Walk into any Indian university seminar room and you will hear scholars dissect Manusmriti’s verses on women with surgical precision. Ask the same room about verses in other scriptures that restrict a woman’s testimony, inheritance, or right to lead prayer, and the silence becomes its own data point.
Satyam eva jayate — truth alone triumphs. It is a phrase so overused in India that it has lost its spine. Arun Shourie, journalist, economist, minister, polemicist, and perhaps the most inconvenient public intellectual India has produced since independence, spent five decades trying to restore that spine to Indian public life.
“ஒத்தற்கு எனிதாய் உணர்தற்கு அரிதாகி வேதப் பொருளாய் மிகவிளங்கித் - தித்திப்போர் உள்ளுதொறு உள்ளுதொறு உள்ளம் உருக்குமே வள்ளுவர் வாய்மொழி
Nalanda Had No WhatsApp and Still Beat Oxford by 1,000 Years. What Happened? "Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it." — Bal Gangadhar Tilak But swaraj — self-rule — was never only political. The word means sva (self) + raj (governance). It always included the governance of the
A man in rural Maharashtra tries to register a land dispute. The process requires affidavits in English, even though he himself speaks Marathi. The form references sections of an Act passed in 1908. The Act was never designed to give him justice but to file him — to classify his grievance.
As a Sikh kid growing up in California, it’s safe to say that a large part of my time has been spent playing a juggling act between my Indian and American sides. I assimilated just enough to fit in with my American friends, while still holding on to my
There are two Indians whose statues stand in foreign capitals. Whose biographies fill Western shelves. These two men receive the world's admiration. One despised his own villages, wore Savile Row, and believed civilization flowed in one direction; from London to India. The other preached that the oppressed should
There is a question that sits quietly at the edge of Indian “intellectual” discourse, rarely asked aloud in polite academic circles but increasingly impossible to ignore: how does a political tradition that champions atheism, gender equality, LGBTQIA+ rights, and the dismantling of religious authority find itself in sustained, structural alliance
The Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2024 led to several controversies, protests and violent eruptions. The leaders of All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) claimed, “The Muslim community views this Waqf Amendment Bill as a direct attack on the community. It is evident that the BJP’s politics thrive on communal
The aim of the sinless One consists in acting without causing sorrow to others, although he could attain great power by ignoring their feelings. The aim of the sinless One lies in not doing evil unto those who have done evil unto him. If a man causes suffering even to
Pakistan was not the result of a territorial dispute. Its founders didn't argue about where to draw a line on a map. They argued about whether two communities could share a future, concluded they could not, and built a country on that conclusion. Pakistan was designed, from its
"All religions are essentially the same." You've heard it. Maybe you've even said it. Sounds enlightened but it's not. It's merely intellectual surrender dressed up as wisdom. Composite culture means that you don't defend anything because defending requires