living with her new husband before remarrying her previous husband.

Thanks to the active support of the Central Government and the intervention of the courts, this system has been abolished and this triple ṭa����� has been declared illegal. Men repudiating their wives in this way are liable to prison time.

The tragedy of Muslim women has been reduced significantly without an overhaul of Muslim personal law. In spite of this, women in Muslim society, unlike in Hindu society, have not achieved legal equality with men. According to Hindu personal law, women have equal rights in inheritance, but this is not the case for Muslim women. Similarly, Muslim women do not have the same rights as Muslim men do to initiate divorce or to contract marriage.

With the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code, the rights and status of these women will improve significantly. It is worth noting that gender equality is a major goal set forth by global organizations, including the United Nations. If the Uniform Civil Code is implemented, it will be a major step forward in achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Due to the inconsistency of personal laws, there is discrimination between people of different religious faiths. For example, Muslim men are allowed to practice polygamy (up to four marriages), which is not the case for Hindu men. After the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code, no one will have the right to engage in a practice that for others is rightly considered illegal and reprehensible.

Though we claim that ours is a secular country, real secularism cannot be achieved until we adopt the UCC. When we do so, we will eliminate discrimination between people of different religious faiths and this will pave the way for secularism in the true sense.

By ending unequal personal law, UCC will also help in reducing disputes between sects. At present, there are innumerable legal disputes between the members of different sects due to different personal laws. With the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code, steps can be taken towards a more peaceful and integrated society.

The challenges are very many

The Uniform Civil Code should have been implemented immediately after independence in accordance with the basic spirit of our republic. But those sitting in the corridors of power, fearing that radical-minded people of some sects may not comply, avoided the issue. This is the reason why fundamentalists became emboldened. Leaders feared that, if the UCC were implemented, law and order in the country would be endangered.

But the country has seen that when triple ṭa����� was abolished, it got full support from right-thinking people. Despite the opposition of some fundamentalists, the intelligentsia and society at large applauded the move.

We have failed in such moments before. When, in Mohd. Ahmad Khan v. Shah Bano Begum, the Supreme Court decided in favor of giving alimony to Muslim women, the government balked. Under the leadership of Shri Rajiv Gandhi, the Indian National Congress administration overturned that decision by legislation, thus curtailing the rights of Muslim women. In this way, the unequal treatment continued.

Various political parties will also work to foster their own political agenda. Because of the temptation to appease the Muslim minority, they will try their best to create obstacles in the way of implementing the UCC, without any logic. Although Prime Minister Modi is lobbying strongly in favor of the UCC, in the coming days, when the Indian Parliament sits to pass the Uniform Civil Code Act, not only the government, but the whole of society will have to show firmness. We have to understand that the UCC is not just an ordinary law, but a big leap forward for real social and gender equality, secularism, and justice for women in this country.

[ edited this piece.]

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The United People’s Party of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (PCJSS), the political high command of the mainly Chakma, Marma, and Tripura guerillas called the Shanti Bahini (“Peace Force”), signed a peace accord with the government of Sheikh Hasina on 2 December 1997. The historic CHT Peace Accord brought to an end a protracted insurgency of more than two decades, a bush war that had cost many lives and livelihoods in southeast Bangladesh.

Parliament quickly ratified the accord, and the surrender of the combatants and their ordinance quickly followed. Finally, thousands of ethnic refugees, until then languishing in squalid camps in the neighboring Indian state of Tripura, were able to come home.

Implementation is taking forever

However, PCJSS leader Jyotirindra Bodhipriya Larma, known as Shantu Larma, lamented that this silver jubilee is nothing to celebrate. The government has not been willing to implement it. Unfortunately, a quarter of a century after the signing of the accord, a peace audit claims that only 25 provisions and 18 clauses have been partially implemented, out of 72 provisions.

While the government celebrates the anniversary of the proclaimed peace, full-fledged governing councils have not been formed through direct elections, as promised by the peace accord, in any of the CHT’s three districts. The interim councils were formed with hand-picked ruling party members, mostly ethnic Bangalees from outside of the region and a few ethnic minority members. The government remains conspicuously silent when the implementation of the fundamental provisions of the accord is raised.

In spite of these headwinds, Shantu Larma is hopeful that the accord will see the light of day by its golden jubilee, if not earlier. And so it must, for unless the peace accord, signed during the first term of Sheikh Hasina’s government, is put into reality, peace will remain elusive for the indigenous peoples of these beautiful hills.

In the last 25 years, the CHT Peace Accord Implementation Committee has held only six meetings. This is a reflection of the government’s lack of seriousness.

Larma remains loyal to the Prime Minister, who is now in her fourth term. He argues that as she made a sincere political commitment to getting the peace deal inked and ratified, so will she surely strive to make progress in implementing the accord.

However, he reminded the national government that the responsibility to implement the peace accord lies with them and with no one else, not PCJSS or the former insurgents. He fears that the delay will cause frustration and anger among the hill people, creating a political divide in the community, especially among young people and students. In the years since the accord, young people have from time to time acted out violently in the hopes of putting pressure on the government to realize the accord’s implementation.

A roadmap to implement the accord to achieve peace was also agreed with the government. Those affected do not understand what is causing the delay in the implementation of the accord.

A history of discrimination

The PCJSS argues that, like previous regimes, the ruling Awami League party has been implementing a policy of Islamization, and, coupled with the crisis, it has intensified militarization in the CHT to completely eradicate the national identity of the hill people. In this, they see the continuation of a long and painful history.

The military dictator General Ziaur Rahman (1977-1981) attempted to Islamize the hill forest and pushed tens of thousands of landless Muslim Bangalee settlers from the plains districts to outnumber the local ethnic population.

Giving Thanks to Indigenous People

Parleys with the government’s liaison committee were initiated during the military junta of General Hussain Muhammad Ershad (1982-1990) when he offered an olive branch to the guerillas to surrender. The peace process was entrusted to a small group of immature military officers, who forced the community leaders to sign a halfhearted peace treaty. This treaty was rejected by the Shanti Bahini commanders.

Subsequently, when Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party came to power in 1991, she unilaterally declared a ceasefire in the hills and initiated peace talks with members of parliament. Her regime experienced hiccups as the liaison committee could not spell out a political solution to the crisis. The end result was zero. The dialogue was abruptly abandoned in 1996.

When Sheikh Hasina came to power a year later in 1997, a flurry of peace talks resulted in the CHT Peace Accord after the government recognized the crisis in the hill forest as the political problem it was. The Peace Accord was written with the supreme sacrifice of the blood of the hill peoples and the political vision of the Awami League government, but the effects of Bangalee ethnic imperialism still continue.

Thousands of people in Bangladesh, especially those visiting the hill forests as tourists are not aware that de facto military rule continues and that the so-called Operation Uttaran, the government’s offensive, has not been withdrawn, despite what was agreed in the accord.

Rights groups complain that appalling human rights abuses, including illegal detention, extrajudicial deaths, enforced disappearances, legal harassment, and attacks against the hill people by Bangalee settlers continued without any respite. The members of the CHT Citizens’ Council, an outfit of the Bangalee settlers, have gained notoriety for forced conversion of native girls to Islam, kidnapping for ransom, looting of produce from native farmers, land grabbing, and other crimes. Human rights organizations have recorded evidence from parents and guardians that indigenous children have been taken away by force and admitted to madrasas (Islamic schools) in other areas of the country and converted to Islam without the knowledge of their parents.

Native administrations disempowered

The authorities are presently making systematic efforts at forced demographic transformation of the region—further marginalizing the natives who have protected the hill forest, the flora and fauna for centuries.

Indigenous Communities Can Counter Naxals and Protect Forests in India

Law and order, police, land and land management, forest and environment conservation, communication infrastructure development, and other competencies stipulated by the accord have not been handed over to the district councils. Alas, district police forces have not been formed. And despite the decision of the Accord Implementation Committee, the jurisdiction to issue “Permanent Resident Certificates,” vital for the recognition of indigenous identity and of the incumbent rights to vote and to receive restitution according to the peace agreement, has not been turned over to the native administrations as promised.

It is an ongoing tragedy that the refugees who have returned from India have not yet gotten their land back, in violation of the accord. Internally displaced refugees have regained their land either, Mangal Kumar Chakma recently wrote in The Daily Star.

The list of permanent residents of the three hill districts, who are the ones eligible to vote there, has not yet been prepared, again despite the accord’s mandate. Even the electoral rules and election rules for the hill district councils have not been formulated.

This undemocratic and partisan path sends the wrong message to the hill people, demonstrating the government’s dearth of political commitment. The land occupation and eviction of ethnic minorities remain an apple of discord between the Bangalees settled and protected by the military and the ethnic nationalities of the hill forests. The hill people are constantly losing their lands and being evicted from their homesteads in the absence of a functional CHT Land Commission and with the sluggish progress of the implementation of the peace accord.

