The Moderate Muslim Test
It is often claimed that Islam should not be judged by its extremists, but by its moderates. It is a reasonable proposition which then necessitates the question: What is a moderate Muslim? Before we decide whether the moderate or the extremist Muslim represents Islam, we must first ascertain the qualities of the moderate Muslim. This article is an attempt to do just that. Read More
Pankaj SaxenaFebruary 20, 2020 
Jizyah: The Tax of being Non-Muslim
In this brilliant excerpt taken from ‘Jizyah and the Spread of Islam’, Shri Harsh Narain, one of the finest historians of modern India, tells us what Jizyah is, and what it means for the Hindus. The Muslim psyche is of a peculiar making, vis-à-vis its attitude towards non-Muslims. According to the Prophet, every child is born in Islam, but its parents make it a non-Muslim. The Qur’an also says that ‘the earth belongs to Allah. He causes it to be inherited by whom of His Servants He will’. On the basis of it all the Prophet rules that all land belongs to God or himself, the natural corollary being that all land belongs, through God and the Prophet, to the Muslims.Read More
Harsh NarainFebruary 19, 2020 
The Vedic Yajña: A Conduit for Transcending the Conditioned Consciousness
Evolutionist and anthropological frameworks of interpretation have belittled the Vedic mantra as well as the Vedic Yajña by categorizing the two as naïve and obscure religious expressions (e.g. through labels like hymns and rituals, respectively) of the early humans. This article highlights the consciousness-altering potential of the Vedic Yajña and the role of the Vedic mantra in it by positing that the Vedic Yajña is neither just a ritual nor merely a metaphor; rather it is a powerful performative element in its own right, which pervades the ‘conditioned consciousness’ of its performer and uplifts the same to ever higher planes of consciousness, thus revealing to the performer/practitioner subtler layers of reality on the way to the Truth.Read More
Sreejit DattaFebruary 18, 2020 
The Subaltern School of Indian History
In this excerpt from the brilliant new work “The Indian Conservative”, Jaithirth Rao discusses the ideological imperatives of the subaltern school of history. He illustrates how the central beliefs and lynchpins of the subalternists and the postmodernists are often exactly the same as those of the Marxist school of historians. And for all of them, India is a British construct. Rao then proceeds to illustrate, how this is just pure hogwash.Read More
Jaithirth RaoFebruary 17, 2020 
Religious Pluralism and Freedom of Religious and Spiritual Experience
Freedom in the West, is often interpreted as the freedom of action of individual in this world. But David Frawley, in this brilliant excerpt of 'Awaken Bharata' explains how freedom has many modes and internal freedom is the freedom which Hindu Dharma has always focused upon. Read More
David FrawleyFebruary 14, 2020 
Fascism and Truth
In this brilliant piece of satire, Satish Verma takes a dig at the charge of Fascism that its omnipresent opponents from the liberal Left often level at the Hindu society. The Hindu movement is often referred to as Hindu Fascism. The sheer ridiculousness of the charge becomes obvious from this satire. When the charge is outrageous, satire is the best way to expose how untenable it is. Read More
Satish VermaFebruary 13, 2020 
Religious Pluralism or the Unity of Religions
What does religious pluralism really mean in practice? Does it mean making all religions just the same? Does it mean an uncritical acceptance of all religions? Does pluralism, as the name sounds, actually give any choice, or is it a tyranny of an ideological dogma? David Frawley discusses these questions in this brief foray, which is an excerpt of 'Awaken Bharata'. Read More
David FrawleyFebruary 12, 2020 
Did Brahmins have Monopoly on Education?
One of the most persistent leftist dogmas regarding Indian society is that Brahmin hegemony was ubiquitous and using their so-called 'favorable position', the Brahmins horribly discriminated against every section of the society. This charge is also laid in the field of education. It is claimed that Brahmins created a monopoly in education and did not let anyone else study, thus ensuring their perpetual servility. In this brilliant but brief article, Dr. Ankur Kakkar counters by producing reports of the British officials who conducted surveys on the state of education as it was prevalent in the 19th century. Read More
Dr. Ankur KakkarFebruary 11, 2020 
A Hindu Call for Religious Pluralism
While pluralism is the by-word of today's liberalism, it is seldom practised by its own proponents. In this brief excerpt, from 'Awaken Bharata' David Frawley talks about how the offer of Hinduism is pluralist in intent and what real pluralism looks like. Read More
David FrawleyFebruary 10, 2020 
The Origin and the Use of Image in India – Part 3
In this concluding part of this series, Coomaraswamy explains how the purpose of art in India was never just to imitate Nature, but also to transcend it and that is why Indian art is famously ‘not realistic’. This article is an excerpt from the book “The Transformation of Nature in Art” by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy.Read More
Ananda CoomaraswamyFebruary 7, 2020