Shashi Tharoor wrote a massive book back in 2018 to explore the paradoxes that constitute the man called Narendra Modi. Paradoxes dominate present Indian politics. One of them is what’s called the Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS). What constitute the paradox here are two parallel realities: one genuinely valuable, and the other deeply regressive. The contributions of Aryabhata and Brahmagupta to mathematics, Panini to linguistics, Vedanta to philosophy, and Ayurveda to medicine are genuine traditions that may deserve due attention. But there’s a hijacked version of IKS which is a hilariously, if not villainously, political project. Much of what is now packaged as IKS in government documents, school curricula, and propaganda includes mythological claims treated as historical facts, pseudoscience (e.g., Ravana’s Pushpaka Vimana as a real aircraft or Ganesha’s trunk as a product of plastic surgery), astrology replacing astronomy, ritualism replacing reasoning, attempts to invent the r...
I was horrified by this comment of his. He has single handedly managed to give yoga a bad name.
ReplyDeletePrecisely. He is doing a terrible disservice to the real yoga, yogi and Hinduism itself.
DeleteI was horrified...I really was! But, honestly, I was never a fan of Baba Ramdev.
ReplyDeleteThinking people can't be his fans. He is more an entertainer and entrepreneur than a yogi.
DeleteI think he is foolish to cut heads of his probable customers, the current situation in country is like ' Andher Nagri Chaupat Raja'
ReplyDeleteHe could not even pass class 8. What can we expect of him?
DeleteI have felt the same about him Matheikal, I think it was the time when Anna Hazare was in news and this guy suddenly became politically famous. Don't know what the true intentions are anymore!!
ReplyDeleteFair is foul and foul is fair, as Shakespeare's witches said.
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