Dr Koenraad Elst and HHR member discuss the discrimination against Hindus under Article 30 of the Indian Constitution Why this discrimination against Hindus? Apart from anti-secular and discriminatory governmental control of all prominent Hindu temples (whereas no Christian church or Muslim mosque has been touched by government control), another issue tormenting Hindus and demolishing [...]
December 16, 2013
HHR
HHR Videos
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. [...]
“On Hinduism is a treat. For those who already know and admire Wendy Doniger’s work, this is a handy (if hefty) compendium of many of her essays…. For those who are reading her for the first time, the book is a marvellous introduction to the multiple ways that Hinduism can be approached and understood through [...]
December 1, 2013
HHR
Analysis/Insights
One of the biggest ill-effects of the post-colonial ‘Idea of India’ is the confusion it created in the Indian mind about the country, its culture, its nation and state. While clarity exists in the minds of learned men who studied Indian/Hindu culture, many simply lack it. The idea of this write-up is not to analyze [...]
November 20, 2013
HHR
Analysis/Insights
The outburst by India’s leading rationalists back in 2013 over K Radhakrishnan’s visit to the famous Lord Venkateswara temple in southern India needs to be examined. Radhakrishnan is chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisationand the head of India’s space agency, in fact the man responsible for launching that nation’s mission to the planet Mars. [...]
November 11, 2013
Ranbir Singh
Archives, Atheist Irrationalism
Western society today believes only in “exploitation,” “expansion,” “efficiency,” “competitiveness”—and seeks to transform its members into unthinking cogs in a huge Machine. We will certainly find some remarkable individuals here and there, but the mass is left to live from day to day, with, now and then, the luxury of a fit of depression, when [...]
October 25, 2013
HHR
Spirituality/Culture
The Rise of Hindu Anger across India has nothing to do with ‘Modi’, the RSS/VHP or the BJP or some imaginary Hindutva Fascism Phantom but the root cause is Indian ‘Secularism’ itself.And it will go out of control if the Indian ‘secular’ state continues with its anti Hindu policies. Muzaffarnagar is just one of many [...]
September 21, 2013
Rajesh Patel
Analysis/Insights, Archives, India
Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat, was already a controversial figure before the BJP nominated him as party candidate for post of prime minister. But ‘controversial’ to whom? And for what? The constant attacks on Modi have actually had the reverse effect of increasing the popularity of what otherwise would have been one of many [...]
September 15, 2013
Ranbir Singh
Analysis/Insights
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: [...]
September 6, 2013
Dr Koenraad Elst
Analysis/Insights
For Hindi Version go to : भारत का स्वरुप कैसा हो? सेकुलर या हिन्दू? “Hinduism, which is the most skeptical and the most believing of all, the most skeptical because it has questioned and experimented the most, the most believing because it has the deepest experience and the most varied and positive spiritual knowledge, that [...]
February 17, 2013
Ranbir Singh
Analysis/Insights