सत्य हे कटू असते तेच खरे .......... हिंदुइझम :अॅन आल्टरनेटिव हिस्टरी

वेडी डॅनिजर या लेखिकेचा हिंदुइझम: अॅन आल्टरनेटिव हिस्टरी  हा ग्रंथ पेंग्विन पब्लिशर्स ने प्रकाशित केला. सदर पुस्तक म्हणजे वैदिक संस्कृत ग्रंथात लिहिल्या गेलेल्या वस्तुस्थितीदर्शक  विविध बाबीची चर्चा व त्याचे विश्लेषण होय. भारतातील ९९.९९ टक्के जनतेला संस्कृत भाषा कळत नाही. त्यामुळे सामान्य जणांना वैदिक संस्कृत ग्रंथात काय लिहिले आहे याचा थांगपत्ता लागणे कठीणच आहे. आतापर्यत संस्कृत ग्रंथातील ब्राम्हण समाजाच्या सोईचा भागच बाहेर येत असे. कारण भारतात प्रकाशक व लेखक हे त्याच समुहाचे असल्यामुळे ते संस्कृत ग्रंथातील वादग्रस्त भाग

Good Times Are Gone [ By Romila Thapar, Outlook Magazine]

The news of the withdrawal of Wendy Doniger’s book, The Hindus, An Alternative History, and the subsequent articles and comments on the news, make it clear that the issue is not confined to just the action against this book but has relevance to other aspects in contemporary Indian life. The immediate concern is that of the relationship between authors and publishers. There was a time when publishers closely followed the work of their authors and the implications of what they were publishing. Today perhaps only a few publishers, often only the small and private ones, have such concerns. International publishing houses, or even national ones with an extensive reach, do not always know their authors that well, so invariably they are not too sensitive to the political und­er­currents of the societies where their books sell. Still, the demand for banning a book

The Doctor and the Saint By Arundhati Roy

ANNIHILATION OF CASTE is the nearly eighty-year-old text of a speech that was never delivered.* When I first read it I felt as though somebody had walked into a dim room and opened the windows. Reading Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar bridges the gap between what most Indians are schooled to believe in and the reality we experience every day of our lives.

My father was a Hindu, a Brahmo. I never met him until I was an adult. I grew up with my mother, in a Syrian Christian family in Ayemenem, a small village in communist-ruled Kerala. And yet all around me were the fissures and cracks of caste. Ayemenem had its own separate “Parayan” church where “Parayan” priests preached to an “untouchable” congregation. Caste was implied in peoples’ names, in the way people referred to each other, in the work they did, in the clothes they wore, in the marriages that were arranged,