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Erich Fromm was a German thinker who wrote extensively on human condition in the modern society and on human alienation (estrangement). Human alienation manifests itself in many aspects of modern life. Overabundance of commodities and services available today have surpassed wildest of imaginations. And yet humans often feel a deep inner sense of being insatiated. A sense of loneliness and isolation continues to haunt us despite living in overpopulated cities. Human activities have created forces of unprecedented power and yet never had been that sense of helplessness as overwhelming as it is today. Technological advances have ceaselessly tried to control nature and yet we have never felt so insecure and vulnerable. Human society has created technological forces of gigantic proportions and of overwhelming capabilities and now these seem to have unleashed themselves off human control. One has very recently experienced how the death dance of an invisible virus sent the whole world in a pa...

  The other day I was idly surfing television channels when I chanced upon a Hollywood movie called “Guilty by suspicion” which depicts the McCarthyist era in early-fifties in the United States of America. The movie features Robert De Niro in the leading role of a persecuted Hollywood director. McCarthyism (after Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy, a rabid right wing anti- communist rabble rouser) represents one of the darkest eras in modern American history that saw a campaign launched and led by the government to hound and brutally suppress all political dissension by creating an atmosphere of fear about liberal, leftist viewpoint in general and communism in particular (the so called “Red Scare”). This was on the backdrop of cold war of the 1950s and the US government made every effort, including banning the US Communist Party,   to whip up anti-Soviet and anti-Communist sentiments that led to a veritable witch-hunt of Communists, communist sympathizers, liberals and indee...

I had not read Tagore earlier except for a few short stories. Tagore’s works have remained relatively unknown outside Bengal, including his writings in English and on subjects far removed from Bengali milieu. I had though read Saratchandra Chatterjee, a contemporary of Tagore, way back in 1960s and 70s during my school-college days, thanks to Marathi translations (by Mama Warerkar) of his novels, which, I remember, were then easily available in libraries. I can still recall reading “Parinita”, “Shrikant”, “ Charitraheen” and being deeply affected by the characterizations and empathy for the poor and the women in his works. I consider him as one of the great novelists and storytellers of the twentieth century and his appeal endures even in these modern times. But Tagore dominates Bengali cultural landscape so overwhelmingly that he overshadows others including Sharatchandra. This had disheartened me a little and possibly that was one unconscious reason for my initial lack of enthusiasm ...

  “ Generations to come will scarce believe that a man as this one ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth”- Albert Einstein on Mahatma Gandhi Talking about Mahatma Gandhi is now unfashionable. For most Indians the Mahatma is apparently no more relevant today, being reduced to a distant figure of an old bespectacled man with a walking-stick, a pious and saint like person to be annually ritualistically remembered on his birth and death anniversary. There are some who revile the man and his ideas, some going to the extent of extolling his assassin as a patriot. But then one wonders why the current regime whose ideology is far removed, even diametrically opposite to the Mahatma’s philosophy of inclusivity, truth and non violence find it necessary to publicly embrace Mahatma Gandhi. Part of the answer lies in the towering stature of the Mahatma and respect it commands globally. This was brought to the fore recently when images of the world's top 20 heads of state together walkin...

  Of late, "Vishwaguru" is a term that one hears and reads more and more frequently in speeches and in writings of the high, the mighty and the wise in India today.  The term denotes at once an aspiration and an assertion. The aspiration refers to India becoming a leading intellectual and moral beacon for the world to follow.  And underlying the assertion lie two beliefs. One is the claim that India in the distant past was a Vishwaguru , a fountainhead of knowledge and wisdom far ahead of the rest of the world. The second belief is that India is poised to become Vishwaguru again and that she is ready to reclaim that status in the not-too-distant future. For some, we already are there. In support of India’s past pre-eminent status are cited various claims of scientific achievements in subjects ranging from mathematical and astronomical sciences and some assertion about existence of airplanes, plastic surgery, genetics, nuclear weapons, television and internet to name...

  Insecure Nationalism It is hard not to notice a sense of insecurity that seems to be pervading all around us.   We Indians seem to have been creepingly overtaken by feelings of insecurities at several levels. One prime case in point is the sense of nationalism. Looking back at the time when we were young, Indian nationalism, forged on the anti- colonial struggle had by that time evolved into a forward looking ethos despite our condition of a poor state struggling with a multitude of problems - poverty, high illiteracy, industrial and agricultural backwardness, lack of educational and healthcare facilities etc . If one were to trace the graph of India's position in the world from the time of independence till date, the nation has been growing steadily - economically, militarily - and it is on a rising graph. We take pride in our growing status in the world. We are no more "violence-fearing peace-mongering," weaklings. In the words of our Leader "Once upon a time w...

  There has always existed a school of thought cutting across political parties (No rth based) which wanted Hindi to be the National language. The constitution does not name Hindi or any other language as National language although promoting Hindi as one of the official language ( the other official language being English, apart from regional languages) has been a declared policy of the government with 14th Sept declared as Hindi diwas to be celebrated every year. The celebrations are mainly confined to token functions in government and affiliated institutes ( like PSUs) and public speeches by ruling politicians exhorting people to poularise use of Hindi. The demand for making Hindi language as the National language keeps surfacing on such ocassions and each time it is raised by some statement from a politician, it leads to controversy. S uch controversies have almost invariably been initiated by politicians from the North and equally invariably engendered fierce opposition mainly ...