The Land Commission mandated under the CHT Peace Accord has not progressed at all. The commission was supposed to demarcate the ancestral lands of the minorities to establish their legal rights against encroachers. So far, the light at the end of the tunnel still appears distant.

The crucial issue is whether the government will come forward to implement the Peace Accord after being called upon to do so during the session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues held on 17–28 April 2023.

In August 2022, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called on the government of Bangladesh to implement the accord and allow independent actors unrestricted access to the CHT region.

For the hill people, peace continues to remain a long way off as Bangla-speaking settlers from the lowlands, brought into ancestral indigenous lands at the behest of the military and continuing to enjoy the favor of the military, civil, and party figures that privilege them against the land’s native inhabitants.

Frustration is mounting. As Shantu Larma said: “It does not take 25 years to implement a peace accord.”

[ edited this piece.]

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Yet not all is well in this rather vigorous and virile land. Punjab has a troubled history. After a tragic partition in 1947, it emerged as a prosperous state in India that pioneered the green revolution. After Bangladesh declared independence in 1971 from Pakistan, Islamabad decided it was payback time.

A Troubled Legacy

Pakistan had always fostered trouble in Kashmir. In the 1980s, it also stirred up an insurgency in Punjab. Violent terrorists demanded Khalistan and unleashed a wave of violence against the Indian state. Initially, terrorists killed legislators, policemen and military personnel. Soon, violent attacks extended to innocent civilians. It took over a decade for the Indian government to bring the situation under control.

Much of the world assumed that this reign of terror was India-centric and not exactly a major problem. This assumption persisted despite Khalistani terrorists blowing up an Air India in 1985, killing all 329 people on board. This flight was en route from Toronto to London and blew up mid air over the sea. This was one of the biggest terrorist attacks before the 9/11 attacks.

Khalistani terrorism took thousands of innocent lives. Yet the West never quite took it seriously. Even Encyclopedia Britannica still erroneously the Khalistani movement erroneously as a “violent civil unrest between Sikh and Hindu factions.” This erroneous mischaracterization of a dangerous terrorist movement as ethnic strife in a former colony led to serious misjudgments in Germany, the UK, Australia and Canada in particular.

A Change in Narrative

Recently, this narrative is being questioned for the first time in the West itself. has expressed concern about the “extremist fringe ideology within the pro-Khalistan movement.” As per this review, this ideology has a “negative effect on wider Sikh communities” and the time has come for the British government to counter it.

Khalistanis in the UK threaten and intimidate upstanding members of the Sikh community. They pursue an ethno-nationalist agenda and incite violence within India. The review notes that Khalistanis do not claim any territory in “the part of the Punjab located in Pakistan.” This is noteworthy because the Sikh kingdom of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the lion of Punjab, was largely in modern day Punjab. The great Pakistani city of Lahore was the capital of this magnificent Sikh empire.

In 1947, the Muslim majority of modern day Pakistan followed a policy of ethnic cleansing of Sikhs and Hindus. As a result, there are hardly any Sikhs left in the country. Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh faith, was born in Nankana Sahib, which is 91 kilometers west of Lahore. The reason Khalistanis ignore ethnic cleansing and fail to claim the territory of their haloed guru is simple: Pakistan has backed them since day one. Khalistanis simply cannot bite the hand that feeds them.

Threat to the West

The Bloom Review is paying heed to an issue that poses serious threats in some countries of the West. Indian Punjab is facing an unemployment and identity crisis. The state voted in the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), an upstart that has ousted traditionally dominant national and regional players. The 2022 AAP victory is a political revolution and Punjabis around the world find themselves in social ferment.

Khalistanis have latched on to this ferment and are trying to trigger violence in Punjab. These efforts originate in countries like Canada, Australia, Germany and the UK. Naturally, the violence they seek to export often spills over in their safe havens in the West. In 1985, , the 33rd premier of British Columbia and a Canadian MP, was brutally attacked for refusing to kowtow to Khalistani terrorists. This violence is terrible for any society, especially a multiethnic, multicultural liberal democracy.

India and the West are increasingly interconnected. Indians are in top jobs and key positions in the West. Young people, especially in Punjab, aspire to become the next Sunak and Banga. Similarly, the diaspora strives to influence the land of their origin. An Indian problem is no longer exclusively an Indian one. Very quickly, it can become a headache for the West as The Bloom Review rightly notes. The time has come for the West to address its homegrown Khalistanic problem with focus, energy and wisdom.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Proponents of the latter view argue it’s unfair to frame caste as an integral part of Hinduism while bypassing the religion’s spiritual and artistic contributions. They argue that if one applied the same logic to studying other faiths, slavery, genocide, and jihadi terrorism would be seen as covalent to Christianity and Islam.  

There are rigorous anti-caste laws in effect in India. prohibits the state from discriminating against any citizen based on religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth. states the practice of “untouchability” is abolished, and its practice is forbidden. The marginalized and vulnerable are afforded similar protections in democratic societies, yet these vital protections are flouted with impunity worldwide due to various socio-political and cultural factors. 

Targeting people of faith as the sole driving force behind bigotry of any kind is condemned as bigoted and ignorant. Yet this is how Hinduism is framed by the far-left in India—particularly opponents of India’s ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—and by activists in the West that superimpose western racial hierarchies over the caste system.

In February, Seattle, Washington, became the first city in the United States to discrimination based on caste. Along with race and gender, caste can no longer be the basis of discrimination in this city. Proponents of the law claim casteism is no longer confined to the borders of the Indian subcontinent and has reached American shores with the burgeoning Indian diaspora; the legislation is a necessary corrective.

A prominent Hindu advocacy group, the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), has fought tooth and nail against this legislation and against efforts to portray caste as endemic to the Hindu religion. I spoke to Suhag Shukla, the HAF Executive Director, about the effect of this legislation on the day-to-day lives of Indians in the United States. 

She spoke to me at length about the origins of the HAF and responded to accusations of “Hindu nationalism” that bedevil the organization. She shared her thoughts on why it is a category mistake to conflate western racial hierarchies with caste and why the legislation is a “self-goal” for the diaspora. 

[We have edited this interview lightly for clarity.]  

Vikram Zutshi: The HAF’s cultural and political advocacy is well known, but only some know its origins. As a founding member, can you explain how the HAF came into being? 

Suhag Shukla: HAF was founded by second-generation Hindu Americans. Raised in various parts of the country, we experienced the conflict between our understanding of teachings, culture, history, and challenges and the perspectives of peers, teachers, and communities. 

We were affected by different aspects of this breakdown in understanding. Distortions in Hinduism teaching, pressure to conform to Christian norms, mis-portrayals in media, lack of voice in policy spaces, and human rights atrocities faced by Hindus compelled us to “do something.” Recognizing the Jewish community’s need, we built a US-based, independent, non-partisan institution with professional experts promoting Hinduism and Hindu well-being.

Vikram Zutshi: You recently stated, “Seattle caste ban is not historic, it’s a self-goal. After cows and curry, Indians will face this.” How is anti-caste legislation going to impact Indians in the United States daily? Who are the political actors behind this movement, and what, in your view, is their agenda? 

Suhag Shukla: The movement’s agenda is fueled by anti-Hindu hatred, which has thrived on the far ends of the left and the right. It is led by neo-Buddhists or Ambedkerites who equate the cause of any social inequities in India with Hinduism. 

The supporting cast includes individuals and organizations with long histories of anti-Hindu activism, including supporting separatist or terrorist movements calling for the creation of independent theocratic states of Khalistan and Kashmir. It also brings in conservative Christian organizations, which have used the caste trope for centuries to target marginalized communities throughout South Asia for “missionizing.” Caste legislation impact on US Indians: increased workplace uncertainty, decreased opportunities, perception as nuisance and liability. 

They’ve opened the floodgates to ethno-racial profiling Indians and attributing “guilt” or wrongdoing by seeking a policy that singles out and targets people of one ethnicity to the exclusion of everyone else. They’ve frauded the public with falsified data and misleading examples such as being a vegetarian or talking about taking children to Bala Vihar as examples of “casteism,” creating an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty for Indian workers on what’s safe to share and what’s not. 

Policy administrators will be left having to take on the liability of implementing a discriminatory policy. In the long run, it will be more expedient not to hire South Asians.

Vikram Zutshi: In some quarters, the HAF is considered the “American arm” of India’s ruling party, the BJP. What are your views on this notion of ‘dual loyalty’ that an American organization could lobby for a foreign political entity? 

Suhag Shukla: Under US law, any organization/individual that lobbies or otherwise represents a foreign entity must register with the US Department of Justice. Lobbying for a foreign entity without registering has serious legal implications, so any allegations need to be backed by unequivocal fact, not insinuation, as is usual in the quarters you refer to. 

The fact is HAF is a wholly independent American organization. We have no affiliation or ties to organizations or political parties in the US or abroad. The notion that we answer to or do the bidding of India’s ruling party, let alone any political party, is false. 

