manianviews

Hindus in Hindu Rashtra book - my impressions       I got this book through one of my relatives whose political leanings I do not know. Anyway it doesn't matter here for reviewing this book. Except Historian Sitaram goel's book 'Hindu temples - what happened to them' , I have never read any book by a hindutva writer. The author of this book "Hindus in Hindu Rashtra" is Anand Ranganathan. I already knew about him as a Right wing propangadist and writer in English along with people like J Sai Deepak & Vikram Sampath. These people are very popular through their speeches and discussions on Youtube channels and I have watched some of their videos. They were all very articulate and communicative to drive their points hard. The agenda, of course is Hindutva.       Let's come to the book. We will see the some of the arguments put forth by the author on the plight of hindus in India and my views on them. 1 Hindus are treated like Eighth class citizens ...

Why Gandhi is important?     Here I have tried to summarize some points which are uniquely Gandhian. These are the reasons why I admire Gandhi the most among the political leaders past and present.  I had Gandhi on my WhatsApp DP some time ago. I remember someone asked, Why Gandhi ?   I came up with some reasoning for that and seemingly he was not impressed. So then I thought of writing down some of the aspects of Gandhi which I consider his unique contribution to humanity as a whole.  Ahimsa and violence  First time in history a major struggle was launched based on Non violent methods which eventually succeeded.  It paved the way for using the method for resolving conflicts. Until then violence was the only option. Gandhi proved and gave another highly successful, viable and less destructive for humanity to follow. It is not that the method will always work. It may not. But it is an option to explore in bigger and even smaller disputes between gr...

கொடைமடம் நாவல்  - சில எண்ணங்கள்       நான் மிக விரைவாக படித்து முடித்த புத்தகம் சாம்ராஜ் அவர்கள் எழுதிய கொடைமடம்.  படிக்க தொடங்கி    இரண்டு தினங்களில் 600 பக்கங்களை கடப்பது என்பது எனக்கு ஒரு சாதனை தான்.  சமீபமாக ஒரு பத்து பக்கம் வாசித்தால் எனக்கு தூக்கம் கண்ணைக் க‌ட்டி கொண்டு வந்து கொண்டு இருந்த நேரத்தில் படிக்க தொடங்கிய புத்தகம் இது.  வாசித்த மூன்று நாளும் வேறு எண்ணங்களே இல்லை.  கதை மாந்தர்கள் முழுமையாக மனதை ஆக்கிரமித்துக் கொண்டு இருந்தனர் . ஆகச் சிறந்த ஒரு வாசிப்பு அனுபவத்தைத் தரும் ஒரு புத்தகம்.  சந்தேகம் எதுவும் இல்லை.        இடது சாரி இயக்கத்  தலைவர்கள் மத்தியில் 80 கள் 90 களில் கதை ஓட்டம் செல்கிறது. முக்கிய கதை மாந்தர்கள் ஜென்னி முகுந்தன். அவர்கள் வழியே கதை ஓட்டம்  பெரும்பகுதி சென்றாலும் ஏராளமான கிளை  துணைக் கதைகளும் விரவிக் கிடக்கின்றன.  அவைகள் ஏதோ ஒரு வகையில் main storyline உடன் தொடர்பு உ‌ள்ளது. Common thread is there. அதில் பொதுவான அம்சம் இடதுசாரிகள் அல்லது பெண்கள் என்பதாக இ...

Why I always would say that I am not a "believer" of Marxist ideas?         At the outset I must confess that I only have a simple and basic understanding of Marxist principles. I am no way qualified to write exhaustive critique on Marxist school of thought. I make this attempt to highlight the areas of Marxism where I do have major differences in my limited understanding. This article is meant only to enhance my knowledge on the subject. Not to downgrade or belittle or to find faults in it.         Majority of "believers" of today's Marxists  are people who fell into Marxism controlled organisations due to some circumstances in their lives. They also may have been attracted to it due to personality of some charismatic leaders.  Some might be into it because of their association with Marxists dominated trade unions and some might be due to benefits which they received at some point. Many of them do not think beyond the belief system...

