Tag: Indic civilisation

The Sree Padmanabhaswamy verdict: A case for Indic civilisational identity

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The Daily Guardian

Five days ago, on July 13th, a Bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice U.U. Lalit and Justice Indu Malhotra pronounced the verdict in the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple case, which was pending before it since 2011. The 218-page verdict has finally put to rest all the unnecessary controversy surrounding the world renowned Temple which is the object of worship and reverence for millions of devotees of the Presiding Deity the world over.…

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Addressing transgenerational trauma through history education

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The Daily Guardian

Two days ago, legendary West Indian cricketer Michael Holding delivered a powerful message on the ongoing #BlackLivesMatter movement which has taken the United States of America by storm and has started a global conversation on racism, in particular with respect to the stereotypes associated with members of the African community in predominantly White countries. While there are several relevant threads from an Indian perspective to pull from Holding’s heartfelt and deeply emotional message, following are the excerpts which this author wishes to focus on for the purpose of this piece…

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Protecting a civilisation in the age of mercantilism and global citizenship

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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…

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Bharat, China and civilisational conviction

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The Daily Guardian

From the first week of May this year, the Sino-Bharat standoff at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh has hogged the news cycle despite the Covid-19 pandemic and, perhaps, rightly so. While experts on the subject are better placed to comment on the goings-on at the border, this author is interested in the big picture significance…

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India that is Bharat

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The Daily Guardian

In the previous piece, this author had contended that the use of (a) “ancient land” to refer to this country in the Objectives Resolution of January 22, 1947 by the Constituent Assembly, and (b) “Bharat” in Article 1 as a synonym for “India”, was proof that the framers of the Constitution were conscious of the civilizational heritage and legacy of the Republic of India/Bharat…

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Bharat: An Indic Civilisation State

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The Daily Guardian

In the last piece, this author had presented a broad summary of historian Radhakumud Mookerji’s book The Fundamental Unity of India to understand how indigenous scholarly voices, which existed well before 1947, saw Bharat. In reading and interpreting works of history, it is critical to understand that history has always been a fertile battleground…

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The Rediscovery of Bharat

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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 …

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Restoring the Indigenous Gaze

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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 …

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The Nation State, Decoloniality and the Non-Nation State

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The Daily Guardian

For quite a few decades now, decoloniality has emerged in Latina America as a powerful critique of the Eurocentric or Western-centric nature of the Post-colonial discourse. Broadly, as a construct, decoloniality posits that despite legal and physical decolonization of former colonies, overt and subconscious coloniality: (a) persists in the State institutions inherited by Post-colonial States; (b) affects their thinking at the societal level and (c) manifests itself even at the level of an individual. …

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