Accusations of dual loyalty are used to otherize us as somehow not being “truly” American. They fearmonger about us doing the bidding of a foreign government instead of having legitimate concerns and aspirations as Americans. 

It paints American Hindu efforts to self-define as a suspect. It robs us of the agency to engage in the public square as Hindu Americans, invest in our community needs, and contribute possible solutions rooted in Hindu teachings to the most critical issues of our age. 

Those accusing HAF of being “an arm” or “Hindu right” or “Hindu nationalist”—essentially dual loyalty—should be seen for what they’re doing: exhibiting their bigotries or ideologies and inciting xenophobia. 

Vikram Zutshi: In a statement about a case in which the state of California filed a caste discrimination lawsuit against Cisco Systems, you said, “HAF vehemently opposes all discrimination, and stopping it is a worthy goal, one that directly furthers Hinduism’s teachings about the equal presence of the divine in all people, but, wrongly tying Hindu religious beliefs to the abhorrent act of caste discrimination undermines that goal and violates the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of all Hindu Americans.”

Tell us about the CISCO case and HAF’s role in it. 

Suhag Shukla: On September 20, 2022, HAF sued the California Civil Rights Department in the United States District Court for violating Hindu Americans’ civil rights in the state. In its federal court filing, HAF asserts California acted “unconstitutionally” in its case, alleging caste discrimination occurring at Cisco Systems, by seeking to define what Hindus believe and decide how they practice their religion, in violation of the First Amendment. 

HAF’s lawsuit states the Civil Rights Department (formerly known as the Department of Fair Employment and Housing) wrongly asserts “that a caste system and caste-based discrimination are integral parts of Hindu teaching and practices by declaring the caste system to be a ‘strict Hindu social and religious hierarchy,’ which requires discrimination by ‘social custom and legal mandate.’” This action followed previous legal action dating back to January 2021, when HAF filed for injunctive relief in the same case against Cisco. If HAF succeeds, the Civil Rights Department must revise its Cisco case filing, as it’s based on the false idea that Hindu belief involves a caste system and wrongly equates caste with color and race.

Vikram Zutshi: You have stated on social media and in articles that caste is being weaponized against Hindus by certain activist groups. Hindus For Human Rights (HfHR) and Equality Labs have accused the HAF of advancing “fascist” Hindutva politics in America. What is the HAF’s official response to these allegations? 

Suhag Shukla: Those labels are more a reflection of the ideologies of Equality Labs and HfHR than they are of HAF. Our position on any issue is based on a relentless pursuit of facts and deep consideration of Hindu principles and American values, such as freedom, equality, and justice. We advocate on various issues, allowing us to work constructively with lawmakers and stakeholders on different sides of the aisle.

An objective look at the policy positions HAF has advocated for accuses that any of them are “fascist” looks ludicrous. On most issues, HAF is aligned with groups promoting liberal values: women’s rights, LGBT rights, free speech, separation of religion and state, animal protection, environmental conservation, and others. 

HAF’s position has aligned with what can be called a “center-left,” “classic liberal,” or democratic position. On some foreign policy positions—human rights and counter-terrorism—HAF’s positions align with centrist or center-right positions in the US None of these can be described as fascist or extremist. 

Vikram Zutshi: There seems to be a well-coordinated effort in academic circles to equate race in America with the south asian caste system. Is caste comparable with race? If not, why? 

Suhag Shukla: The history of anti-black racism in America is tied to the slave trade, a system of capturing, transporting, selling, and exploiting Black Africans, accompanied by a denigration of them as sub-human based on their ethnic ancestry and skin color. All of this was backed by the force of law in the United States and was the primary cause of the US Civil War, followed by a period of legal racial segregation. 

Some Christians pseudo-scientifically and anthropologically justified it at the time and gave ethical approval based on their theology. (Some of the most powerful abolitionist voices were inspired by a different interpretation of Christian scripture. It is important to note this.) 

Many remaining social stigmas and economic challenges exist for black people in the US Racism based on skin color is far and away the largest form of discrimination in the US today. 

Social discrimination in India and South Asia continues based on perceived differences that are not unique to any culture. However, the “caste system” is distinct from the concept of race in America. 

There has never been a single thing known as caste, as some scholars and activists claim. Nor has there ever been a single unchanging, pan-Indian caste system that legally enforces a birth-based rigid, oppressive social and theological hierarchy maintained by so-called upper caste members of society, supported by Hindu scripture, across thousands of years. 

There has never been a skin color component to Indian social divisions. The central Hindu spiritual teachings and all leading Hindu teachers, gurus, and swamis today oppose such a concept and ask we see unity in our shared divinity. 

What has become known as “caste”—a word deriving from Portuguese and intertwined with European notions of social hierarchy being mapped onto their experience of Indian society—is a combination of the Indian concept varna (the categories of occupation in society), jati (endogamous social groups), and other categories of social identity. The interplay has been dynamic and complex throughout history, differing in attitude and application across the geography of India. 

None of these social dynamics has been codified into law or enforced by the state or rulers, like slavery or racial segregation in the United States. We believe social discrimination is wrong, no matter its origins, and that Hindu teachings fully support such a view. 

Vikram Zutshi: You’ve worked tirelessly for the Kashmiri Hindu cause in America. Tell us about your advocacy efforts for Kashmir’s exiled minority. 

Suhag Shukla: Throughout HAF’s history, we have highlighted the plight of Kashmir’s exiled Hindu minority — whether they have been internally displaced within India or have left and become part of the diaspora. We have documented this situation in our human rights reports. 

We have held numerous events in Washington, DC, for the public, media, and elected officials on this issue. We have produced many educational materials documenting the history of the situation, highlighting inaccurate and/or biased media coverage of Kashmir, and a video series on YouTube documenting the history of the Kashmir Conflict and the ethnic cleansing that occurred three decades ago. We have had interviews with young Kashmiris, from Hindu and Muslim communities, on the situation post-Article 370 and the perspective of independent international relations experts who have traveled to Kashmir. 

[ edited this article.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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When NPR about a yoga guru in the US who also turned out to be a QAnon believer, a far-right conspiracy theory cult, it seemed odd that the writer and experts critiquing the controversy should have made the above claim. Because after all, what does the instinct for paranoia or delusional thinking have to do with the themes of interconnectedness that one encounters in Eastern thought as well as quantum physics? As far as apparent correlations go, this is tenuous at best except if the writer too was subconsciously biased against a non-Western line of thinking. 

NPR’s blasé mischaracterization begs the question—despite the popularity of New Age capitalism under which the modern wellness industry in the West exists—can the West and East truly ever meet? A sizable portion of this industry includes Eastern practices such as yoga, ayurveda, qi, mindfulness, gua sha, essential oils therapy and more. However, the way in which these practices are understood, performed and articulated in the West for their audience leaves much to be desired. 

Shreena Gandhi, an academic who researches yoga and its history of appropriation, in an interview to Vox , “The thing about the spiritual ‘East’ or the ‘Orient’ is that there’s a history of Westerners cherry-picking customs, traditions, and practices to serve their needs, that they can tie to a particular political agenda.” 

An example of this phenomenon can be found with the Buddhist concept of mindfulness. Here, corporate America found it fit to appropriate it as a productivity tool for all sorts of issues at the workplace—responding to an angry email, tuning out workplace noises, and, of course, firing employees without any guilt. Companies like Google, Aetna and Goldman Sachs instituted programs that gave their employees mindfulness training. Yet, there were experts who were concerned that practicing mindfulness may make people passive and defeatist in their lives. “Meditation wasn’t originally designed as a secular stress relief technique,” Catherine Wikholm, the author of The Buddha Pill, a book that explores the unexpected side effects of mindfulness.  

We see that the practitioners in the West repeatedly import practices from the East, package them into something easy and secular for their audiences, and then crop up criticisms that the particular practice is harmful, unscientific, and conspiratorial. This import is more often than not without the consent of or context from voices from the East where such practices originated. 

Spirituality as Consumption

While the intermingling of thought and practices is unavoidable in the globalized and online 21st century, it bears investigation if the Western import of Eastern spirituality is a true meeting of minds. What we now understand as Western culture has its roots in the Enlightenment, the 18th century movement also known as the age of Voltaire. This movement promoted a way of life that was decidedly secular and rational. Eventually, the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions ushered in a new way of life. Accumulation of material resources and empiricism became the driving force in Western, especially Anglo-Saxon, society.

In recent decades, having achieved their ideal of materialistic excess, many in Western countries found that the answer to life did not, in fact, lie in secularism, rationality and consumerism. The spiritual and emotional void that came with living one’s life to fullest materialistic potential had to be filled and, true to its material nature, it had to be quick, easy, and affordable enough. Thus began the industrialization of spirituality, except it had to be mostly Eastern spirituality, which could be sold as a fresh product to Western audiences looking for “answers.” The product worked because Eastern spirituality was seen as exotic, legitimate and, most importantly, it was inaccessible enough for an average Westerner to verify from the original sources in the East. Hence, this spirituality was ripe for cultural appropriation. Notably, the new gatekeepers weren’t people who were true believers. Instead, they were true entrepreneurs.

