Learning that she didn’t know the name or work of the most famous actor in the world sent lifelong movie enthusiast Jennifer Hancock down a rabbit hole into the massive film industry of India. In the process, she found insights about love that are rarely touched in Western cinema—and solved a puzzle about her own […]
India
Posted inPolitics
Fascism in India: The global turn toward nationalist politics
Reading Time: 9 minutes Although I never needed to “deconvert” from a religious tradition, I was fascinated by New Atheism’s debate circuits at the turn of the century: The eloquence of its speeches. All those witty rejoinders. The rallying of knowledge from a range of disciplines to out-fact an opponent. It was easy to fall prey to the idea […]
Posted inHistory
Fascism in India: The role of Nazis in Hindu nationalism
Reading Time: 7 minutes When writing on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role in Hindu extremism, I committed the cardinal sin of not defining a key term: fascism. This was a conscious choice, because I’ve written before on how quickly we mire ourselves in political word games. Better to start with the government figure that Western media keeps centering, as […]
Posted inHistory
Fascism in India: Who’s ‘in charge’ of 1.4 billion?
Reading Time: 8 minutes There’s something fascinating, if also disturbing, about Western incuriosity around the world’s largest democracy. 1.4 billion of our world’s 7.8 live in India, a country a third the size of the US, which has under a quarter of India’s population. How can the fortunes of so many mean so little? Nevertheless, India exists in the […]
Posted inGeneral
Islam where madness, misogyny and murderous messages assemble
Reading Time: 2 minutes A COUPLE of weeks ago an Islamic scholar, Hussain Salafi from Kerala in India, issued a stark warning to women: stay away from shopping malls because (a) Allah doesn’t like them and (b) they attract people who are “children of the Devil.” That was pretty mild in comparison to a sermon delivered earlier by Maulana […]
Posted inNews
Right-wing Hindu zealots torch copies of the Kama Sutra
Reading Time: 4 minutes A BOOKSHOP in the city of Ahmedabad in India was raided by a gang of 12 who seized illustrated copies of the world’s oldest book on erotic love and relationships, claiming that the Kama Sutra was “offensive” and needed to be destroyed. Along with the protest came a warning that, in future, any bookshops in […]
Posted inNews
Indian naturopath offering quack cures for Covid croaks aged 65
Reading Time: 3 minutes IN March Mohanan Vaidyar, above, was arrested by Kerala police and faced charges of spreading false information about the Corona pandemic and peddling junk ‘immmunity boosters’ at his Pattikkad Ayurvedic Centre. But Cherthala Mohanan Nair, as he was also known, won’t be facing trial because it was announced yesterday that he had died as a […]
Posted inNews
India adds one more deity to its 33 million – ‘Corona Mata’
Reading Time: 3 minutes THE number of gods and demi-gods in Hindu mythology beggars belief. Now one more has been added to the religion’s pantheon of 33 million deities. Reuters reported yesterday that devotees in Shuklapur village, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, erected a shrine to “Corona Mata” and are offering her prayers in the hope that […]
Posted inNews
‘Jesus is the cure for Covid’: Indian nurse denies conversion attempt
Reading Time: 3 minutes CHRISTIAN news outlet Premier is asking its readers to pray for Dr Sandhya Tiwari, inset above, who has been removed from an Indian government programme to combat the spread of Covid-19. Her suspension came after she told her patients to pray to Jesus if they get infected. One patient was so outraged at getting at […]
Posted inNews
India’s nightmare ignited by religion, quackery & complacency
Reading Time: 3 minutes DONALD Trump instantly springs to mind when one thinks of a deranged world leader who surrounded himself with religious lackeys, conspiracy theorists and charlatans touting absurd cures during the initial stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. Mercifully, the deranged tyrant is gone, leaving the media to concentrate on India’s answer to Trump – Prime Minister Narendra […]