Facets of Materialism in India: A Historical Outline - Part I

Ramkrishna Bhattacharya The history of materialist thought in India is quite old, going back at least to the times of the Buddha. But its latest form, known as the Cārvāka/Lokāyata, flourished only in or around the eighth century CE. It was a living system till the twelfth century. Thereafter it seems to have vanished into the blue, without leaving any trace whatsoever. It was the most uncompromising philosophical system that ever appeared in India. It refused to accept the notions of the...

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Controlling Thought and Food Habits

Ram Puniyani The intolerance does not grow in one field of social life in isolation. In different arena of our life it tends to run in a parallel manner. In Maharashtra, with the BJP majority Government in seat of power, we had a ban on the storing, selling and eating of beef few months ago. This ban increased the problems of a large section of society, the workers in abettor, those consuming beef and those selling beef. The workers of Devnar abettor, located in Mumbai, the biggest one in the...

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Killing a Rationalist: Silencing Reason

Ram Puniyani The killing of Professor Maleeshappa Madhivallapa Kalburgi on 30th August 2015 came as a severe jolt to all those who are for an open, liberal society, who uphold the values of reason and are against blind faith. Prof. Kalburgi was a renowned scholar with over 100 books to his credit. He had brought to fore the ideology of Basavanna; the 12th Century poet saint of Kannada; and had supported the idea that Lingyats, the followers of Basavanna be given the status of religious minorities...

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Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj: To Each Ones’ Own!

Ram Puniyani Some concerned citizens have filed a Public Interest Litigation (August 17 2015) to stop the highest award of Maharashtra Government, Maharashtra Bhushan to Babasaheb Purandare. Purandare is known for his work ‘Raja Shivaji Chatrapati’ and the play ‘Jaanata Raja’ (wise king) his is not the first time that such a controversy around Purandare has come up. Few years ago Maharashtra Government had appointed him as Chairman of the Committee which was to plan the statue of Shivaji in...

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What did Colonialism do to India?

Ram Puniyani A video of Shashi Tharoor speaking at Oxford on a debate related to the colonial period has been ‘viral’ on the social circuit for a while. In this video Tharoor makes a passionate plea to the British that they make reparations for the losses to Indian economy during the British rule. He puts the blame of India’s economic decline on the British and also recounts Jalianwala Bag, Bengal famine as the major highlight of British rule which reflected the attitude of British towards...

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Saluting Courage: Memorial for Vasant Rajab

Ram Puniyani Gujarat violence (2002) was horrific. In this, after the burning of train in Godhra in which 58 innocents died, the same tragedy was made the pretext to launch the massive violence in which over one thousand people perished. In the aftermath of that I got many occasions to visit different parts of Gujarat and also to come to know about two legendary youth who had laid down their life to protect the people when the communal violence was going on in Ahmadabad in July 1946. These...

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The State Must Not Organise Religious Festivals

Ram Puniyani After staging the Yoga spectacle on 21st June 2015 on Rajpath, Delhi, the Modi government now plans to celebrate Rakhi, Raksha Bandhan on a grand scale in late August. This plan has full approval of its parent organization, the RSS. Now a Hindu religious festival will be given the status of a national festival. It surely is indicative of the deeper agenda of narrow nationalism this Government has in mind.  As such this festival Raksha Bandhan stands for ‘bond of protection’ and is amongst the very popular festivals, primarily...

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