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Showing posts from September, 2015

BJP/RSS, Sanskrit and Raja Rammohan Roy

Since Narendra Modi and his BJP party's Hindu nationalist government has come to power in Delhi last year, there is a relentless onslaught of Sanskrit language education and India's glorious past's propaganda. Modi government's education minister Smriti Irani has, so far, forced Sanskrit language teaching on the Kendriya Vidyalaya schools displacing the learning of German language (see here , and here ) against the wishes of many parents (see here ). BJP's home minister Rajnath Singh said that, Sanskrit is most useful for science, technology! (see here ) In this speech he can be seen disparaging English language. BJP/RSS Hindu nationalist also hijacked the recent 102nd Indian Science Congress (see here ). In a Science Congree, they presented a paper titled ' ‘Ancient Science Through Sanskrit’ with other papers on mythical planes capable of inter-planetary travel and unproven claims of scientific breakthroughs in pre-history! So, is Sanskrit language and ed

Lessons from Gujarat Patel Riots

The state of Gujarat again, after a lull of few years, erupted in violence in the form of caste related riots last week. The Patels (Patidars, a mainly land owning caste in Gujarat) are agitating for reservation status under the leadership of a young but confused Mr. Hardik Patel. There are many lessons that we can learn from this past week events. I will discuss them one by one below. Firstly, I above said that Mr. Hardik Patel is confused. I said it because his agitation for reservation status is based on wrong ideas. The real struggle in society is not between Patidars and other OBC caste or SC or ST or Open cateogry caste. The real struggle is not between Hindus or Muslims or Christians etc. The real struggle in not between Rich or Poor. The real struggle is between, the tax paying class of the society and the tax consuming class i.e., The Tax Payers and The Tax Consumers . Nineteenth century American political philosopher John C. Calhoun identified this struggle very clearly.