Ajith Kumar A S The immediate provocation for writing this letter is TM Krishna’s letter to Modi (“Honourable Narendra Modi-ji”). So I think this letter has to be addressed to a large group of people who ‘share’ TM Krishna’s so-called radical mindset when muslims and dalits are attacked and murdered by caste hindus and …
Goebbelsian Doublespeak: B. R. Ambedkar and the RSS
Dr. N. Sukumar Abstract Historically, the philosophical roots of the RSS can be located in German National Socialism and the former has constantly strived to live up to the ideals of its mentors. This is best illustrated when the RSS indulges in Goebbelsian doublespeak to further its exclusivist nationalism. A lie spoken repeatedly becomes the …
Anurag Kashyap’s Varnas of Wasseypur
Arvind Shesh Disclaimer: You perhaps watch a movie as just a film. You probably even look at society as if it were a film… But I watch a film as a society…and society as politics. Wasseypur is a ‘true’ story Has the RSS instituted a new front comprising people from the film industry to …
BJP Governmentality: Development as Illusion
Vicky Nandgaye Nowadays ‘NaMo’ seems like a brand which is supposed to bring reform in an individual’s life. Modi consistently enjoyed the Chief Ministership of Gujarat from 7 October 2001 to 22 May 2014. Then over that period of operation of the so-called “Gujarat Model” his image grew across the nation with the help …
Hindu Nationalism and Brahmins
Yogesh Maitreya It isn’t an accident that the inventors and propagators of the concept of Hindutva, which later helped shape the consciousness or discourse of Hindu Nationalism, were all Brahmins. All hailed from the state of Maharashtra: V.D. Savarkar, Hedgewar, and M.S. Golwalkar. Golwalkar was born in a brahmin family in Nagpur, Maharashtra, and …
Tilak, the granddaddy of all Hindutvavadis
Gaurav Somwanshi (As the RSS mouthpiece Organiser comes up with a special issue on Babasaheb Ambedkar to attempt, futilely, to appropriate his legacy, we felt it necessary to look at one of the evergreen icons of Hindutva in this country, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and recapitulate the despicable, original roots of Brahmanic nationalism ~ Round …
Beyond the Fairy Tales of India
Braj Ranjan Mani There is little awareness about a more or less institutionalised arrangement of normalising, if not glorifying, the oppressive past from which the privileged continue to derive profit and pleasure. Invented histories, myth-making, and armoury of stereotypes merge to create convenient narratives and myths which masquerade as the history of India. The …
Interpreting the passage of Hindutva in Maharashtra
Yogesh Maitreya The ideology of Hindutva, or the revival of the Vedic dharma or Brahminic religion, represents the starkest contradiction to the Indian constitution, in Maharashtra and throughout India. Its infusion into the soil of Maharashtra can be traced back to the reign of the Peshwas, the period during which untouchability had attained its worst …
Political Economy of Ghar Wapsi: A perspective from below
Nikhil Walde After its electoral victory, BJP’s entire politics revolves around the Hindu religion which has brought about a dismal political scenario in India. The state seems to be departing from constitutional democracy- from the modern function of a state to the traditional monocratic form of state. All this is quite evident, for instance, …