critics

"The oppression of women, economic or personal, is not solely a White-Black Race confrontation although the oppression of Black Women is deeply tied to the variable of race in the history of imperialism."

"What we want in Africa is social transformation. It is not about warring with men, the reversal of role, or doing to men whatever women think that men have been doing for centuries, but it is trying to build a harmonious society."

"The liberation of women is conceived as the desire of women to reduce men to housekeepers. Since most men despise manual work for feudal and middle class reasons, women’s liberation is feared as an effort by women to ‘feminise’ men, that is, degrade them."

"My mother took her place very firmly as a leader in many structures, though in the"

"We must remember that there were radical outlets for women in indigenous African cultures, and in our colonised societies, contact with Europe brought with it the inheritance of European movements and social concerns. So there were inheritors of the British suffragette movement in Nigeria, while my mother, a teacher's college professor, was a practitioner of many of the radical ideas of the Victorian period about women. My perceptions of gender hierarchies were sharp growing up. I was raised with a male sibling as well as female and male wards living with my mother. I was much of a tomboy then. I did not have any important position in my nuclear family of five children, meaning I was neither first nor last boy or girl. No position! I could also see that boys had advantages, even though my progressive mother made all the boys in her house, including my other brothers, do housework. They learned to sew, knit and embroider! She also made us share the housework with the house help or servants. She said her children could not grow up spoilt while others learnt to be effective and efficient. So from very young I had a healthy attitude towards class differences, having been raised to respect everybody in the work they did.Gender hierarchies were so sharp for me that I always wondered as a pre-teen whether marriage was a good idea. Many folktales and other forms of informal educational modes existed to help prepare women for accepting male dominance in marriage. I saw marriage in the Christian world I was in as restrictive, though my mother was a suffragette, if there was any such thing. I say "Christian" world because I could also see that women in the local, unWesternised society around us had different values and freedoms. Within Yoruba marriage, the woman was culturally expected to defer to the husband. Yet Christian marriage restricted Yoruba women of my mother's generation in an unusual way (dress, freedom of movement, association, and gainful work outside the home beyond the financial control of the husband). There were dignifying and structurally important roles for women in Yoruba culture, even within its patriarchal assumptions, and some would say, androgynous cultural practices and cosmology of the Yoruba, expressed in the philosophical fount to the culture that Ifa Divination Poetry with its thousands of verses. One argument is that women were weighted equally with men as human beings, but had to defer to men in certain contexts, while men deferred in others."

"The transformation of African society is the responsibility of both men and women and it is also in their interest."

"The Japanese theatre art differs so widely from anything to be seen in Western countries that it might as well belong to the people of Mars or Saturn, so far removed is it from the ordinary affairs of life as known and experienced in the West. But just because the Eastern hemisphere has founded its theatres on opposite principles from those of Europe, there is all the more reason why this uncharted field of human endeavour should become familiar to our unaccustomed ears and eyes."

"Kabuki is most distinguished when it deals with the weird and grotesque, and the American visitor may not be at all surprised if among the insubstantial stage creations of the Japanese he becomes acquainted with the spirit of a cherry tree, or the transformation of a maid into a fox or a lion."

"The western observer no doubt upon first impression may regard it as a hardchip that the girls of a family should do no more than gaze upon the beautiful dolls and be satisfied, and that these bright creatures of silk, embroidery and brocade from the hands of the skilled craftsmen are not to be touched, only to be admired at a distance. In brief, they are education, and so become removed from the sphere of ordinary playthings."

"Throughout the realm, the Hina Matsuri will be observed in the homes of rich and poor alike when a series of shelves, one rising above the other, and covered with a red cloth will be placed in the best room of the dwelling. Here the treasured dolls and their furniture will be displayed for one day only."

"In the No the world of the real is left behind and the audience enters into a land of imagination; the face of the actor would clash with the non-realistic material of the play and the treatment."

