Posted on 10 March 2010
This article originally appeared in the March 2010 edition of Himal Magazine.
The defeat of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India’s general elections last year was greeted with relief by secularists and democrats everywhere. Not entirely unreasonably: they read the fact that the BJP lost a solid 3.4 percent of its previous poll share as evidence that Indian voters had rejected the majoritarian politics of Hindu pride and prejudice, peddled by the BJP and the rest of the Sangh Parivar. The general consensus is that the ideology of Hindu nationalism, or Hindutva, has lost its appeal among the urban youth and middle classes - that secularism has won and “God has left politics,” to borrow the elegant title of a recent essay by Delhi journalist Hartosh Singh Bal. Market reforms and globalisation emerge as the stars of this saga. Both the friends and critics of the BJP agree that it is the fervour for making money in India’s roaring economy that doused the flames of Hindu nationalism from the hearts of the middle classes. But that is not all. The ‘free’ market, we are told by a section of influential Dalit intellectuals, will not only free India from the menace of communal violence, but will also lift the curse of caste oppression. It is fair to say that the gospel of globalisation is gaining ground in India. Read the full story
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Posted on 06 January 2010
In the last week of 2009 I happened to visit a site where NREGS activities were being carried out, and I happened to talk to the workers employed there about the economic, social, and religious issues that impact them. While my purpose of the chat with the workers was mainly economic, a few issues relating to religion emerged, which I purpose to bring to light here. (For those interested in the economic issues we discussed about, look out for the article on my blog, which I intend to put up in the near future).
For the unacquainted, ‘NREGS’ stands for ‘National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme’, and it promises to provide work for the rural unemployed workers in India for 100 days a year, and pay them up to Rs 100 a day, subject to completion of work. The workers who seek jobs under this scheme are usually the poorest who have no other alternatives. Read the full story
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Posted on 25 December 2009
Blind Faith
An unknown entity
An instilled fear
Fear brings comfort
It brings order.
‘Consequence’
The word calls for conformity
Thoughts often rearranged
Hearts taught to surrender
Till no questions asked
No answers sought.
The confused sheep comply
To unwritten laws of good and bad. Read the full story
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Posted on 11 November 2009
In my previous article I described Hinduism as Obsessive Compulsive Religion, and that its practices are rooted in the antiquated belief system of Brahmanism, the prevalent religion of India three thousand years ago. This explains why India has more gods, more mindless rituals, more bizarre superstitions and more fraudulent “holy men” than the rest of the world put together and why there is the pernicious caste system. The reality is that today more than ever before, highly educated people in India have fallen prey to the relics of Brahmanism such as superstitions, Yajnas, Poojas and Abhishekas dedicated to their personal gods. More than ever before, there is such frenzy in India to build huge ornate temples, some of which are covered with gold. More than ever before, today millions of Hindus are thronging to temples and donating their life-savings to them. And more than ever before religious frauds are thriving in India and abroad. Read the full story
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Posted on 06 November 2009
The solution to a social problem has itself become a problem
In my previous article I wrote that all current irrational beliefs, and behaviors rooted in them, served a perfectly rational purpose some time in the remote past, but they serve no useful purpose in the present time. What we call religion today was in the ancient times a solution for some grave societal problem, which was creating serious chaos in it. In a sense religion was the Constitution of the ancient society. However, even though all religions served useful purposes during the time they were invented they have now themselves become sources of serious conflicts, chaos and destruction in the world. This is an example of how a solution for a serious problem itself could become a problem. Why then does religion exist? Well, once a solution for a problem is found out, it becomes a source of livelihood for the priestly class, who claim custody of the religion. The priests of every religion have developed vested interest in keeping the masses deluded in order to make a comfortable living and enjoy a superior status in the society. This is true of all religions. Even the very educated amongst us can be deluded by their shenanigans. Read the full story
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Posted on 20 September 2009
Life for us is pretty convenient nowadays. Much of this convenience could be attributed to technology that is involved in our lives to such a great extent today that we almost take it for granted. You wake up thanks to the alarm on your cell phone (even better is the snooze feature that lets you extend your sleep), travel in A/C fitted vehicles with LCD screens while listening to your favourite Floyd song on the move, run programs or generate “process related” reports (although most of it is crap!) on your laptop/ desktop at work. You can speak to your friend in Scotland while gyming, put him on hold and pick your girlfriend’s call thanks to your cell phone (which has other less important features like GPS, GPRS, MP3 playback and a whole range of 3G features) . You can download music, movies, chat, shop, pay bills, book tickets, bank/ trade online, have virtual avtaars, network with people with the help of internet. You can travel long distances in the comfort of flights or save your company some bucks (and for what!!) by using tele/ video conferencing facilities. The things I’ve mentioned above are pretty common and one would feel ‘handicapped’ in a sense if some of these facilities were not accessible to him. I’ve not even started with smashing protons, QED, Mars missions, telescopes peeking into the birth and death of stars thousands of light years away from Earth, AS50, ICBMs, F1 technology……this thing could be endless!! Read the full story
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Posted on 11 May 2009
Some of the recent criticism of our mission here at Nirmukta has come from Hindu apologists admonishing the writers for treating Hinduism as a religion. The often encountered claim is that Hinduism is not a religion in the same sense as the other faiths, because of various reasons that the apologists deem are unique to Hinduism alone. This propaganda has been pursued so vigorously by the apologists that it has become a mantra to be used as a shield against criticism. Millions of educated Hindus are taught these talking points, often ideas derived from some insignificant truism miscast into a vast theory of cultural significance. Such “special pleading” is a mark of all religions, asking to be considered unique and special. To begin, let us first look at some of the general qualities of religions.
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Posted on 08 April 2009
I intend to respond to some of the criticisms leveled against the view I expressed in my article “Why I criticize Hinduism the Most” - the most prominent being the comments posted by Kafir in this website. I have also received a few responses, mostly favorable, from the readers of the ezine I bring out, Bangalore Skeptic. The favorable responses I happily ignore!
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Posted on 23 February 2009
I celebrated the New Year (going by the Julian calendar, I mean; not the Malayalam New Year, my favorite!) by attending the 7th World Atheist Conference held at Vijayawada in the first week of January 2009. The conference was organized by the Atheist Centre founded by Gora, the Gandhian atheist and the center is now run by his children and grandchildren. It is the second time that I have attended the conference - now a biennial one. Although it was called the “World Conference”, all of the foreign delegates were from Europe, making the conference more of a Euro-Indian one, than a “world conference” proper.
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Posted on 15 January 2009
Shah Rukh Khan was one of my favorite Bollywood stars, growing up in the 90s. It has been a couple of years since I’ve watched a Hindi movie (Slumdog Millionaire doesn’t count). But when I read something today that Shah Rukh said in an interview about religion and Islam’s role in terrorism, it made me realize how much of a negative influence film actors can have over the culture of our society. The interview was scattered, so I took it apart to see what the film star was actually saying. I’m presenting my thoughts on it here. Keep in mind that this interview was done in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks by Muslim terrorists, and that the questions were in that context.
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