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How Colonial Blood-Purity and Race Theories Recast India’s Complex Social Order
The modern idea of a unified Indian “caste system” was shaped partly by European histories of ancestry, blood purity, race, and colonial government. This study traces the conceptual path from Iberian limpieza de sangre and Portuguese casta to racial anthropology, colonial censuses, ethnography, and Anglo-Indian law. It explains why varṇa, jāti, kula, gotra, sampradāya, śreṇi,…
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Inside M. Hiriyanna’s Secret Diary: Wisdom, Grief and the Making of a Vedantic Master
M. Hiriyanna’s private diary, Chaff and Draff, reveals the disciplined human life behind one of modern India’s most respected interpreters of Vedanta and aesthetics. Its entries trace more than fifty years of family responsibility, travel, scholarship, grief and spiritual practice. The diary explains how Shravana, Manana, Nidhidhyasana and Dhyana shaped Hiriyanna’s movement from philosophical learning…
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Ram Swarup and Sita Ram Goel: Unflinching Analyses of Communism, Christianity, and Islamism
This long-form analysis situates Ram Swarup and Sita Ram Goel within India’s post-independence intellectual history and explains why their critiques of Communism, missionary Christianity, and Islamism remain salient. It clarifies how they distinguished personal faith from ideological programs and why they argued for constitutional equality before law over selective appeasement. It examines their diagnosis of…
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A Layman’s Introduction to the Granddaddies of the Liberal Wokes
This blog post delves into the historical roots and key figures of what the author refers to as “the liberal wokes.” It traces the emergence of the Intellectuals as a distinct class, whose intellectual hubris and rejection of traditional wisdom led to a radical reimagining of society. Jean Jacques Rousseau’s role in promoting the idea…