Many of the Eastern practices, then, come into direct conflict with the Western way of life because they are often meant for aspiring ascetics and monks. Even when they are meant for the householder, Eastern practices foster a balanced, frugal and ethical life. In either case, the idea is to let go of worldly attachments and possessions that the modern Western individual accumulates and accentuates painstakingly over the course of a lifetime. How, then, could a yoga mat-toting and athleisure-clad New Yorker feel comfortable with the idea that their “self” is nothing special or unique but a drop in the seemingly infinite ocean of souls living through endless cycles of life and death, going through their share of good and bad karma, just like every other person on the planet? 

There is nothing wrong with an entirely materialistic existence. However, misunderstanding and misappropriating forms of philosophical, metaphysical, and traditional thought systems to deal with the petty frustrations of daily life is not quite kosher. Western salesmen of Eastern spirituality are guilty of cultural misappropriation as well as preying on vulnerable people looking for solace in their own societies.

Therefore, NPR and Western media are unfair when, time and again, they criticize Eastern spiritual practices. Instead, they must shine the light on the ignorant, dishonest and greedy self-proclaimed prophets of the modern wellness industry. What we need is an honest appraisal of two distinct approaches to life, one of which can be broadly said to be located in a Western or materialistic way whereas the other in an Eastern or spiritual tradition. To conflate the two is to understand neither and malign both.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post The Truth About Western Cultural Appropriation of Eastern Spirituality appeared first on 51�Թ�.

(Click here to read Part 2 and Part 3 of this three-part series.)

The RSS shapes the ideological direction of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the current party in power in India. The RSS is the world’s largest voluntary NGO with substantial grassroots appeal in India. They have been present in relief efforts during . With over 100 affiliates, no NGO has the size, scale, and impact that RSS has. Every Hindu family (79% of the population) along with their relatives, likely has at least a few members or believers in the RSS. Hence, it plays a substantial role in the electoral outcomes of the BJP.

Evolution is Determined by Necessity

Hindutva’s emergence coincided with the ascendency of the current BJP government in 2014, now in its second term. Unlike Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, earlier BJP ones have failed to provide the RSS with an adequate platform to implement its agenda. In any case, practical constraints will always impact how Hindutva evolves and is executed.

Hindutva has been variously accused of fascism, pro-Brahmanism, and intolerance towards Muslims and Christians. Followers envisage the building of a Hindu state (Hindu Rashtra) and a greater, politically unified India (Akhand Bharat). Adherents are supremely proud of India’s contributions to science and culture. They regard Islam in particular, as a non-Indian faith and largely irreconcilable with its beliefs and culture. To them, Muslims are lower-caste Hindu converts who need to be brought back into the Hindu fold. The RSS was against the partition of India and they believe that Muslims (14%) should have left the country afterwards. Moreover, India should be a society created based on traditional Hindu culture and values. It pays a lot of emphasis to daily exercise and drills, and even paramilitary training, as part of mental and physical discipline. In terms of language, it sees Hindi as the rightful national language spoken by the majority of Indians.

These ideas originated before 1947. It was not until 2014 that the tenets of Hindutva found political momentum and burgeoning recognition. But by then, India had already seen 67 years of a secular democratic republic that had fashioned India as an inclusive, secular, and pluralistic society. India’s English language focus in business had made skills marketable globally and people mobile cross-border. This attracted foreign investments and pushed the country to build international credibility. Isolationism and cultural nostalgia are untenable in 2023. Hence, the Hindu-Hindi agenda must be open to the world, to technology, and to modernization.

Indian History Is Relevant to Understand Hindutva

Islamic Sultans have ruled many parts of India for nearly 1000 years, but the percentage of Muslims in South Asia is only around 30%. It clearly underscores the resilience of Hindus and Hinduism. Towards the end of the Mughal Empire, there was much intermingling of Hindu blood in the rulers. In fact, Akbar’s syncretic Din-i-Ilahi drew elements from Hinduism, Islam, and Zoroastrianism, among others. Many Diwan positions were held by high-caste Hindus as a practical necessity for the Empire.

With the support of Islamic Sufis, Sikhs (a Sufi faith with mixed Hindu-Muslim roots) helped to protect Hindus from conversion by sword under bigoted Sultans like Aurangzeb. As Sufi Bulleh Shah“I talk about today. Had Gobind Singh not been there, They would all be under Islamic sway.” has spread in the hinterlands where Sufism was present, not in the capitals. The Chishti Sufi Langars (community kitchens) certainly helped and were the source of the idea for adopted later by Guru Nanak.

It cannot be denied that, culturally, India is a Hindu state. With a Hindu majority of 79%, the people largely prefer reconciliation (Samjhota) and kind/soft-hearted behavior (Namrata) to conflict. Hindus have been colonized for about 1,200 years in the 5,000-plus years of civilization. If there is any land in which Hindus have the natural right to freely express their views and worship in their chosen style, it is India. If there is any land that should be the natural refuge for persecuted Hindus and Sikhs, including those from Pakistan, Afghanistan & Bangladesh, it is India.

On the other hand, Islamic Sufism, based on the teachings of Turkey’s Rumi, Imam Ali (called the of Sufism; 1^st Imam of Shias, 4^th Caliph of Sunnis), and India’s own Chishti school (includes Sikh patron saint Baba Farid), fits naturally with Hinduism. Many Hindus worship at the Dargahs of Sufi saints. The Ajmer Sharif Dargah of the revered Sufi saint, Moinuddin Chishti, is visited by thousands of Hindus daily. There was recently a in visitors after a radical cleric delivered a series of anti-Hindu hate speeches. These numbers show the continuing draw of Sufism with Hindus.

Hindutva versus Hinduism

For Savarkar, ‘Hindutva’ refers to the ‘quality of being a Hindu’ in ethnic, cultural, and political. He argued that a Hindu is one who considers India to be his motherland (matribhumi), the land of his ancestors (pitrbhumi), and his holy land (punya bhumi). This includes Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains but excludes Christians and Muslims. Savarkar asserted: “Hinduism is only a derivative, a fraction, a part of Hindutva.” His vision of Hindutva saw it as the animating principle of a Hindu nation rooted in an undivided India based on the Mauryan Empire’s coverage.

Hindutva has been described by many left-leaning commentators as having nothing to do with Hinduism. Whereas Hinduism is described as naturally inclusive, Hindutva has been described as a nationalist ideology with. The best example of inclusivity is the survival of the Zoroastrian or Parsi community. They have survived in India for 1,000 years with their faith intact. In Feb 2020, the RSS chief distanced himself and said that the term alluded to Hitler, Nazism, and fascism. It does not mean the same thing in India as the “nation is built on its common sanskriti (civilization).”

Hindutva’s assertiveness can certainly be traced back to Hindu texts. Its fight against Jihadism is very much in line with the Mahabharata. Elements of Modi’s defense policy, such as the use of surgical strikes, have their roots in this single epic and the works of Kautilya’s Arthashastra as well. The Ramayana similarly stresses personal autonomy and fighting evil. 

Mahatma Gandhi’s principle of, better suited to personal relationships, pacified Hindus over the next 65 years. It led to a toothless Nehruvian defense policy until the 1962 India-China War with China. According to Babasaheb Ambedkar, the chief architect of the Indian Constitution, independence was won thanks to the efforts of the (mainly a Sikh regiment) led by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. It had nothing to do with ahimsa. The PM of England Clement is said to have confirmed this view.

The of Sikhs in India’s freedom struggle is revealing: “Out of 121 patriots hanged 93 were Sikhs. Of the 2,626 awarded life-imprisonment, 2147 were Sikhs.” At just 1.5% of the population their sacrifices were 90%. We must also note that the greatest contributors to the original martial Sikh Khalsa cadres in 1699 were Hindus. They were supported by select Islamic, against the Mughals (Aurangzeb in particular). Yet it was only in 2018 that the RSS recognized Sikhism as a, largely for political reasons.

Hence, the idea that Hindus are both meek and passive is not borne out by history. India would be an Islamic state if meekness and passiveness were true. It’s a stereotype that suited the British Raj. Savarkar also talks of “Hindus… fed on thoughts… one of the causes of the continuous enslavement of our Hindu Rashtra for centuries”. The British, in fact, recruited Sikhs for their military prowess. Sikhism’s aside, the Sikhs were almost all Hindus in the first place. The Sikh idea of (ethical war) is very much a Hindu idea.

The RSS’s position on security is arguably influenced by the Sikh. Its (branches for morning drills) “recite the names of great people — sons and daughters of India — right from the ancient times to modern India”, very similar to Sikh preachers who recite the names of Sikh heroes out of respect. This is reflected in the for Bajrang Dal, VHP, (both spawned by RSS), and RSS activists in the hinterland (). In modern times it also means potentially taking law and order into one’s own hands. 

