Yoga for Corporates
The title seems to be fitting for this piece from OZY which speaks of a growing trend among Silicon Valley executives getting ‘Yoga’ lessons to reduce their stress level. But if one goes through the article this trend seems to misrepresent Yoga. This misrepresentation is not new because many in the United States have the tendency to view Yoga as More...
Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica: Their counterfeit St. Thomas entries exposed
The cult of St. Thomas originated in and was centred at Edessa at least up to the eighth century when the Muslims began to invade Syria, and it is the considered opinion of many historians today that nobody in Asia More...
Hindus must reclaim their history
In an opinion piece in Outlook (“Chaining 1200 years”, 7-7-2014), Hasan Suroor takes issue with PM Narendra Modi’s diagnosis that Indians suffer from a slave mentality due to “1200 years” of oppression. More...
EASAS Conference in Zurich: a Report
On 23-26 July 2014, the European Association for South-Asian Studies (EASAS) held its biannual conference in Zürich, Switzerland. More than 150 participants came mostly from the EU and South Asia (including my More...
Is Krishna a Prophet of Allah?
In the article ‘The Honorable Lord Krishna, a Prophet of Allah,’ published in Times Of India dated 2 August, 2014, columnist Tanweer Ahmad states that according to Islamic principles Lord Krishna was a true More...
William Dalrymple’s skewed perspective on the Caliphate
On 13 July 2014, The Guardian published an opinion article by the well-known historian of Moghul India, William Dalrymple: “The ISIS demand for a caliphate is about power, not religion.” We have heard this tune More...
Dispelling the myth of Akbar the Great
Introduction The 15 July 2004 edition of the Ananda Bazar Patrika carried an article ‘Mata binimoyer mukto ganotantroei uttorener path,batlalen Amartya’ (‘Exchange of opinions as practiced in liberal democracy More...
Rending the veil of historical negationism in India
(An analysis of Aavarana: The Veil by S.L. Bhyrappa. Translated into English by Sandeep Balakrishna. Paperback: 400 pages. Publisher: Rupa Books Co., 2014. ISBN-13: 978-8129124883) Introduction Ostensibly a work More...
The St. Thomas myth as historical fact in Pax Indica
Page 280 of former Minister and current Member of Parliament, Shashi Tharoor’s book Pax Indica contains an interesting assertion. Christianity arrived on Indian soil with St. Thomas the Apostle (‘Doubting More...
Islamic preacher learns Sanskrit to distort Hinduism
Recently, IndiaFacts came across a video which shows a Muslim scholar reciting verses from the ‘Upanishads’ to a large audience emphasizing how the ‘Upanishads’ speak of a ‘Formless Godhead’. He then More...