Tomichan Matheikal's blog

  Book Review Title: Aryans: The Search for a People, a Place and a Myth Author: Charles Allen Publisher: Hatchette India, 2023 Pages: 387 This is a book that has the potential to enrage the Right wing of India. It subverts the entire attempt of Modi Inc to arrogate the roots of Aryan racehood to India. The Aryans did not originate in India, this book asserts with sufficient scientific proofs. They came to India across the Himalayas in a very natural process of migration. All migrations were not invasions necessarily. But all successful mass migrations do affect the native population adversely one way or the other. The Harappan and Mohenjo-Daro civilisations had nothing to do with Aryans unless we consider the possibility of their being driven to extinction by the Aryans. This the 26 th and the last book of Charles Allen, a traveller, historian and scholar on India. Allen – who says that his very name comes from the word ‘Aryan’ – died in 2020 without completing this bo

Shyam was grazing his goats on the hillock when a group of men stopped their SUV on the roadside and walked towards him. “If we tell you the exact number of goats in your flock, will you give us one of your goats?” Shyam was amused. “Yes,” he nodded. One of the young men took out his smartphone, fingered with it for a while and said, “123.” [The notorious IT cell of the party had apparently accessed Shyam’s flock too.] “Right,” Shyam agreed. “Pick your goat.” The men picked up a goat and carried it to their SUV. “Are you from any right-wing organisation?” Shyam asked as they moved on. “Yup,” one man said. “How’d you know?” “Simple. First of all, you came to me totally uninvited. Secondly, you taxed me for telling me something I already know. Thirdly, you don’t know a thing about goats. This creature you’re carrying is my dog.” This is an old story that I have adapted for this post. This story was kicked up in my memory by another adaptation of

In his famous novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover , D H Lawrence predicted the death of the human race where “vitality” is concerned.  He compared the human race to “a great uprooted tree, with its roots in the air” and suggested that “we must plant ourselves again in the universe.” Hinduism is a religion which ardently believed in the cosmic roots of the human race.  The cosmos is a sacred place and we are its vital parts, according to Hindu scriptures like the Vedas and the Upanishads.  Philosophically Hinduism is one of the most profound views on the meaning of human existence.  It was never exclusive.  On the contrary, it could easily incorporate anything into its cosmic vision.  The Grand Canyon is as sacred as Mount Kailash in that vision.  The Thames is as holy as the Ganga philosophically.  Mohan Bhagwat’s repeated assertion that all Indians are Hindu s is right philosophically.  But then, why only Indians?  In fact, if we go by the logic of Hindu philosophy, all people

Professor Mukul Manglik of Ramjas College, Delhi concludes his interview to Frontline with a quote from historian Howard Zinn: “Human history is not only a history of cruelty, but also of compassion, courage and kindness... and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is inhuman and cruel around us, is itself a marvellous victory.” Struggle against Right Wing cruelty Source: India Today The students’ union, ABVP, had unleashed a lot of cruelty on the campus and the Professor was speaking about that.  He mentions in the interview that he as well as many other teachers feels intimidated by ABVP which physically assaulted some teachers during the agitation.  ABVP is a student organisation that is affiliated to RSS and nurtured by BJP both of which take pride in Hindu culture and civilisation.  The teacher is placed on a par with god in the ancient Hindu tradition.  It then becomes extremely ironical and darkly comical that teachers in a

The day Donald Trump strutted proudly to the White House, The Guardian concluded an article about Trumpism with the following paragraph: The religious right is in retreat, and the political appeal of free-market fundamentalism is fading. Republican strategists will now turn to Trumpism to replenish the well, enlisting its many supporters and sympathizers as foot soldiers for a new era of rightwing ascendancy. Now that Trump has reached the White House, the era of Trumpism has just begun. Source: Trump As Lord Vishnu? How Hindus In America Are Campaigning For Donald Trump Some sort of right wing balderdash always holds sway over collective imagination whether in America or India.  Religion may be losing its traditional sheen.  But it keeps reincarnating in the form of gau mata or Trumpism or something of the sort. But is religion really “in retreat”?  This is one question that refused to leave me after reading the Guardian article yesterday.  So I researched using

Hindutva India is very proud of its ancient heritage of Vedic wisdom.  At the same time, it is painfully aware of the futility of that wisdom in a world which is led forward at rocket-speed by Western science.  On the one hand, India sees itself as the Jagatguru.  On the other hand, it has a Prime Minister who goes to every country he can and tries to cash in on Western science as well as Western economics.  Modi’s India sees no contradiction in asserting the superiority of India while begging the other countries for all sorts of investments.  India knows that Western science and economic policies are what really matter in today’s world.  But it cannot digest that fact simply because it believes more in its gods, godmen and the scriptures with all their obsolete systems and worldview.  So Hindutva India will keep asserting that our Vedas and other scriptures contained all the science and mathematics much before the ‘cultureless’ Westerners civilised themselves.  We ha

Kerala has been celebrating Onam for years and years as a festival of equality, prosperity, and utopian dreams.  The legend is that the reign of Maveli (Maha Bali) was a utopia.  People were honest.  They respected one another.  Everyone was happy.  Life had a heavenly dignity.  The heavens were unhappy, however.  Gods conspired to put an end to the earthly utopia.  Vamana, an avatar of God Vishnu, encountered Maveli and sent him down to the netherworld (Patala) deceitfully.  Maveli Happy Onam to you  The right wing Hindu organisation, RSS, has come out in defence of the gods.  Onam was originally a celebration of the birthday of Vamana and had nothing to do with Maveli, argues K Unnikrishnan Namboothiri in his article published in the Onam special edition of Kesari , the RSS mouthpiece in Malayalam.   Namboothiri wants to exculpate the gods from their deceitfulness and other venality.  The Maveli legend “is an attempt by some vested interests to distort the mythical st

