The Right Perspective

Sewa and Dana: Hindu Philanthropy & COVID-19 In the popular narrative, Indians in general and Hindus, in particular, are not considered as philanthropic, both in terms of charitable donations as well as in service, as compared to practitioners of other faiths. This, however, cannot be further from the truth. The disconnect in reality and perception stems from the fundamental differences in the nature of philanthropy in Hinduism and other faiths. There are several motivations for giving and people may give for a variety of causes — environment, social justice, gender equality, natural calamity, or simply for tax benefits. Many give to set up schools, academies, and hospitals. Some give to gain a better standing of the society and get some privileges (for example, special seats in a theater). Yet some others ‘give back’ to their alma mater. People may volunteer for various reasons as well. Reasons could be as simple as connecting to other members of society to volunteering t...

Social distancing and its impact on kids The initial reaction to stay-at-home orders among most middle/high school kids I know was of absolute jubilation. After all, who doesn’t like to sleep in an extra hour or two? And all students have a school period or two they would love to skip. I know this, as I have a high school senior of my own. But when the initial two weeks turned into 4 with a potential of rest of the academic year spent under stay-at-home orders, that jubilation suddenly turned into despair. While a future look at this COVID-19 inflicted online stay-at-home school instructions may provide a deeper understanding of its effects on students as well as society overall, there are already some trends visible. Most kids I talked to have concerns mostly around socializing. They miss hanging out with their school friends, peers, and classmates. Technology no doubt makes it easier to stay connected with friends and family, yearning for in-person contact is quite natural. ...

PM Modi’s Navagraha and Janata Curfew Prime Miniter Narendra Modi’s call for a dawn to dusk ‘Janata Curfew’ on Sunday, March 22 is a call for ‘Svadharma’. It was a part of his ‘address to the nation’ he delivered on Thursday, March 19. The address was in response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic wrecking havoc around the world. In his address, PM Modi appealed to his Navagrah, his insistence on holding on firmly to his nine (“nav”) requests relating mainly to cleanliness, service, gratitude, and commonsense. This Navagraha, in part, appears to be borrowed from Mahatma Gandhi’s Satyagraha and partly related to the celebration of the festival of Sri Ram Navami. Satyagraha (satya: “truth”, agraha: “holding firmly to”) is a way to live Truthfully and constructively. Satyagraha is a “truth-force” that is generated through adherence to Truth. PM Modi is an outstanding orator. He has a way of presenting his ideas and connecting to masses in the most simplistic and efficient...

Hindu Nationalism and Hindu Rashtra Nationalism, in today’s world, is a much-maligned concept. Albert Einstein called it “an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.” If that description alone isn’t enough to inspire countless angry op-eds and PhD dissertations, put Hindu next to it and one can send the entire Left-Liberal world into a tizzy. Similarly, the notion of Rashtra gets maligned in much of the Leftist-Marxist ideology dominated media and academia. Lack of intellectual honesty and a lack of deeper understanding accounts for much of the negativity that has come to define these concepts.  Einstein, arguably one of the most famous and influential scientists of the modern time, was a product of an extremely tumultuous time in the history of mankind. As such, his idea of Nationalism was shaped by the events of that era. Much of the bad rap to Nationalism, however, is a result of selective cherry-picking. In addition, when it is applied in Indian contexts, it sp...

Trump’s India visit and changing paradigm of Indian-American politics Amidst the roller-coaster ride and the usual bumps and bruises that have come to define the bilateral trade policy of the Trump administration, the Indian-American politics too is undergoing a tectonic shift in the US. It is in this realm of this paradigm shift that President Trump’s upcoming India trip assumes significance. A lot has happened since there was a talk of US President Donald J Trump visiting India last time. As Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi won his second term in office with an overwhelming majority, the UK just handed the Labor Party its worst defeat in almost a century paving for a smooth Brexit. President Trump himself was impeached by the US House but was acquitted of all charges by the US Senate. It was rumored in the Social Media that President Trump was to go to India. On August 2, 2018 the then White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders had confirmed that “the invitation has ...

The Sky Is Falling. Can Dharma Save It? Yada Yada Hi Dharmasya Glanirbhavati Bharata Abhyutthanan Dharmasya Tadatmanam Srijamyaham ~ The Bhagwadgita (4.7) (Whenever  dharma , the Law, languishes, and lawlessness flourishes, O’ Bharata, I Myself come forth.) Pic Source: Times Of India Reading modern day commentary in the media may present us with a stark, despondent, and disconsolate situation of the world we live in. Widespread socio-economic inequality, social and political strife, shrinking democratic space & freedom of expression, global warming, etc., they all give us a sense of loss in our institutions. If this all sounds like a trite tautology, is it really true? Is our world really on the verge of extinction? Is the world order showing signs of strain? Can our world be saved? As we look around the world it is easy not to feel depressed. The picture presented to us may make us conclude that the ‘universal order’ that sustains the world has deteriorate...

