Bapa Rao

@halleyji Laura is a Jew. For a strict Jew, the basic tenet that Jesus is God/son of God is anathema. For a Hindu it is not. Pointing this out may be futile in case of Laura who has ulterior motives. But, in general, how is it a pathetic quest for a “win” to highlight this key difference?

@hydertext I can see that. But this model of selling Hindu tolerance by saying I worship Jesus I go to Church isn't some winning move. That's all I want to say.

"...Going to a Church and praying to Jesus is perfectly fine and I have done it myself on many occasions. I often quote the Bible and my favorite verse is Matthew 25:40 ..." Interesting. I don't often quote bible and I don't have any favourite verse. I don't go to Church. And I don't pray to Jesus. I don't see any need to exhibit pro grade tolerance like this towards other religions. No one cares for this kind of tolerance display as far as I can see. It hasn't helped us over the years. Past two centuries in particular offer enough evidence. You do your thing let them do their thing. No need to go over and above to demonstrate all embracing empathy and tolerance. Just my view.

@halleyji Hindus believe that educating the outsider will remove their ignorance and make them well-disposed. It is perfectly true that one doesn’t lose Hinduness merely by visiting a church or quoting the bible. However, this belief regarding education as a solution may be misplaced.

@shiv_cybersurg Enough North Indians will line up for the brotherhood offered by Pakistan.

Good analytical article. But here is a prediction, having written about Pakistan myself. Pakistan will pose as a civilizational ally of North India alone, using commonality of language as glue. They will seek to "other" the South. Mark my words. Pakistan has no incentive or reason or cultural knowledge to be inclusive of the south. This will be Bharat's problem to solve

Just saw one of those "if your ancient Vedic ancestors were so smart how come you've been getting conquered for 2500 years" type posts. Heard this at an Indian student event too last year (all these traditions introduced by Brahmins made us weak so we got conquered etc). My question is this: How come you don't hear this being said about 180 plus (once "heathen/pagan/kafir") countries (contemporary count)? Is the silence because their condition isn't seen as a conquest? Maybe it's time to recognize that being able to say "Hindu ancestors were conquered" is a sign we weren't really or fully conquered at all. We resisted. And we know that because we remember still who we were. Just a thought.

Hmmm..very interesting, because the assertion that Prosopis juliflora (Vilayati Keekar) drastically reduces its stomatal conductance & shuts down gas exchange during intense midday heat to prevent water loss is a documented physiological fact. Researchers tracking the gas exchange of P. juliflora under heat & vapor pressure deficits found a marked decrease in photosynthesis before midday, tracking perfectly with a severe reduction in stomatal conductance. To protect its internal structures under extreme heat, the tree aggressively closes its stomata. While this protects the plant from dying of dehydration, net carbon assimilation & oxygen release drop off a cliff during the hottest hours of the day. Link to the paper: sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

@sabeer Misrule, wickedness, cruelty, bigotry—all should be called out. Mughals don’t get to have a free pass. Regardless of your sentimental bloviations.

India should be able to appreciate every chapter of its history without feeling threatened by it. The Mughals left behind magnificent architecture, art, cuisine, language, and culture. The British left institutions, infrastructure, and the English language—which opened doors for millions, including me. I would not have achieved what I have without mastering English. A mature civilization acknowledges both the achievements and the mistakes of its past. Yet today, too much energy is spent hating what came before us instead of building on it. We should be grateful to the generations that laid the foundations we inherited, learn from history, and focus our attention on creating a better future. The future is full of opportunity. Let’s embrace it rather than remain trapped in endless battles over the past.

So a Hindu cannot quote verses from the Bible? Why is that even a problem? If anyone is pretending here, it’s probably you. And then you have people like @RajivMessage lecturing Indians on “how to trust a person like you.”

Post Gandhi's murder, freedom fighter Dr. Narayan Savarkar was dragged from home, the 1st mob lynching in free India & died due to stone pelting & heavy bleeding. 6000-8000 Brahmin men, women (tortured & raped), children were killed brutally. ZERO punished. Today is his Jayanti.

This is pissing me the fuck off. As someone who manages gyms for the past 20 years in LA, let me clear something up about the “homeless” problem in LA- since this POS wants to generalize: There are layers to the homeless problem in LA not everyone homeless is on fucking drugs. Not everyone homeless does not like rules. Not everyone who is homeless is some person trying to abuse animals. Do some actual fucking research on the problem and you will see it is a very layered conversation. There are some who are on the streets because of drugs and alcohol abuse. There are other others on the streets because of life situations that caused them to be on the streets. For example, this guy I interviewed when I was working on a documentary about the homeless problem who talked about how his mother didn’t have anyone but him and he had to drop out of school to help her only to become an adult with no education and no job opportunities and since she didn’t have anything to leave him when she died, he ended up on the fucking streets, not because of drugs not because of he’s trying to do something against the system, but because of life situations. Then you have another layer of homelessness people who have cars a lot of people who have cars choose to live in their cars because of the cost of living in this overpriced city. They’re not on drugs. They’re not breaking the law. They just don’t wanna pay this expensive rent so they live in their car. They join gyms so they can have a place to come in and shower and change their clothes. And as a veteran myself, it pisses me off to hear people talk about the homeless like this when people sit up on their asses passing veterans on the side of the road every single fucking day and do nothing about it, but wanna sit around and talk about how much they love the soldiers. 🙄 fuck off. He’s a clown and has no business in charge of anything. He needs to return to the irrelevancy of his entertainment career. Sincerely, An Army Combat Vet ✌🏽

@halleyji @SirJambavan The “Indologisty obsession” is a sign of de-Hinduization that is deeper and more extensive than believed. Proper followers of a proper religion don’t resort to external frameworks to understand their religion. It’s either true or it isn’t. Theological study comes from within.

