The Daily Guardian
I have written 26 pieces thus far under this column, which is slightly over the halfway mark for the number of pieces I have committed to. Now is a good time to pause for a bit, think and share a few general and generic thoughts. In the process of writing under this column…
The Daily Guardian
A reading of the literature on colonialism reveals that the story of European colonialism may be traced to what has been referred to as “the Age of Discovery” in the fifteenth century when Christopher Columbus set out in 1492 to “discover” the “New World”, namely the non-Christian world…
The Daily Guardian
While political colonialism had long been done away with, it had been replaced with Western/European imperialism, whose relationship with other cultures was the same as that of the erstwhile colonizers, namely “colonization of the imagination of the dominated”…
Continue reading The European origins of cultural coloniality
The Daily Guardian
The word modern was not only a reference to the time that something belonged to, it was equally, and perhaps more importantly, a reference to the period it did not belong to…
The Daily Guardian
The Bhoomi Pujan for the proposed Shri Ram Temple in Ayodhya is scheduled to take place in five days, marking the culmination of a five-century old indigenous movement to reclaim a site which is of both religious and civilizational importance…
Continue reading The places of Worship Act 1991, decoloniality and indigenous rights
The Daily Guardian
Last week, this author had the occasion to take part in a virtual panel discussion on the intersection between faith and law organised by the department of law of a Pune-based institution. The specific theme of the discussion was the continued relevance of the Bombay High Court’s well-known and widely debated judgement in The State of Bombay v. Narasu Appa Mali (1951)…
Continue reading The deep-seated coloniality in the Indian legal system
The Daily Guardian
Earlier this week, the Indian Government banned 59 mobile applications of Chinese origin invoking its powers under the Information Technology Act 2000. The ban, which is seen as part of Bharat’s retaliatory measures against Chinese aggression at the border, has initiated certain serious conversations and debates both in public and private…
Continue reading Protecting a civilisation in the age of mercantilism and global citizenship
The Daily Guardian
Last October, this author was invited to take part in a public debate at a leading National Law School in Southern India (not “South India”) on the topic “Do We Need a Nation-Wide NRC?”…
Continue reading Civilisationalism and Ethnocentrism: What’s the Difference?
The Daily Guardian
In the previous piece in this series, this author had promised to examine the narrative presented by Indic voices in relation to the indigenous identity of Bharat and its fundamental unity as the basis of its statehood, and contrast it with the treatment of such voices by the colonisers as well as the colonialised native elite. One such Indic voice, whose scholarly works mandate reading by everyone who is interested in Indian history is the legendary historian Radhakumud Mookerji …
The Daily Guardian
Be it an individual or a people, neither must cede or surrender to an external entity the inherent and hence fundamental right to self-definition or self-determination. To give up this most intimate form of agency is to externalise the locus of one’s consciousness and its most tangible product–a crystallised identity. This alienation then takes a life of its own and is extremely difficult to reverse and reclaim …
Yukti 