Sri Aurobindo and Swaraj By early 1900, the idea of ‘Swaraj’ as the end purpose of India’s struggle against British dominion was taking foothold in colonial India. In 1906, The Indian National Congress, the ancestor of the current Indian National Congress that has undergone numerous splits, and mutations since Independence in 1947, officially adopted Swaraj as its goal. It was in its Kolkata session in December with Dadabhai Nauroji as its president. When we talk of Swaraj, we mostly think of Tilak and Gandhi. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the Lokmanya (acceptable to the masses), was one of the staunchest proponents of Swaraj. For Tilak, Swaraj was the philosophy of both life and politics. To quote him, “It is a life centered in self and dependent upon self. There is Swaraj in this world as well as in the world hereafter.” For Gandhi, the Mahatma, political Swaraj was the stepping stone of a much bigger and wider Swaraj. His idea of Swaraj also included economic and social Swaraj. It...

Here I attempt to share some of my disagreements with a recent article published in The Deccan Herald. The esteemed daily had publish an oped a few days ago titled Secularism in the age of coronavirus . The author of this piece is Najmul Hoda, an IPS officer and a friend from JNU. He often writes on issues related to Muslims. The author appears to be obsessed with, at least in his piece, with identity politics. The common refrain of his piece is minority-majority, and Hindu-Muslim. In his above-mentioned obsession, he  ignores the fact that at about 12% of indian population and 200 million strong, Muslims in India are not a minority by any stretch of imagination. In his entire discourse Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis, Bahais, etc. do not appear even once. These religious groups comprise roughly less than 10% of the Indian population combined. The premise that India is a 'Hindu Rashtra' because it is 80% Hindu is oversimplification of a thousands of years old...

Impeachment drama and the 2020 presidential race On a cold January day in Washington DC, January 15 2020 to be precise, two signing ceremonies took place not too far from each other. One was where the US President Donald Trump signed the first phase of the US-China trade deal in the East Room of the White House. The deal promises to ease the tension, tariffs, and counter tariffs that has been lurking over the two trading partners ever since Trump took office. In the other signing ceremony a few blocks away, the US House Speaker Nancy Peolsi signed the two articles of impeachment against President Trump to be sent over to the US Senate for trial. These two signing ceremonies have come to symbolize what has become the reality of the American political landscape in the past four years or so. Ever since Donald Trump was elected as the 45th president of the United State of America in 2016, a section of the establishment both in the US media as well as in political circles, has remai...

One can almost be assured that the JNUTA, the Left dominated teachers' association at JNU, is overtly or covertly, is behind most disturbances in JNU. We all know how they patronize the leftist goons as they themselves were during their own student days. These JNUTA-walas never liked the current VC. They want him gone so each one of them can supervise 30 PhD scholars (yes, one of them had 44 a couple of years ago), keep producing useless leftie 'scholars' and Urban Naxals, ke ep winning the JNUSU elections year after year, do all sorts of corruption and keep the Left hegemony alive in JNU and a few other select campuses.  What is getting lost in this current brawl is that it has been brewing for almost two months and JNU has been under siege from these leftists. There have been multiple cases of violence in the last two months. All one needs is to check the news. There has been violence, assault (the VC himself was assaulted), desecration of Swami Vivekananda’ moorti),...

Indian Intellectuals: The New Rudalis of India “All men are intellectuals, but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals.” ~ Antonio Gramsci When Antonio Gramsci was describing ‘intellectuals’ in his famous ‘Prison Notebooks’, he appears to be representing the views of Yaska, the 7th century BCE Indian grammarian-linguist. I am not sure if there is a direct link between the two, but Yaska made a similar statement in his Nirukta while defending his view on how objects are named. Yaska is known for his pioneering work on the science of etymology, the Nirukta. Yaska was the first scholar to treat etymology as an independent science. He was also a great Sanskrit grammarian and he believed that all nouns are derived from verbs ( dhatuj/akhyataj ). This assertion, however, considering the great tradition of disputation and argumentation in the  Indic Knowledge Tradition  (IKT) wasn’t without controversy. Many grammarians, including Gargya, argued that...