"The long procession of priests in picturesque robes, and the group of feudal lords in their large ceremonial court costumes of many colors, made a memorable stage picture, and one, indeed, that the most extravagant of motion picture scenes might well emulate."

"A more disciplined stage than that of the Imperial can hardly be duplicated in any of the world's theater centers. The present repertory company has played together since the founding of the theater, and many of the younger actors have been associated with it since childhood."

"The answer, I suspect, is that we are programmed to see Hindu-Muslim relations in simplistic terms: Hindus provoke, Muslims suffer."

"Try and take the incident out of the secular construct that we, in India, have perfected and see how bizarre such an attitude sounds in other contexts. Did we say that New York had it coming when the Twin Towers were attacked last year? Then too, there was enormous resentment among fundamentalist Muslims about America's policies, but we didn't even consider whether this resentment was justified or not. Instead we took the line that all sensible people must take: any massacre is bad and deserves to be condemned. When Graham Staines and his children were burnt alive, did we say that Christian missionaries had made themselves unpopular by engaging in conversion and so, they had it coming? No, of course, we didn't."

"Even moderate Hindus, of the sort that loathe the VHP, are appalled by the stories that are now coming out of Gujarat: stories with uncomfortable reminders of 1947 with details about how the bogies were first locked from outside and then set on fire and how the women’s compartment suffered the most damage."

"There is something profoundly worrying in the response of what might be called the secular establishment to the massacre in Godhra. ... There is no suggestion that the karsewaks started the violence ... there has been no real provocation at all ... And yet, the sub-text to all secular commentary is the same: the karsewaks had it coming to them. Basically, they condemn the crime; but blame the victims ..."

"Why then are these poor karsewaks an exception? Why have we de- humanised them to the extent that we don't even see the incident as the human tragedy that it undoubtedly was ... I know the arguments well because—like most journalists—I have used them myself. And I still argue that they are often valid and necessary. But there comes a time when this kind of rigidly ‘secularist’ construct not only goes too far; it also becomes counter-productive. When everybody can see that a trainload of Hindus was massacred by a Muslim mob, you gain nothing by blaming the murders on the VHP 19 or arguing that the dead men and women had it coming to them. Not only does this insult the dead (What about the children? Did they also have it coming?), but it also insults the intelligence of the reader."

"Any media - indeed, any secular establishment - that fails to take into account the genuine concerns of people risks losing its own credibility."

"When this formula does not work -- it is clear now that a well-armed Muslim mob murdered unarmed Hindus - we simply do not know how to cope. We shy away from the truth - that some Muslims committed an act that is indefensible - and resort to blaming the victims."

"There is something profoundly worrying in the response of what might be called the secular establishment to the massacre in Godhra...Some versions have it that the karsevaks shouted anti-Muslim slogans; others that they taunted and harassed Muslim passengers. According to these versions, the Muslim passengers got off at Godhra and appealed to members of their community for help. Others say that the slogans were enough to enrage the local Muslims and that the attack was revenge...it does seem extraordinary that slogans shouted from a moving train, or at a railway platform, should have been enough to enrage local Muslims, enough for 2,000 of them to have quickly assembled at eight in the morning, having already managed to procure petrol bombs and acid bombs."

"Do we realise how that hastily-ordered ban [on the book The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie] has changed India forever? .... When the Government promptly submitted to this illiterate hysteria, it convinced [Hindus] that secularism had become a code phrase for Muslim appeasement."

"There is one question we need to ask ourselves: have we become such prisoners of our own rhetoric that even a horrific massacre becomes nothing more than occasion for Sangh Parivar-bashing?"

