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The controversy surrounding the question of the origin of the ‘Rajputs’ is as mired as it is infructuous. Whatever the origin of their clans might may have been: Indian or foreign, Brahmin or Kshatriya, the kings of these dynasties shouldered willingly the Kshatriya’s dharma to protect the body and spirit of their land, people and culture.Continue Reading

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An accurate interpretation of the term ‘Hindavi Swarajya’ would be: Hindu Paramountcy… an assertion of the ascendance of Hindus in the lands of their ancestors, primacy of their civilisational ethos, religious values and cultural expressions to eradicate the corrupting and degrading influence and ignominious vassalage to Islamic rule. And there is not a single act in the career of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj that deviated from this vision.Continue Reading

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“Every precept which was enjoined by the doctors of other religions he [Akbar] treated as manifest and decisive, in contradistinction to this Religion of ours [Islam], all the doctrines of which he set down to be senseless, and of modern origin, and the founders of it as nothing but poor Arabs, a set of scoundrels and highway robbers, and the people of Islam as accursed.”Continue Reading

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The practice of celebrating Christmas at the Ramakrishna Missions has been repeatedly questioned by many people for its conscpicuous incongruity. The curious spectacle enacted each year by the monks of the order follows from a fanciful decision by the second head abbot of the order, Swami Brahmananda, which however lacks the sanction of the Master, the Holy Mother and Swami Vivekananda. Apart from being supererogatory to the mission’s aims, it is a perversion of Hindu philosophy of worship, both in worldly and monastic realms, and injurious to the interests of Hindu dharma as a whole. The author in a series of letters with Ramakrishna Mission, New Delhi endeavoured to impress on the monk from the order these concerns, which regrettably remain unappreciated…Continue Reading

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Our ancestors possessed immense knowledge about factors affecting our lives and well-being.  Using their common sense and by keenly observing every minute detail in their surroundings and natural forces, they learnt, assimilated and used the knowledge thus gained, to give us an invaluable legacy of health imbued with spirituality.Continue Reading

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Raja Rammohun Roy with his gigantic intellectual and scholastic prowess, cogent representation of Indian religious, cultural and economic interests prevented the misapprehension and misconstruction of its cultural practices (including polytheism, idolatry, Hindu traditions and even ‘satī’) from being used against Indians. None among the Indians in that period possessed the brilliant faculties of Roy to hold rational and logical discourse in the European public sphere.Continue Reading

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“Great literature rises above the closed semantics of parable. It nuances the themes and forces you to keep pondering. Discursive overdetermination is not what sterling literature seeks to establish. The imponderables of life are examined, and truisms are put to test. Literature seeks to loosen up dogmas and hard-boiled notions about roles and set human responses while demonstrating the power and peril of the choices Man makes.”Continue Reading

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Bedekar advocated genuine history writing based on original sources and evidences without propagandistic motives. He said: “Nothing should be written or said by a history researcher without proper documentary evidence”. His oeuvre is an invaluable contribution in emotive history-writing to awaken a people apart from being definitive reference material for corrective re-writing of our history, available to us through his books and speeches which must be translated into English and other languages and mainstreamed.Continue Reading