NEUTRAL CITIZENS

If you thought the Mahabharata war was fought to get Pandavas their right, then you are only partly correct. 100+ Kings, 40L+ soldiers, the destruction of the supposed scale noted in Mahabharata was unprecedented. The story of Mahabharata may or may not have been real, but its messages are.    "Why was such a massive destruction needed?", asks Draupadi after the war. And so Krishna replies, "Rulers across the land had become immoral. The people who were supposed to act as a check for the rulers sang praises instead and ended up becoming immoral themselves. And so it had to be all destroyed and restarted." The message was clear. If we don't question and stand against what we find as immoral, we could one day become the reason for our own destruction.    Are we any different today? There is one gang that praises "their" leader no matter what he/she does, and there is another gang that praises another leader no matter what he/she does. Have we reduced our...

I know this is a sensitive topic and a lot of us hesitate to talk about this in public. But if you talk to anyone remotely associated with the BJP, they will tell you the need for Hindu vote consolidation. There is definitely a justified anger among the Hindu community on the cultural destruction attempted by the Mughals or the lured conversions from the Christian missionaries. The anger continued during partition and exists to date because the Hindus feel the Muslims and Christians still think of their religions as superior and ridicule the stone worship of the Hindus. On top of this, the attempts to establishing an Islamic Caliphate cannot be rubbished. From Iraq to Syria to Lebenan to even Kashmir, people have seen different variants of this. Whether or not this threat is as severe as what the RSS and BJP claim is an argument that can be never ending. But if we leave these arguments aside, are we ready to vote for a party that promises "development" instead of "protec...

We are living at a time when political, social, economic, religious and business boundaries are blurring. About a decade back in a new business role, I was struggling to understand politics, not the one in office but outside. I had to interact with the Government extensively. Parties, politicians, influencers, officers, gatekeepers - I just couldn't grasp why things weren't straightforward. Anyone who has worked with some Government functionary will know what I am talking about. Running a business meant I had to be constantly watchful of the market influences and changes. Beyond business, my interest in science kept me exploring everything from space to virus, my interest in socio-economics kept me curious about different civilizations, different settlements, different ideologies. My interest in spirituality kept me reading religious books. I don't remember how many versions of Bhagvad Gita I have read so far, how much I have understood is a different question! Pre-Abrahami...