Gandhi and Karl Marx - A New Perspective - Akeel Pilgrami essay      It is a known fact that both Gandhi and Karl Marx are seen as poles apart. Marxist scholars and Gandhians meet nowhere according to common understanding. There are those who are adamant that there can be no convergence point between these two.       However, there are points where both these agree in certain areas in the opinion of Philosopher and Columbia University professor Akeel Bilgramy. Although superficially there are no similarities, Akeel Pilgramy tries to establish similarities through certain interpretations.        Left-wing scholars in India and around the world have harsh criticisms of Gandhi on the one side and they also insist that serious, original left leanings should be dug out of his writings and actions to bring forth more debates.  Pilgramy says that Gandhi had no understanding of class, like many other philosophers, thinks that Gandhi's ...

Artificial intelligence and the Left         Recently I attended LIC employees Association's divisional level conference at Thanjavur. In the conference an interesting topic was raised by Kalapiran, a State level office bearer of Tamil nadu progressive writers  association. in his address to the delegates session of the conference he was talking about artificial intelligence popularly known as AI. Surprisingly for a declared leftist  and a communist sympathizer he spoke somewhat positively on the development.        Some people are of the opinion that communists always oppose any new development and they will be highlighting only the negative consequences of such new development . They always fail to see the possibilities of positive outcomes.         I remember asking Dr Thomas Issac in another state level conference, one of CPM party's economic idealogues, about the impact of AI on the labour and employmen...

Spectrum of Left      We were discussing politics in a family function some months ago. One of the persons in the casual chat was a district level RSS funtionary. As I am a known left sympathizer,  the rss guy tried to provoke me by strongly criticizing the Marxism based parties' activities and movements. I didn't fall for the trap. I said though I have left leanings as a trade union functionary, I won't blindly defend all that the left parties do nor do I fully subscribe to Marxist ideas. My support is only a qualified one and I further said that I was entitled to difference of opinion on some of the conventional left views or policies. One of the participants then said that there are many shades of left - or spectrum of left views among people. It provoked me to attempt this write up on the left thinking.       Debate with fundamentalists       And in the discussion I unambiguously told that, yes, I have some differing view p...

    Out of tens (or hundreds) of biographies which were written on Mahatma Gandhiji's life Louis Fischer's "The Life of Mahatma Gandhi" takes a very special place. Arguably it is considered by many as the best and most authentic of all the life accounts of the great man.      I recently read the Louis Fischer's book . I think it would have been reviewed umpteen times by many since the time it was published in the year 1956. Here I am going to write on issues which I could see as new or contrary to general understanding.      Many believe that the Civil disobedience movement which Gandhiji successfully launched against the British was largely inspired by American poet and writer Henry David Thoreau's book on Civil rights movement.  But it was refuted by Gandhi himself in his writings. The civil disobedience movement was launched in the year 1930 and only after the launch he came to know of Thoreau's essay on the subject much later. But Thoreau...

 "Prophet song" -  my impressions           This is certainly one of the books that was very disturbing and made me realise that how much relatively peaceful and comfortable atmosphere we are living in India. The story of the book is set in a totally imaginary period of time in the country Ireland where it is not clear which of the political formations fight for power. What are the idealogies, left or right, religious or irreligious, etc. are not mentioned. Booker was awarded to this book last year. On what basis? I think the reason for giving the Booker prize must be the political relevance of the content. More so, these days people do not seem to understand enough of the importance of civil rights of individuals in societies. This book really brings that to the forefront and descrbes the struggle of a family during the time of suspension of all civic rights in the country.          So essentially the novel takes us through th...

The Narrative is shockingly similar               Recently I attended a seminar on our country's secularism and the main speaker was writer Tamilselvan, one of the important functionaries of Tamilnadu Progressive writers and artists association. The association is a known intellectual and writers wing of the CPM in the state. Writer Tamilselvan is the author of many books and also an important left wing leader. He surprisingly gave his speech with a power point presentation which I think,kind of impeded his flow of speech. He is one of the prolific orators of the party and he is always at his natural best on stage. With a power point at hand, he might have wanted to try something new using modern technology. In my view the use of such a tool for a person like him did not make his speech any better.          In about one and half hour of speech he tried to cover everything from evolution of  humans to historiography of race...