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In the framework of Europalia India, a string of institutions including my Alma Mater, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, hosts a series of exhibitions, performances, films showings, conferences and lectures. Last Tuesday and Wednesday, Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal was to speak in Brussels and Leuven, but he didn’t show up, being detained in a sex scandal. [...]

“Upcoming elections in Nepal. The rule of law for a democratic and peaceful process”: on 13 November 2013, the Brussels-based European Institute for Asian Studies held a conference to prepare us for the second elections for a Constituent Assembly in Nepal. In 2008, the Nepalese people had already elected a first Constituent Assembly, but it [...]

  Abstract Since 2003, the International Council for Cultural Studies has organized a five-day “International Conference and Gathering of Elders of Ancient Traditions and Cultures” every third year. Participants include spokesmen of the Maori, Yoruba, Maya, Lakota etc. religions, as well as neo-Druids, Romuva Lithuanians etc. Each of the conferences took place in India, with [...]

On 27 August 2013, the Jesuit think-tank UCSIA inside Antwerp University (Universitair Centrum Sint-Ignatius Antwerpen) hosted, as part of its series on “Religion, Culture and Society”, a lecture by the sociologist of religion, José Casanova of Georgetown University. He spoke with a heavy Spanish accent about “Types of Secular States and Regimes of Religious Pluralism: [...]

The Ramakrishna debate, continued from part 1 The debate on the Ramakrishna Mission’s claim that Ramakrishna, the 19th-century Kali priest, also practiced Christianity and Islam, and that he distanced himself from Hinduism to found a new universal religion called Ramakrishnaism, has taken the form of some hostile reactions from sympathizers of the Mission. They may [...]

The central argument of the RK Mission for its non-Hindu character was that, unlike Hinduism, it upheld the ‘equal truth of all religions’ and the ‘equal respect for all religions’.  The latter slogan was popularized by Mahatma Gandhi as sarva-dharma-samabhâva, a formula officially approved and upheld in the BJP’s constitution.n 1983, RK Mission spokesman Swami [...]

It is commonly believed that caste, i.e. the division of society in endogamous groups, is an exclusively Hindu institution. Thus, after briefly describing the system of the four varnas, Ambedkar writes: “This is called by the Hindus the Varna Vyavasthâ. It is the very soul of Hinduism. Without Varna Vyavasthâ there is nothing else in [...]

A county judge in San Diego CA has ruled that yoga is not always religious (Washington Post, 2 July 2013). Parents in a San Diego school district had complained that yoga is intrinsically intertwined with the Hindu religion and that its practice in a public school setting violates the constitutional separation of church and state. [...]

A Contention often heard in (indian) secularist circles, is that this Hindu revivalism is a form of Hindu fascism. Specifically, a BJP in power would soon reveal itself to be a Nazi government– but then it would be too late. I will not bother about quoting all the people who have made such allegations (there [...]

Already the younger generation asks what the California textbook affair was. Now that California has been endowed with a Hindu awareness month (in a resolution co-authored by the Hindu American Foundation, , the first one scheduled for this coming October, Hindus are enthusiastic that they will be able to show off their culture. But past [...]