Without a strict like the Khalsa Sikhs who also take an oath, it is impossible to adopt a military philosophy without the presence of rogue elements at the grassroots. This has resulted in and other anti-Muslim incidents in India such as the. These incidents cause to society. The RSS supremo adopts the of “neither threaten nor gets threatened” in his conception of self-defense. This is not likely to fully permeate the grassroots. It may also be the case that more and better-trained riot police are needed where Hindu-Muslim fault lines are known to exist. The Army should also be called out wherever a riot cannot be controlled in say 4-6 hours.

Sufism has a 1,000-year history of evolution in India. Over of Indian Muslims worship at the shrines of Sufi Saints. Both Shia (13%) and Sunni (85%) have Sufi traditions. Sufism is one of several reasons keeping Indian Muslims largely out of the Islamic State. At the World Sufi Forum in, Modi made clear that the common enemy are jihadis, not Sufi Muslims. 

Modi said “At a time when the dark shadows of violence are becoming longer, you are the noor or the light of hope. When young laughter is silenced by guns on the streets, you are the voice that heals.” This was followed by a event in which Modi said: “Sufi saints are an integral part of Indian ethos and Sufism contributed significantly to the creation of a pluralistic, multicultural society in the country.” This is a welcome development which surely has the endorsement from the RSS. Interestingly, Shias, under Imam Ali, the Father of Sufism, have a history of being helped by the in the historic battle of Karbala.

The Modi government’s stance on — a practice that “allows a husband to divorce his wife by repeating the word talaq (divorce) three times in any form, including email or text message — on regulating and for educational quality, on promoting Islamic Sufism, on clamping down on and funding, is spot on. In fact, the Modi government hastwo straight terms in Deoband in the state assembly elections, both in 2017 and 2022. Deoband has a 70% Muslim population and is the ground zero of conservative Islam in India. After all, it was established as a seminary to bring back “pure Islam” after the formal end of the Mughal Empire in 1858. The BJP’s victory in the heart of Islam in South Asia is telling.

(Click here to read Part 2 and Part 3 of this three-part series.)

[Naveed Ahsan edited this article.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post 100 Years On: Can Hindutva’s Assertiveness Replace Hinduism’s Ahimsa? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

I am not an expert on comparative religions, I simply consider myself more of a curious outsider who critically observes the characteristics of each religious practice in India and develops his own impressions.

Old Goa — Basilica of Bom Jesus — Holiest Church for Catholics in India

In early January 2016, the 1970 IIT Bombay batch had its sapphire reunion, an event to celebrate 45 years of our graduation, in Goa. As part of our tour, we visited the Basilica of Bom Jesus, where St. Francis Xavier’s sacred relics lie. Incidentally my high school was named after him. The church was majestically built in the colonial Portuguese days. But the visit was more akin to a tour of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan — people in organized groups following a guide speaking in hushed tones with no shoving and pushing going on. 

To be honest, the fact that the saint’s body has remained intact did not make a great impression on me. All throughout my school days, there was always an undercurrent of resentment in our mandatory Moral Science class taught by Jesuit Fathers. This might have been due to the fact that the Portuguese and the British imposed Christian faiths on Indians who were primarily Hindu and Muslim. Those feelings from over 50 years ago came flashing back to me as I walked through the basilica. 

Amritsar, Punjab — Golden Temple — Holiest Gurdwara for Sikhs in the World 

In 2016, we visited the Golden temple twice – first around 10pm on August 26 and then again on the following morning. The temple was surrounded by a large water-filled moat and at night it really glowed like a large Golden structure. There were literally thousands of devoted visitors; more than 95% were Sikh men, women and children. We were all asked to cover our heads, wash our feet and walk barefoot. The caretakers, called sevadars, were polite but quite stern and kept people in check. We saw the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy religious scripture of Sikhism, being ceremoniously taken from the inner sanctum, called Harmandir, to the Akal Takht, the seat of power, for the night. Dozens of religious Sikhs wanted to touch the Palkhi, the carrier in which the Holy Book was placed, in order to get blessings. Walking around the entire square was a memorable experience. 

The following morning, we stood in a long line to get into the inner sanctum and were able to partake in some excellent sweet halwa given to everyone as prasad, an offering to the gods. I found remarkable that during our two visits to the Golden Temple, no one ever asked for alms. Also, considering the large crowds, the place was remarkably clean. Most of the services and management at the temple was conducted by Sikh volunteers. This was an exceptional feature not seen at other religious places we visited. I was really touched by the selflessness shown by the Sikh community.

Varanasi aka Banares, Uttar Pradesh — The Holiest of the Seven Sacred Cities in Hinduism and Sarnath — One of The Holiest Places for Buddhists 

From the Golden Temple in Amritsar we made our way to the ancient city of Varanasi, which many Hindus deem the holiest of cities. We arrived in the city on August 28. Just a couple of days earlier the Ganga River had flooded over its banks making it impossible to climb down the ghats, its flight of steps. Our day started with a chaotic drive through the heart of dirty Varanasi towards the famous Kashi Vishwanath Shiva temple. After parking the car, we walked over a mile through narrow and shockingly filthy lanes. It was sad to see the emaciated cows eating garbage and plastic wrappers. To call a cow “holy” and then treat the poor animal in such a disgusting manner is almost criminal.

At first the police guards outside the Kashi Vishwanath temple would not allow Monica and myself to enter the temple. Luckily our guide intervened and we could visit the temple on condition that we left our US passports with the inspectors. Before entering the temple, we had to buy some items for the puja, an offering to the gods, in order to make the merchant who was guarding our shoes and other belongings happy. The Shiva Mandir’s inner sanctum was rather underwhelming with all the worshippers hustled in and out within minutes. The place was unkempt and not up to my expectations. Or maybe it was just my skepticism about religion that made me focus on the negatives. 

In my opinion, Varanasi takes the first prize in being the filthiest city in India with little or no civic sense. But to my great surprise whenever we mentioned this fact to the locals, they looked amazed and pointed out that the city had never had an epidemic of malaria or plague like other Indian cities. Even many of the educated folks sincerely believed that Ganga Maiya, which literally means Mother Ganges in the Hindi language, took care of all these issues as a divine matter. 

The next day we visited Sarnath, only about 13 kilometers from Varanasi. It remains one of the holiest places in Buddhism. The temple receives an extremely large number of tourists from Southeast Asia and particularly the Sinhalese Buddhists from Sri Lanka. Unlike Hindu temples, the Buddhist place of worship was austere, clean and neat. There was an aura of peace and quiet we had never experienced on previous occasions. We also stopped by the Dhamek and Chaukhandi Stupas – one of them erected by Emperor Ashoka who ruled in the 3^rd century BCE. These commemorative monuments are massive structures and a real archeological rarity. 

Jaipur to Ajmer to Visit Pushkar — A Rare Hindu Brahma Temples and the Holy Muslim Ajmer Sharif Dargah 

We continued our 2016 pilgrimage through North Central India to Jaipur, Rajasthan. On August 31 we reached Pushkar about 14 kilometers from Ajmer and walked for quite a while to one of the five most sacred dhams, pilgrimage sites, at the Pushkar Lake. The Brahma temple that we visited was built in the 14th century. According to legend, there are only a few Brahma temples in India because the god’s wife, blinded by jealousy, cursed him that he wouldn’t be worshiped anymore on earth. At this site we had quite an unpleasant adventure with the pujari, the temple priest in charge of the puja. When we refused to pay the entire big sum of money he had asked for to perform the ritual, the priest attacked us claiming that our children and grandchildren would suffer as a result. Needless to say, I gave in to his request, but the whole experience left me quite disillusioned with the significance of religious ceremonies.

After Pushkar, we drove to Ajmer Sharif Dargah of Moinuddin Chishti, a revered Muslim shrine visited by over 100,000 pilgrims a day. Despite being quite crowded, the place was surprisingly clean like the Sikh Golden Temple. My late mother- and fatheri-in-law who were Hindus, used to send money through their Muslim servants to offer a chaddar, a sheet offered in devotion, at the Ajmer Sharif Dargah. In honor of their beliefs, my wife requested one of the Muslim priests to conduct a short prayer ceremony and asked him about the charge. Unlike the aggressive Hindu priest at Pushkar, the Maulvi replied that we could offer whatever sum we wished. For an offering of 2,000 rupees, they prepared an elaborate wicker basket with flowers and fruits and I had to carry it on my head into the inner sanctum of the Dargah. It was an interesting and enjoyable experience. We also saw a huge pot in which rice and dal were cooked. The food was to be distributed to the poor outside the Dargah. 

Tirupati via Hyderabad — Tirumala Venkateswara Temple — Holiest Temple in South India 

On September 1 we flew to Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh. After checking into the hotel, we visited the fanciest Sari Palace in town. So, while chatting to the shop owner, we accidentally learned that it would be rather difficult to do a Tirupati Temple Darshan without prior approval from a local official. But everything has a price in India. We were informed that if we gave a substantial baksheesh, a tip, to a certain individual, we would be given immediate access to the world-famous Tirumala Venkateswara Temple’s inner sanctum. For this  special visit, called darshan, women have to wear a sari or a long plain churidar dress, with tight fitting trousers, while men wear a dhoti and angavastram, a long sarong and a shoulder cloth. 