"The claims Meera Nanda makes there about my own position are factually wrong and seem to be based on what Prof. Meenakshi Jain has aptly called "the Marxist bush telegraph". ... for now I will conclude with an observation on what seems to be her sincere declaration of interest. Among the points that "worry" her, she mentions this as the final one... Here, she really lays her cards on the table. It is very good that, unlike many other "secularists", she does not try to be clever and claim to speak for "true Hinduism" against a "distorted Hinduism" of the Hindu revivalists. Instead, she clearly targets Hinduism itself, deploring any development which might make Hinduism "gain prestige". Let us see if I can translate that correctly: wanting something or someone to suffer rather than to prosper is what we call "hate". She hates Hinduism, and her academic work is written in the service of that hate. To me, that is not the end of the matter. As a Catholic, I was taught never to give up hope, one of the great Christian virtues along with faith and charity.... Ms. Nanda has described how environmentalism in India is often clothed in Hindu language and symbolism. Thus, in trying to protect trees, women tie rakhis, the auspicious red threads which sisters tie around their brothers' wrists on the Hindu festival of Raksha Bandhan, around these trees."

"But her orthography betrays the American roots of her ideological orientation. In 2005-2007 she was in the employ of the John Templeton Foundation, an American Christian lobby-group that claims science as compatible with and even a product of Christianity.... It is not clear whether Meera Nanda has actually converted to Christianity or is merely one of those secularists who, after the fall and discrediting of Communism, have found new patronage in the US-centred Christian network. But fact is that she champions the Christian cause in India. ... That is why a Templeton Foundation agent on a mission to demonize Hindu resistance seizes on this opportunity to criminalize criticism of Islam by associating it with Breivik. [...] Here we have a Templeton scholar in the paid service of the Christian lobby, who tries to implicate the long-dead scholars Ram Swarup and Sita Ram Goel, veterans of the Gandhian non-violent struggle, in the Breivik affair [...] With her false accusation, dragging me and especially dragging Ram Swarup and Sita Ram Goel into the Breivik affair, Meera Nanda has dishonoured herself. I will have a hard time seeing anything but a debtor in her. How did the Marxist intellectual Meera Nanda find employment with the Christian Templeton Foundation? Why, she led them to believe that she was a scientist and philosopher of science, sharing with her prospective employers a proven anti-Hindu animus. ...she doesn’t have the mind of a scientist. She has the mind of a believer, or at least of a politician who wants to keep the believers happy... Meera Nanda can only stand on the other side, criminalizing fundamental criticism of Islam, because she is not a scientist at heart... But we know who Meera Nanda is. She is a troubled woman projecting her own obsessions on others. She is animated by hatred of Hinduism and can’t keep a story straight. But she can make her Marxist and Christian employers believe that she serves their purposes well."

"‘Meera Nanda doesn’t like India. And she hates popular Hinduism with even greater passion’."

"Nanda writes disparagingly of “Hindu” intellectuals––including those in the West—who try to produce alternative sciences often inspired by post-modernism. She is unaware that many—including Einstein and Schrödinger—fit her descriptions of such “Hindu” Western prophets “facing backward” who revolutionized science by “alternative sciences”. She misreads those positions she criticizes into one anti-science conspiracy of post-modernism and Vedic science adherents. ... Instead of rewriting received Western wisdom to fit this real historical experience of India, she resorts to only Western conceptual categories. She damns both Indian social reality as well as attempts at fresh Indian conceptualization. For her, secularization means brainwashing the local population into an unashamed McCauleyite template illustrating deep feelings of insecurity about her own culture... Hers is a collage of ill-argued and tendentious positions; a generally unconvincing polemic. ... She is indeed a backward looking prophet, looking backward to the Western certainties of that age.... Our age begs an important question. How does Asia prepare itself for the Asian century which from all accounts would be on us within the next few decades and India, warts and all, among the leaders? At that global frontier, Asians would have once again to think for themselves drawing inputs from their many different subcultures. But Nanda seems to deny the possibility of such creative attempts."

"I will argue that sacredness of nature does not protect nature. Just because people venerate trees and rivers does not meant that they will take care of them."