We become like our enemies. The Sangh Parivar is proving the saying right if the latest issue of Outlook is to be believed.  The Parivar which never tired of accusing the Christian missionaries and the Islamic fundamentalists of converting people into their respective religions is now indulging in the same activity much more ruthlessly and heartlessly, according to the Outlook cover story.  Children between the age of 5 and 12 are weaned away from their parents under fraudulent promises and with fake documents and taken to institutions in Gujarat and Punjab.  Most of the children belong to various tribes in Assam and other North-eastern states.  According to the Outlook reports which quote official sources, about 5000 children were taken away from Assam alone in 2012-15.  These and other similar children from other states are sent to the various institutions run by Sewa Bharati which was set up in 1978 by Balasaheb Deoras with the purported goal of promoting the welfare

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it,” said one of Terry Pratchett’s characters in his witty fantasy novel, Diggers .   An open mind belongs to the seeker of truth.  Truth being as elusive and deceptive as happiness, it keeps the seeker going on and on endlessly.  Most people don’t like such endlessness.  People like to snuggle down in the cosy warmth of the status quo.   Religion is the most staunch supporter of the status quo.  And religion insists on putting things into open minds.  And shut them. The cosy warmth of the status quo is what turns the BJP and its allies against Jawharlal Nehru University and Hyderabad Central University, says Kancha Illaiah in his article in the Indian Express .  Both JNU and HCU have produced numerous thinkers and scholars because their academic environment encouraged the liberal pursuit of truth. Banaras Hindu University, on the contrary, has failed to prod

“We want to tell him (Rahul Gandhi) that we are honoured to be called followers of Savarkar…he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the British. He jumped into the sea, escaping from the clutches of British soldiers and swam for 10 km, and fought for Independence.”  Amit Shah thundered while addressing a farmer’s rally in a Surat village .   This is yet another instance of his party’s relentless efforts at rewriting the history of India.  What kind of a person was this ‘Veer’ Savarkar in reality? Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was brought to the Cellular Jail in the Andamans in 1911 after his conviction for the murder of A.T.M. Jackson, Collector of Nashik district, who was "sympathetic towards Indian aspirations."  Within six months of his imprisonment, he submitted a petition for mercy to the British government in India.  In 1913, he submitted his second petition in which he wrote: " I am ready to serve the (British) Government in any capacity they like ... .

Once I asked a class of sixteen-year olds, both boys and girls, mostly Christians, why the Biblical Satan chose to tempt Eve rather than Adam.  The answers varied from women’s “gullibility” to their “susceptibility to flattery.”  I was mildly disappointed for not getting the response which I looked forward to: “The Bible was written by a man.” Image courtesy: Countercurrents A few days back, the Travancore Devaswom Board obtained a new president, Prayar Gopalakrishnan, who seems to be the 21 st century avatar of the writer of Genesis.  He thinks, like the author of the Adam-Eve myth, that women are an impure species.  When asked whether women would be allowed entry into the most celebrated temple in Kerala, the Sabarimala Temple, he said that he would wait for the invention of a machine that could scan the female body to determine “if it is the 'right time' (not menstruating) for a woman to enter the temple. When that machine is invented, we will talk about letting

The RSS has decided to grow up from shorts to trousers.  Can we hope that the change in the organisation’s sartorial taste is indicative of some attitudinal changes?  After all, the trousers are not traditional Indian dress.  Will the RSS broaden its ideological landscape to include certain good aspects of the culture from which it is downloading the bottoms? If the RSS were to stick to Indian culture, it would have to prescribe the dhoti to its members since that was the traditional dress of Indian men for a very long period although there were innovative ways of wearing it.  The long piece of unstitched cloth was the easiest dress to manufacture.  Stitching was not required.  Even the women’s sari belongs to that ancient period.  Though the Indian men have opted for the more convenient trousers, the women have chosen to retain the inconveniences wrapped in the five-metre tapestry.  But the RSS is averse to women.  So their sartorial options will be narrowed down to a choice

One BJP minister beefs about his chief minister of the same party in Karnataka and goes to the extent of threatening to behead him if he ate beef “and play football with his severed head.”  We have so many beef-heads in the country who have bizarre notions about games and their tribe is increasing especially since the cow migrated from its usual habitats on the city streets to the new lullabies with which our present leaders are trying to put the whole nation to an intoxicated sleep.  The lullabies are, however, beginning to sound like beef-hearts – at least to some of us. The BJP chief minister of Karnataka does not eat beef.  He was merely defending the people’s right to eat whatever they liked.  But the BJP does not believe in such magnanimity.  It is a party beefed up by religious and cultural ideologies.  Religion has its god-given truths which no beef-head can transmute into beef-hearts.  A plain truth is that beef is no delicacy.  It is hard and extremely fibrous. 

According to Chetan Bhagat, a liberal in India today is a person who was born in an upper class family, received English education, absorbed the world culture, carried hotdogs to school in their tiffin box, visited Disneyland, and ridiculed those who spoke English in India with a vernacular accent.  The popular writer said this and much more in his Times of India article yesterday.  He goes on to reduce the current communal disturbances and acts of intolerance to a mere class struggle between the privileged and the underprivileged, the latter being the present-day nationalists whom the former refer to derogatorily as the right-wing, or sanghis, or bhakts, or chaddiwallahs.  “There is a reason why liberals are derogatorily referred to as pseudo-secular, pseudo-intellectual and pseudo-liberal,” claims Bhagat. “For their agenda is not to be liberal. Their agenda is to look down on the classes that don’t have the global culture advantage.”  He goes on to say that “If, for insta