So we purchased the necessary clothes and then patiently waited for a call in our hotel room. At around 9.30pm an inspector with the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Department with the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) announced he would be our guide and was willing to take us for a very special darshan that same night. We quickly dressed with the right apparel and followed him. Everything about the temple was highly organized in a businesslike manner.  We cut across huge lines of pilgrims because of our  special dispensation and were allowed to stop and observe the deity of Lord Venkateswara for well over five minutes, whereas others were hustled out with no more than 30 seconds of darshan. 

All of this special dispensation came at a heavy price. The next day we were asked to give the inspector who had arranged our visit, a princely sum of 10,000 rupees. Our driver got visibly upset because we were treated as “foreigners.” He claimed that we had been overcharged and that the inspector had taken full advantage of our ignorance. Later that day we also visited a couple of other temples and everywhere the business approach was the same. It felt more like going to a shopping mall than to a temple. No wonder that the TTD Trust receives over $30 million just in admission tickets and the sale of laddus, sweets, generates a staggering revenue stream exceeding $10 million. All other donations are probably 100 times more than the numbers mentioned above. The TTD trust does run several universities and claims to conduct many charitable activities. 

Bombay — Zoroastrian Atash Behram — The End of Our India Pilgrim Tour 

When Islam came to Persia, some Zoroastrians fled to India. Since then, members of this community have been called Parsis in honor of the land of their origin. In Bombay, I decided to complete our pilgrim tour by visiting all four of the holiest Parsi fire temples called Atash Behrams, which means the fire of victory. This is the highest grade of a fire that can be placed in a Zoroastrian fire temple as an eternal flame. The other two lower graded fires are Atash Adaran and below is the Atash Dadfah. These three grades signify the degree of reverence and dignity these are held in. 

As I mentioned at the beginning, my wife was raised as a Hindu and non-Parsis are not allowed to enter these places of worship, therefore on September 4, 2016, I visited on my own the Banaji Atash Behram (AB) on Charni road in Bombay, followed by the Wadiaji AB in Dhobi Talao, then the Anjuman AB also in Dhobi Talao and the last Dadyseth AB in Fanaswadi, Chira Bazaar area. 

What came as a great shock to me was, unlike all the other crowded temples we had visited, the ultra neat and clean Atash Behrams were almost empty and there were more priests than lay people. I am a 67-year-old senior citizen, but the vast majority of the Parsis praying in these temples appeared to be much older than me. All the Hindu, Christian, Sikh and Muslim places of worship were teeming with young children, whereas in the Atash Behrams I didn’t see any. It is a known fact that the Parsis are a dying breed in India. With our intolerance of not admitting any non-Parsis into our fire temples and the most outrageously offensive policy of disbarring a Parsi female who marries a non-Parsi in India from entering our fire temples and treating her children likewise, the Zoroastrian Parsi population will continue to diminish rapidly. Now there are only 53,000 Parsis remaining in India and about 110,000 worldwide. At this rate, Parsis will be wiped out in 50 to 75 years unless the orthodox extremists lose their stranglehold on the fast-declining community. 

More Confused Than Ever 

Indian society is quite religious. In daily life, religion often plays a big role in people’s lives. Many people make pilgrimages to holy sites and places of worship to thank god/gods, seek blessings and make wishes. I went to places of worship in a spirit of curiosity. I wanted to see if there was something about religion that I had been missing over all these years.

One striking thing occurred to me. There is great spiritual energy among the people who go on pilgrimages. Each of them have their own hopes, desires and beliefs. Yet while the places of worship appeared to be lush with cash, the poor do not seem to benefit from this wealth. Their religiosity benefits the places of worship and the custodians of such places. 

As I said earlier, I went on this pilgrim tour with an open mind. I hoped to escape my state of “confused atheism,” achieve a deeper understanding of the religious practices and, as a result, become a better person. However, the two weeks of traveling the length and breadth of India increased my disenchantment and disillusionment with religion. Thanks to my 2016 pilgrimage, I remain even more of a confused atheist.

(This article was edited by Senior Editor Francesca Julia Zucchelli.)

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The Ganges, India’s river of life, is in imminent danger. One-tenth of the world’s population relies heavily on the Ganges and its tributaries. Yet the river has become one of the most polluted on the planet, denying hundreds of millions access to clean water and robbing the world of its once sublime beauty.

With the recent boom of e-commerce in India, online retail giants like Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal are setting down roots in modern Indian society. Everything from basic needs like food and clothing to fancy items such as electronic gadgets and gold jewelry is now available online. A Canadian company is even looking .

Now Ravi Shankar Prasad, minister for communications, is planning to —or what Indians call Ganga Jal—to people’s doorsteps. In an age of American consumerism, even the water of the Ganges will be available at a click of a mouse.

The Ganges

The importance of the Ganges to Indian culture cannot be overstated. Almost all Hindu ceremonies across the Indian subcontinent involve the sprinkling of Ganges water. In fact, Hindus consider all rivers holy just as they venerate the cow. But the Ganges is considered the holiest of all rivers.

The Ganges originates in the icy summits of Himalayas, also known as Devbhumi, which simply means the land of the gods. , a sage had to perform years of penance for the river to descend from the heavens to provide life to the land.

Located on the banks of the Ganges is the holy city of Varanasi. as “older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together.” Hundreds of millions come to the city from all over the country to pray, bathe and to celebrate their divine river goddess. Millions also come here to cremate their dead. Many Hindus believe that by burning the corpse of their loved ones, they liberate their souls from the perpetual cycle of rebirth, enabling them to attain moksha, which is Sanskrit for liberation.

Every year, up to 30,000 bodies are cremated on the legendary , the riverfront steps leading to the Ganges. Tourists have long found this spectacle haunting and mesmerizing. For Hindus, cremation by the Ganges is a way of life. Yet cremation on the ghats is now beyond the reach of ordinary people. It has become far too expensive and many families simply dump dead bodies directly into the Ganges instead of cremating them.

Pollution in the Ganges

The Ganges is now a toxic river. Its levels of pollution are terrifying. It is not only dead bodies and the ashes of burnt bodies that pollute the river, but also industrial effluents and untreated urban sewage.

Hundreds of industries on the Ganges release their waste directly into the river. This discharge of effluents has more than doubled in the last 20 years, and experts predict another 100% increase in the following 20 years. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) classifies a mere 764 industries as “,” but provides few details or analysis of the level of devastation and does precious little to tackle this problem.

Kanpur, the center of India’s leather industry, is on the banks of the Ganges and lies upstream from Varanasi. For decades, tanneries in Kanpur have released large amounts of toxins into the river, making its water .

In fact, the evidence for the is frighteningly stark. During India’s hot and dry summers, the pollution of the Ganges increases as water recedes and tanneries boost production. In 2013, the government had to shut the tanneries temporarily for the , the biggest human religious congregation that occurs on the banks of the Ganges.

State Response

Government action to clean up the Ganges is not the norm though. In fact, both the central government in New Delhi and the governments of states through which the Ganges runs have been corrupt and incompetent in dealing with the pollution of India’s supposedly holy river. The measures governments take are often muddled, cosmetic and even bizarre. For instance, the government once released into the Ganges in the hope that they would devour the dead bodies dumped into the river. Corruption and mismanagement ensured that the plan was a monumental failure.

India’s infamous babus, the deservedly pejorative term for the country’s bureaucrats, have . Tragically, they have lacked both will and skills to deal with the gargantuan problem of an increasingly toxic river that has been the lifeblood of Indian civilization.

Meanwhile, the rapid explosion of India’s population is putting great strain on rivers and water resources. Increasing use of groundwater has resulted in . Even as water is decreasing, pollution is rising as over a billion people consume more stuff and throw the waste directly into rivers.

The amount of toxins, chemicals and other dangerous bacteria found in the river are now that the World Health Organization deems as safe. The Yamuna, the main tributary of the Ganges, is now . Delhi, India’s national capital, lies on the Yamuna, and this megalopolis dumps 60% of its untreated sewage into the river. Coliform bacteria, heavy metal, nitrogen and other pollutants have killed the river. Yamuna’s toxic waters join the Ganges at Allahabad to further contaminate India’s holiest river.

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For years, Indian politicians have been making slogans and announcing programs to clean the Ganges. Prime Minister Narendra Modi left his home state of Gujarat to contest from Varanasi, India’s holiest city, to project himself as a national figure instead of a regional one. He declared grandiloquently, “Mujhe Maa Ganga ne bulaya hai,” which literally translates as “Mother Ganga has summoned me.”