"The Hindutva literature is replete with glowing tributes to Hindu “renaissance”, which they claim to be similar to the European Renaissance that ushered in the modern age in the West. What they forget is that the Renaissance in the West re-discovered the humanistic and naturalistic sources of the Greek tradition that had been overshadowed by the Catholic Church – the Renaissance humanists rediscovered this-worldly philosophy of Aristotle and critical-realist Socrates over the other-worldly philosophy of Plato. The neo-Hindu “renaissance”, in contrast, re-discovered the most mystical and anti-humanistic elements of the Vedic inheritance – Advaita Vedanta – that had always overshadowed and silenced the naturalistic and scientific traditions in Hinduism and Buddhism. Neo-Hinduism is no renaissance, but a revival. There is no denying that the neo-Hindu “discovery” of modern science in ancient teachings of Vedas and Upanishads had a limited usefulness. Since they had convinced themselves that their religion was the mother of all sciences, conservative Hindus did not feel threatened by scientific education. As long as science could be treated as “just another name” for Vedic truths, they were even enthusiastic to learn it….."

"The roots of “Vedic science” can be traced to the so-called Bengal Renaissance, which in turn was deeply influenced by the Orientalist constructions of Vedic antiquity as the “Golden Age” of Hinduism. Heavily influenced by German idealism and British romanticism, important Orientalists including H.T. Colebrooke, Max Mueller and Paul Deussen tended to locate the central core of Hindu thought in the Vedas, the Upanishads and, above all, in the Advaita Vedanta tradition of Shankara. Despite the deeply anti-rational and idealistic (that is, anti-naturalistic) elements of Advaita Vedanta, key Hindu nationalist reformers – from Raja Ram Mohun Roy and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee to Swami Vivekananda – began to find in it all the elements of modernity. Vivekananda took the lead in propagating the view that the monism of Advaita Vedanta presaged the future culmination of all of modern science. Since modern science denied the role of any supernatural force outside nature, Vivekananda claimed that only Vedantic monism was truly scientific for it treated God as an aspect of nature and did not invoke any force external to nature…."

"The more prominence Hinduism gets abroad, even for wrong reasons like the new age and paganism, the more prestige it gains in India."

"Pride in the achievements of your own tribe is a legitimate emotion. But when pride is fuelled by prejudice against others, it becomes jingoism. Hindu triumphalism is jingoism, pure and simple. It is in fact a very dangerous jingoism targeted directly at Muslim and Christian minorities at home. The fundamental problem with Hindu triumphalism lies with its entirely self-serving and wilful denial that the great monotheistic religions of the world - Islam and Christianity - do have ample theological justifications for pluralism and tolerance."

"It is this pagan connection that has brought people like Koenrard Elst, David Frawley and many others in close collaboration with Hindu nationalists."

"Indian government funded in part the work of ISKCON (Hare Krishna) in re-forestation of Vrindavan. Department of environment is supporting temples to maintain sacred groves. Ecological aspects of Sanatana dharma have been included in the school text books of at least one state, UP."

"Far from being considered the crown jewel of Hinduism, yogic asanas were in fact looked down upon by Hindu intellectuals and reformers—including the great Swami Vivekananda—as fit only for sorcerers, fakirs and jogis…."