Yes. The core belief is that Krishna indeed spoke to Arjuna on the MBh battlefield and what he spoke is indeed what is now known as Bhagavad Gita. This belief cannot be clubbed as - "modern educated Hindu's obsession with अर्थवाद (literal material truths)". That's like the definition of what Gita is. Ofcourse we need to be literalists there. Otherwise what are we even doing in the Hindu camp. Infact modern educated Hindu's obsession with Indologisty interpretations are quite puzzling to me honestly.

@pranavpradhi1 @sidhant In this case, no government authority prevented the Indian journalist from naming Trump, it was only his own inhibition. The press-freedom related challenge of the Norwegian woman was to the GoI. Are you expecting GoI to force the Indian media to have courage?

Yesterday, I wrote about how @sidhant couldn’t name Trump, and how that spoke volumes about press freedom in India. Some people reminded me that he did a fine job by not naming Trump, that he delivered a masterclass in journalism, that naming Trump could have created a diplomatic row, and that he helped generate some meme-worthy material as if he were writing a skit. Blah blah. And today, an American journalist asked Rubio the same question and named Trump directly. That’s the difference, folks. It’s called press freedom. It’s called having a spine. A journalist’s job is to ask tough questions, no matter who’s standing there. Don’t be scared. If you are from godi media, though, I can’t really say much about that.

@NBDwrites @rahuldeodhar Your earlier observation—the elite focus on fighting among themselves for petty bits of property etc.—can also be understood in this context. Elite energies have become systemically detached from the general welfare. Which is why good intentions & harsh criticism aren’t helping.

@NBDwrites @rahuldeodhar Indeed. Unearned privilege means the grantee has no need to prove his mettle, at least not for the actual job of delivering services to the people in exchange for status. Instead, the pool of grantees had to divert its energies to competing for the grant from the overlord.

To the point.

@rahuldeodhar @NBDwrites Elite represent society, more or less. For centuries Indian society has programmed itself to believe that death and extinction are round the corner, and survival is the sole imperative. No room for long term planning in such a case. Conscious effort is required to overcome this.

The sad reality is these elites are the gatekeepers of access to leadership. Thus they lower the intellectual rigour and depth crippling the conscience of leadership. If the leadership were to cast a wider net and speak to more people they may get better ideas. Since 2019, the RSS groups have started listening to a wider group - though the gatekeeping persists. One can only hope.

@NBDwrites A healthy live civilization has, by definition, the wisdom to think beyond the immediate. Indian civilization has been brutalized to the point of death. Long-term planning functions shut down when an organism feels it is is in mortal peril. Energies are focused on the exigent.

@singhsahana There is no doctrinal prohibition against Hindu women attending or even performing a cremation. The “prohibition” is just popular practice, which has no scriptural validity.

Why are Hindu women traditionally not allowed to attend a cremation ceremony? It would appear to me that society wished to protect the female from the trauma of watching the body burn and the head exploding. But interestingly, when it came to birth, the men were kept away from watching the pains and bloody messiness of childbirth. As Dr Koenraad Elst and Dr Pankaj Saxena have pointed out, death was a man’s job and birth was a woman’s job.

One of the most bizarre spectacles today is watching Muslim “reformers” who seem permanently obsessed with reforming Hindu society, lecturing Hindus on caste, Dalit rights, patriarchy, and every social evil within Hindu civilisation, as if Hindu society has somehow been waiting for Muslim intellectual supervision to evolve. The simple truth is this: Hindu civilisation does not need Muslims to reform it. Hindu society has always had its own internal mechanisms of correction, debate, resistance, and evolution. Whether it was sati, untouchability, caste discrimination, widow rights, temple entry, or women’s rights, these battles were fought within Hindu society itself through saints, philosophers, reformers, lawmakers, and social movements. Reform was not imported from Islam. It was not gifted by outsiders. It came from internal churn. Even the Hindu Code reforms after independence faced fierce resistance from conservative Hindus. But eventually progressives won that battle. Hindu women got stronger legal rights, inheritance protections, and safeguards against practices like polygamy. That is how civilisations evolve. They argue, resist, adapt, and correct. What makes this posturing ironic is that Muslim society itself has no shortage of battles to fight. In India, Muslim society still grapples with deep issues of clerical conservatism, gender justice, sectarian divides, educational backwardness in many pockets, and resistance to reform in personal law debates. For decades, triple talaq, nikah halala, and broader questions of women’s rights remained contentious issues. Even today, Muslim personal law remains separate while other communities largely moved into codified civil frameworks. Globally, many Muslim-majority societies are still wrestling with illiberal state structures, theocratic influence, blasphemy laws, suppression of dissent, and deep resistance to modern reform in several areas. So it is strange when people coming from societies still fighting major internal reform battles behave like moral supervisors of Hindu civilisation. Criticise caste. Criticise inequality. Criticise injustice. Every civilisation deserves scrutiny. But this constant assumption that Hindu society needs Muslim reformers to “fix” it is intellectually hollow and historically arrogant. Hindu civilisation has been debating, reforming, fracturing, and correcting itself long before these self-appointed guardians arrived, and it will continue to do so without them.