To his credit, the Modi government approved a five-year, . Yet it is doubtful this program will work. It has taken two years for the prime minister to come up with the initiative, but details about how it would work are still fuzzy. Opposition parties rule the states through with the Ganges flows, and it is unclear who is to do what to clean up the mess.

The Ganges is still toxic and Varanasi continues to be dirty. India’s babus continue to be in-charge of everything from educating the masses to cleaning the rivers. Under Modi, some argue that they have grown in power. Their track record does not inspire confidence though. Tellingly, India’s Supreme Court has delivered a stinging rebuke to the babus, damning their shambolic efforts and will not clean the country’s holiest river even after 200 years.

It is a grim irony that Indians who worship the Mother Ganges are killing the river they revere. Yet even now, the problem of pollution in India’s rivers can be solved. Indians have to snap out of apathy and ignorance. They must accord��the same importance to��the cleaning of the Ganges as they do to��attending��the Kumbh. The first step in solving any problem is recognizing it. It is high time that Indians come to the realization that the Ganges is far too toxic to be holy anymore.

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After nearly nine months in office, Indian Prime Minister is facing a fearsome enemy: a resurgent militant, chauvinistic and violent nationalism.��The identity of this threat is significant,��considering that Modi’s political beliefs��are��deeply rooted in the Hindutva movement, or Hindu Right. His election victory in 2014 was attained with the promise of economic rejuvenation for a rising . However, foreigners and Indians alike did not expect Hindu nationalist ideologues to derail Modi even before he could launch his economic reform agenda.

The origins of Hindutva, or militant and revivalist Hindu chauvinism, can be traced back to early 20^th������Գٳܰ��� rule in India. Hinduism witnessed reform movements of two kinds: the Westernizing one named Brahmo Samaj, founded in 1828 by Raja Rammohan Roy; and the conservative Arya Samaj, launched in April 1875 by Swami Dayanand Saraswati. While Brahmo Samaj and its sympathizers sought to modernize and Westernize Hinduism, Arya Samaj sought to take Hinduism back to a pre-imagined ancient era of its own creation. A conservative backlash within Hinduism began, leading to the creation of various organizations promoting Hindutva ideas — some educational and cultural, and others political.

This backlash needs to be understood in the context of the era’s religious demographics. Until 1872, although India was perceived globally as a Hindu-majority region, the statistics did not back this up. The British started the decennial census system in 1872, which included data from India, and the first census was published in the same year. Throughout India’s history, the average person living in a��village may have been born to a particular religion; however, local customs were often more important than faith. When the British census began, a large proportion of people selected the religious “other” category because they were unsure which they belonged to, or they refused to be categorized.

However, the British��Raj differentiated between government officials on the basis of religion. When the first elections were allowed, citizens voted for representatives of their respective religious communities. Religion dictated one’s political identity, and it was important for communities of faith��(especially the two largest, Hindus and ) to ensure that the Raj felt their influence. In 1909, a pamphlet entitled Hindus: A Dying Race��made the absurd argument that if Hindus did not have more children, they would soon become a minority and Muslims would overrun India. While clearly false and outrageous, the screed��gained prominence among Hindu conservatives and revivalists who already feared this implausible scenario. As recently as December 2014, Praveen Togadia, a senior leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), about the need to raise the percentage of Hindus from 82% to 100% of the population.

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Hinduism is unique among most religions, especially the Abrahamic faiths. One may be born a Hindu but cannot convert to the faith via a ceremony. There is also no fundamental creed or common scripture that every Hindu should know or recite. Hinduism increased in popularity and spread across the Indian subcontinent due to its pluralism, its acceptance of individual differences and its catholicity. However, various Hindus began to fear their polytheistic faith lacked the means to compete with the monotheistic faiths, in particular and .

This feeling of vulnerability led to the popularity of the Arya Samaj and other similar movements. It enabled the group��to promote the Vedas, the ancient Hindu texts, as an official religious sacrament. The Arya Samaj��also inserted conversion into Hinduism through the Shuddhi (purification) ceremony. These developments conversely resulted in the growth in popularity of the Muslim Tabligh and Tanzim movements. A mutual sense of vulnerability and suspicion created a cycle of growth in the two religious communities.

Two main issues widened the rift between Hindus and Muslims in the early 20^th������Գٳܰ��� British Raj. The first was language. Until then, Hindustani was the spoken language of the majority in northern India (the official language being English). The need to make themselves unique led Hindus, with British encouragement, to demand that their language be called and for it to be written in Devanagri (-based script). At the same time, Muslims requested that be their language and the Arabic script be used. Secondly, despite the fact that many Hindus considered the cow to be sacred while Muslims did not, for centuries the two groups had lived together without this becoming a serious issue. During this period, however, Hindu cow protection leagues were created to defend cows — sometimes with violence. Meanwhile, many Muslims deliberately��slaughtered cows near Hindu temples to provoke confrontation.

The end of British rule and the partition of��India��in 1947 left a bloody and violent legacy. Approximately 1��million people were killed during the and another 14 million moved across borders. The deaths and diaspora were religiously motivated — Hindus and Sikhs killed Muslims, and Muslims killed Hindus and Sikhs.

India’s founding father, , was shot dead on January 30, 1948. His assassin, a Hindu revivalist named Nathuram Godse, believed that his target was too sympathetic to Muslims. Gandhi’s murder��by a Hindu revivalist, combined with the bloody division of India��that took place on religious grounds, left an indelible legacy of religious intolerance on Indian nationalism and complicated��the issue of citizenship in the Indian constitution.

According Granville Austin’s book,��Working a Democratic Constitution: A History of the Indian Experience, the Indian Constitution is not simply a set of laws and articles, but a social charter. The constitution guarantees wide-ranging rights to its citizens, which are extended to its large minority populations. The very first words of the define India as a secular state. The nation��is a pluralistic democracy where citizenship is territorial and all minorities, ethnic and religious, are treated as equals.

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In contrast, Hindutva calls��for an entirely different definition of Indian citizenship.��Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the leading ideologue of Hindutva, wrote a 1923 pamphlet called Essentials of Hindutva, which argues that a true citizen must be a male whose faith originates from from the Himalayas or the Indus to the Indian Ocean as his Fatherland and Holy Land. This meant that only followers of Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism could be true citizens, since the holy lands of other religions��are located outside of the Indian subcontinent. When Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, a member of the Indian parliament for Fatehpur, the “sons of Ram” with “illegitimates” during a speech in New Delhi on December 2, 2014, she was referring to Savarkar’s definition of a true citizen.

Gandhi’s legacy as father of the nation, coupled with India’s first 17��years as an independent country��under , left what is referred to as Nehruvian secularism. This ideology has been the foundation of Indian nationalism for the last six decades and has ensured a semblance of stability.

This edifice started to crack in the 1990s with the resurgence of Hindutva. The growing Indian economy created a burgeoning middle-class that was more conservative, outwardly religious and demonstrative of its beliefs — which it often sought to impose on others. The rise of Islamist radicalism in other parts of the world, including in South Asia, has only emboldened��Hindu revivalists.

Over the years, there has been a rise in the belief that Indian secularism is “pseudo-secularism” because it “pampers” India’s minorities (Muslims and Christians) and discriminates against the Hindu majority. “Shout with pride that you are Hindu” is a common chant heard at revivalist protests. There has been a rise in the number of religious riots and incidents, with the most violent ones associated with the demolition of a mosque in Ayodhya in December 1992 and the massacre��in in 2002.

There have been a number of other cases��in the last six months, the majority of which were engineered to use religion to shore up the Hindutva voter base. For example, a member of parliament a Muslim who was fasting for . Also, Hindu extremist groups��staged the conversion of 57 Muslim families in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, under the guise��of “.”

There are a few possible explanations for the rise of Hindu nationalism.

First, this could be an internal revolt by Hindu revivalists, or the “Saffron Brigade” — a��term used in India to refer to the various right-wing Hindu��organizations — to pressure Prime Minister Modi to use his electoral mandate to implement their preferred policies. This is the only explanation as to why Modi’s cabinet members have pandered to Hindu revivalists, through Niranjan Jyoti’s remarks, or External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s that the��Bhagavad Gita be made the national book of India. However, it is also known that Modi has privately�� his ministers for such transgressions, which explains why only a few days after voicing her opinion, Swaraj spoke��about the need for tolerance and pluralism in India.

The other possibility is that Modi is finally showing his true colors. However, this is unlikely, considering that Modi’s election campaign and his speeches after becoming prime minister focused on economic development and not Hindutva. Further, his on August 15, 2014, emphasized the need to reduce “communal tensions” and to remove the “poison of casteism, communalism, regionalism, and discrimination on social and economic basis” as they were “obstacles in our way forward.” While he seems to have��censured his more outspoken ministers and party members in private, Modi has yet to publicly assert his stance on Hindu nationalism. .