"Meera Nanda, originally a bio-technologist, crossed over to humanities... Since then, she has been writing articles and giving lectures denouncing Indian culture as inherently anti-scientific and accusing Indian nation builders of paving the way for pseudo-science and even of having a Nazi mindset. Another of Nanda’s article – ‘Calling India’s Freethinkers’, accuses Swami Vivekananda and Bankim Chandra (forefathers of the Indian national resurgence) of the ‘cardinal sin’ of trying to appropriate modern scientific thought for Hinduism. Even Nehru, who fostered scientific rationalism, gets lumped into this charge. She calls on the ‘progressive scientists’ of India to ‘carefully but firmly un-twine the wild and uncontrolled intertwining of science and spirituality that has been going on in Hinduism since the time of Swami Vivekananda in the late nineteeth century’. All attempts to investigate Hinduism in the light of science are declared to be linked to Hindutva, including work by the ‘apologists associated with the Ramakrishna Mission and Aurobindo Ashram’. She finds that any claim of Indian culture being scientific ‘constitutes the central dogma of Hindutva’. Links between Indian culture and science resonate with ‘deeply Hindu and Aryan supremacist overtones’. ... In what seems to be a blatant contradiction, she solicited and was awarded the John Templeton Foundation Fellowship in Religion and Science (2005-7), which coincidentally occurred under the leadership of a self-declared Evangelical Christian in 2006. Nanda has supported Protestantism as being scientific, while describing Hinduism as the exact opposite.... Nanda is representative of a pattern: The Templeton Foundation brings together science with Judeo-Christianity, and uses willing Indians like Nanda to attack Indian spiritual traditions."

"A recent case in point is Meera Nanda, who has been for some years on a self-appointed mission to expose all claims to knowledge by (let us lump them together, as she does) Hindu enthusiasts, nationalists, right-wingers or Hindutva activists. Her latest contribution, “Hindutva’s science envy”, blames in a vast sweep “the current crop of Hindu nationalists and their intellectual enablers” for being the progeny of thinkers like “Bankimchandra Chattopadhyaya, Vivekananda, Dayananda Saraswati, Annie Besant (and fellow Theosophists), Sarvepalli Radhakrishanan, M.S. Golwalkar and countless other gurus, philosophers and propagandists” — doubtless a most despicable crowd!"

"‘... a severe woman with a patient but unprevaricating gaze, who turned out to be Indira Gandhi.’"

"I'm undecided about the time we live in. This ongoing passage to oblivion. The disappearance of things you took for granted. Then there's the renaissance of things you never knew of, or presumed you'd never see again."

"‘Gulp by gulp, in the air-conditioned study, he swallowed civilisation.’"

"Frame after aluminium frame had replaced the casements. The gesture by which you push a window open was now unnecessary. ... It was as if a part of us that was air and breeze had been denied entry."

"I ... take a selfie with him; two, to be safe. My lips are parted, as if I'm poking a dead thing to see if it'll come to life; it's the phone I'm attempting to keep at a distance. He's smiling faintly, as if amuse by some exotic piece of wildlife."

"Only drunks stare at statues .... I never liked the statues keeping vigil, primarily because they were too close to life."

"‘Internationalism’ is a way of reading, and not a demography of readership ...’"

"‘And his talent became a problematic responsibility he did not know what to do with; it was as if, having given so much to his gift – hard work, practice – he wanted something in return; and not having got that “something”, whatever it might be, he had decided to punish both himself and everyone around him.’"

"‘The car horns created an anxious music, discordant but not indifferent.’"

"‘Motilalji began to hum with a sour expression on his face, as if he was never on holiday from his talent and vocation, and resented the fact ...’"

"‘Writers don’t so much write about their own lives as create them, Barthes said; it’s an oddly modern idea. Bengalis, similarly, had to make their own history. They did it in houses, tenements, and in neighbourhoods connected by stifling alleys that are no wider than a small room ... And this is why I feel, even now, that the most revealing places in Calcutta are not the museums or the great monuments ... but the houses and lanes in which people live.’"

"‘... the world’s cheapest small car, Tata’s Nano, worth only $1500. This toy-like ill-fated vehicle, whose destiny it was to look as if it had been prematurely brought into the world, more foetus than car, and whose birth was near abortive and then indefinitely delayed, this car, when it finally took to the road, turned out to have an engine that at times exploded mysteriously. Until 2009, it was seen to be Bengal’s quirky but irreplaceable mascot for development.’"

"Mahadev Govind Ranade. Leaving aside his air of self-importance, he looks marginally foreign, as all statues do."