South Asia Citizens Web

What do spiritual leaders talk when they meet? One thought it may be the matters pertaining to the ‘other world’ that is the focus of their attention, away from the profane World, which is the matter of concern for ordinary people. One thought they may be deliberating on the issues of moral values of the religion. But it seems that is not the case. Recently when many of them met in Mumbai they showed that the saffron garb is the mere exterior, this color of renunciation and piety, is no (…)

The Fallacies of Mainstreaming ‘Jihad’ Not for the first time in its short and eventful history, Pakistan stands poised to make the proverbial descent into anarchy or, if wiser counsels prevail, settle down to being the normal place so many of its citizens and well wishers abroad would like it to be.
As on many occasions in the recent past, Pakistanis are divided and confused about how to avert disaster without compromising on what they value as emblems of their national sovereignty and (…)

This article explores the vast body of English language works on Hinduism published since 1981 by Voice of India—an influential right-wing Hindu publishing house headquartered in New Delhi, but contributed to by Indians at "home" and in diasporic communities, as well as Europeans and North Americans. Focus on the construction of the Hindu "Self" and the non-Hindu "Other" shows the manner in which European thought, primarily represented by the contributions of colonial-era British and German (…)

Victor Kiernan, who has died aged 95, was a man of unselfconscious charm and staggeringly wide range of learning. He was also one of the last survivors of the generation of British Marxist historians of the 1930s and 1940s. If this generation has been seen by the leading German scholar HU Wehler as the main factor behind "the global impact of English historiography since the 1960s", it was largely due to Victor’s influence. He brought to the debates of the Communist party historians’ group (…)

One can only marvel - if that’s the word - at the breathtaking speed with which the sangh parivar has vitiated the social climate in state after state. Within months of taking power in Karnataka, it has unleashed savage repression and turned Mangalore into a Hindu Taliban bulwark, where women are attacked if they go to a bar, where Hindus must not mix with Muslims, and where there is no media freedom and free interaction among young men and women. The Sri Rama Sene led by Mr Pramod Mutalik (…)