India’s growth, security and future are tied to its identity as a pluralistic, and secular nation��that is a pillar of stability in a region and world that is increasingly chaotic. If India is not able to maintain this��equilibrium, it will face insurmountable��challenges.��India is an extremely diverse country that, despite any��differences, has managed to not only survive but thrive. Countries even smaller and more homogenous��have either collapsed or fragmented. The only reason why India has not is because Gandhi and Nehru’s legacy��created an Indian nationalism that is inclusive, pluralist and secular. If this identity is tampered with, the state will become vulnerable and unable to face the issues��that lie ahead. For the sake of peace, Prime Minister Modi should publicly clarify his position on Hindu nationalism and not allow others to frame the issue for him.

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The victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India’s elections is being hailed in some Western media as a hopeful sign for US-Indian trade and for Indian business. But like the US Tea Party movement, it is rent by internal contradictions that could derail such aspirations.

The BJP has many resemblances to the American Tea Party movement. It is xenophobic (especially disliking Muslims); it is imbued by religious fundamentalism and often anti-science; it is hawkish in foreign policy; and it is an advocate for the business classes and critical of government programs. Despite the latter position, the BJP may not be as good for the Indian business sector as many observers assume.

1. The Hindu nationalism of the BJP is exclusivist and intolerant. Contemporary business requires a tolerant and cosmopolitan atmosphere. You want to maximize customers. American Tea partiers hated Coca Cola’s ad this February which showed “America the Beautiful” sung in Spanish as well as English. But Coca Cola walked off with more Latino customers.

The Hindu nationalists have conducted pogroms against Muslims (12% of the population) on several occasions, as well as against other religious minorities. What kind of business atmosphere is that creating — whether for investors or consumers? The new prime minister, Narendra Modi, himself has been on a US travel ban because as chief minister of Gujarat State he was felt to have done too little to halt one such pogrom.

Sociologists of India have already found that when they sent in resumes applying for advertised jobs with Muslim names on them, the turn-down rate was much higher than for those with Hindu names. This sort of discrimination is likely to get worse now.

2. Contemporary business success requires investment in science. The BJP is militantly against scientific findings that contradict its fundamentalist orthodoxies. It supports an indigenous form of homeopathic medicine over scientific medicine. Although the BJP a good game about scientific innovation, it makes no pledges of increased government investment in real science and technology, which India desperately needs. Its energy policy is favorable to renewables, but is really more of an “all of the above” approach that is not good for fighting global warming.

The BJP’s attitude will stultify critical thought of a sort on which robust science depends upon. It maintains that Sanskrit developed in India rather than spreading into the country from the north. The party opposes the academic study of religion and its findings. Already, the books of Chicago Sanskritologist Wendy Doniger have been banned in India, and this sort of thing will now get worse.

The BJP favors neoliberal policies that will privatize institutions and favor market mechanisms. But these policies have resulted in vastly increased inequality wherever they have been implemented.

3. Economic prosperity is hurt by concentration of wealth at the top of society. Because of the Congress party’s redistributive , India is a much less unequal society than the US, and over 100 million people have been lifted out of poverty in the past decade.

The BJP favors neoliberal policies that will privatize institutions and favor market mechanisms. But these policies have resulted in vastly increased inequality wherever they have been implemented, hurting working- and middle-class purchasing power and creating a rootless business class that often turns abroad for investment and profits, abandoning the home country to stagnation and inequality.

4. Economic prosperity benefits from peace. The US economic crises of 1975-82 and 2008-present had a great deal to do with wars (Vietnam and Iraq). The last time the BJP was in power, it almost went to war with Muslim-majority Pakistan, coming close twice in 2002 alone. Since India and Pakistan are both nuclear states, such a war would have been a catastrophe of cosmic proportions.

Although the current leadership of the BJP is less hawkish in foreign affairs and more focused on the domestic economy, it remains to be seen if the rank and file of angry Hindu fundamentalists can pressure the government to take a hard-line with Islamabad.

5. Contrary to what many pundits assume, it is not clear that a fundamentalist nationalist party such as the BJP will be very welcoming to foreign capital. Because of its nationalism and ties to Indian small businessmen, the BJP is unlikely to substantially increase foreign investment, especially in the retail sector, where its leaders are about retaining relatively strict rules for foreign direct��investment.

Many outsiders are celebrating the BJP victory because they assume it will lead to better trade and economic relations between India and, for example, the US. They do not seem to realize that India has just elected the equivalent of a Sarah Palin or Ted Cruz. It seems that the only question is whether the party, now that it is in power, will become more pragmatic and less intolerant just in order to rule. One dark cloud on that horizon is that it attained an absolute majority in parliament and so does not need more moderate coalition partners.

*[This article was originally published on Juan Cole’s��.]

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India may elect as its next prime minister a far-right Hindu nationalist who, as governor of Gujarat, directed his state’s police force to look the other way during a mass slaughter of Muslims in 2002.

Narendra Modi is a self-made politician: the son of a street vendor who worked his way up through the grassroots of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He came to prominence in his home state of Gujarat with an impressiveamassed during his tenure as a governor in the western Indian state, which allowed him to woo middle-class voters who would otherwise have been turned off by his hard-line politics.

The Riots

Now that he has set his eyes on national office, Modi is hoping to once again sway voters by focusing on his free market and technology sector-friendly economic policies. But his complicity in the horrific Gujarat riots, which left thousands��in a span of 72 hours, is one legacy that still haunts his candidacy and Indian politics.

On February 27, 2002, several Hindu pilgrims were killed in an accidental train fire in the Gujarati city of Godhra. Far-right Hindu Nationalist groups aligned with Modi’s BJP blamed the fire on Muslim “terrorists” and the Muslim community at large, who they perceived as antithetical to national Indian identity and the Hindu religion, and immediately called for strikes across the country. In response, organized Hindu mobs went on a wave of mass killing and rampage directed at the state’s minority Muslim and, in some cases, Christian communities. Children were burned alive. Women were raped and disemboweled. Many others were hacked to death with swords.

Police stood by passively during the attacks, ignoring pleas for help. In fact, according to a Human Rights Watch��the police were directly involved in orchestrating the killings. The violence sent shock waves across India’s Muslim community and raised global concerns about the governing BJP Party’s radical anti-Muslim politics.

Modi, who was then one of the loudest voices blaming “Muslim terrorists” for the fire, claims that he did all he could to stop the killings. Subsequently, he was cleared of any wrongdoing by the Indian Supreme Court, though his minister for women and child development,����is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2012 of providing weapons for the murders of 97 Muslims during the riots. In subsequent investigations, two independent commissions have since found that the train fire was not the result of terrorism.

Modi’s actions during the killings drew global condemnation and both the British High Commission and the US Commission on International Freedom of Religion Report found the state government of Gujarat – the government that Modi himself led – culpable in the massacres. The United States even went so far as to deny Modi a travel����for his role in the 2002 massacre.

Nevertheless, Modi remains unrepentant. In fact, he ran an aggressive re-election����after the massacre, demonizing Muslim voters and appealing to radical Hindu nationalist sentiments.

Modi has slightly toned down his vile anti-Muslim rhetoric as he lays the groundwork for his national ambitions. But he has still not apologized to the Muslim community in Gujarat nor has he expressed any remorse for the massacre.

Will Modi Enter the PM’s Office?

The possible election of Modi as prime minister in the 2014 election cycle comes at a particularly difficult time for India. Once hailed as an emerging global economic power house, India has seen its economic growth rate grind to a ten-year low. India’s “soft power” standing has also suffered as the result of��internal��,��including persistent corruption and horrific sexual violence. Electing a figure with such an appalling human rights record will only further shake India’s international standing and, as a result, may increase India’s growing economic woes.

Already Modi’s candidacy is exacerbating the simmering fault-lines in Indian political and religious life. Indian opposition leaders and civil society movements have been quick to highlight the domestic and global dangers that a Modi election poses for India. Congress Party leader Jairam Ramesh has compared Modi’s rise to that of the “”��A coalition of civil society��is sounding the alarm bells, highlighting Modi’s threat to democracy and religious pluralism.

Early polling suggests that the BJP under Modi is on its way to being the largest party in India’s next parliament, indicating a likely Modi victory. That would pose a particularly difficult challenge to US policy makers given the important strategic, cultural, and economic ties that have been growing over the last decade between the two countries. While some may urge the United States to focus on the totality of Modi’s record and his recent softening of rhetoric, his role in the Gujarat killings cannot be overlooked in the name of diplomatic expediency.

The Obama administration must make it absolutely clear through all diplomatic channels that the US will not continue forging a strong relationship with India if Modi is at the helm. The close economic, strategic and cultural ties that have defined US-India bilateral relations over the past several years simply cannot continue with Modi as prime minister. Indeed, Indian voters who like Modi because they consider him a strong economic manager should realize that his election would slow and, in some cases, reverse vital Indian economic goals.

In the end, it will be up to India’s voters whether Modi becomes the next prime minister or not. But it will also be up to American policy makers to demonstrate that even in the realist world of international diplomacy, being complicit in genocidal acts is simply unacceptable. Modi demands such a response.

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