RIFLE RANGE BOY

Hindus in Hindu Rashtra(2023) Eighth-Class Citizens and Victims of State-Sanctioned Apartheid Author: Anand Ranganathan I felt as if I were listening to him debate on Indian internet television. For the uninformed, a debate in the Indian context differs from the BBC's 'Hard Talk' or a conventional debate in which one person is given the stage to speak while others listen. On these Indian shows, what we see on our monitors are multiple smaller windows, reminiscent of those in 'Brady Bunch' or ‘Hollywood Squares’, with everyone yelling at the top of their lungs simultaneously to make their point. With the rapid-fire speed of speech, often seen in speed debates, and the caustic choice of words, it is quite a spectacle. Everything is drowned out in the cacophony of each speaker's voice. Amidst all this, the anchor begins to argue at a higher pitch without turning off the guests' microphones. Sometimes, I wonder why the guests bother to attend at all.  Anand Rang...

Awakening Bharat Mata: The Political Ideologies of the Indian Right By: Swapan Dasgupta (2019) History tells us of a time when Indian soft powers ruled beyond their lands. Indian (read Hindu) way of living was the only way to live to the East of the land irrigated by the Sindhu Saraswati river systems. The nearest advanced culture to them was the Persians. Now they had an issue pronouncing 'S'. They did not have 'S' in their spoken language but used 'H' in places occupied by 'S'. Hence, the people living around the Sindhu Valley became known as 'Hindus', and their way of living was Hindu. The perplexing thing is that from an era when the whole world was imitating their culture whilst the rest of the world was in the dark ages, at the time of its independence, it was a nation quite apologetic to its way of life and its history. What gave? Perhaps it was the repeated invasions and trans-generational traumas with a tinge of Stockholm Syndrome. Still...

How I Became a Hindu (1982, Third Reprint,2008) Author: Sita Ram Goel Trigger Alert. Readers' discretion is advised.   Sita Ram Goel, Ram Swarup, Koenraad Elst, David Frawley and publications linked to the RSS may not be hailed as literary marvels or considered literature pieces by the mainstream. Yet, the knowledge is there for all to scoop. The mainstream always labels right-wing writers as rabble-rousers out to tip the serenity of public harmony. Everything they say and write is painted in the same stroke, as venomous. I decided to look at one of Sita Ram Goel's early writings. For the uninitiated, Goel is revered as a formidable Indian historian, religious and political activist, writer, and publisher known for his influential contributions to the literature on Hinduism and Hindu nationalism in the late twentieth century. With his direct, unapologetic presentation of facts and provocative book titles, he has stirred the psyche of the Hindus and many Indians to look at India...

Swatantrya Veer Savarkar (Hindi, 2024) Director: Randeep Hooda It is funny how names like Savarkar, Bhagat Singh and Subash Chandra Bose escaped our consciousness when we were taught Indian history in school. We were only told of Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian Congress Party and their brand of civil disobedience. Gandhi's passive demeanour, recurrent fasting, and imprisonment eventually won India's Independence. Oh, right! Savarkar and the gang were branded as terrorists and troublemakers, destroying the order, culture and modernity the highly evolved superior race brought to the lost natives.  Now, we are told of alternative narratives of events that may have happened during the 200 years of the Raj's rule in India. The victors control the narratives, but entertaining the other side of the story is worthwhile. Let us not forget that the immediate reason for the British's sudden exodus from Bharat was not just the bludgeoning British debt to India incurred during WW2 but th...