K N PANIKKAR-Frontline

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The Somnath to Ayodhya rath yatra led by Lal Krishna Advani (centre) was communal in conception, aggressive in execution and religious in appeal.

The Hindutva ride

The organisational advance, social reach, political clout and ideological inﬂuence that Hindu communalism achieved were extensive but it could not con

Hindutva activists attempting to damage tombstones in the graveyard atop Bababudangiri hill, a 2017 picture.

Assault on the Constitution

The violent agitation by political parties against women’s entry into the Sabarimala temple exposes their disregard for the Constitution.

By K.N. Panikkar

Raja Ram Mohan Roy.Photo: The Hindu Archives

Three phases of Indian renaissance

The way to stem the increasingly declining values in society is to rethink the relationship between culture and politics in a manner in which culture

Romila Thapar. In countering the misuse of the past, her study and interpretation of ancient Indian civilisation has served as a major intellectual resource.-T. SINGARAVELOU

SECULAR THOUGHTS

Without equality, democracy and social justice, which are three interrelated factors, secularism cannot exist as a positive value in society.

Rajendra Prasad, the President of the Constituent Assembly of India, signing a copy of the new Constitution at the Constitutent Assembly Hall in New Delhi in November 1949.-THE HINDU ARCHIVES

DEMOCRACY DEFICIT

What democracy does in India is only a caricature of what democracy really is.

Subramanya Bharati. Nationalist consciousness is well represented in his works.-

CULTURE & MAKING OF A NATION

Even when all objective conditions are met, a nation like India can achieve nationhood only when cultural equality is established.

A MAHA DALIT rally organised by the Janata Dal (United) in Patna in February 2010, months before the Assembly elections in Bihar. Nitish Kumar's strategy of identifying the poorest of the Dalit sub-castes as 'Maha Dalits' and offering them socio-economic packages served him well.-RANJEET KUMAR

IDENTITY & POLITICS

The demographic make-up of South Asia has helped reinforce identity politics in each country in the region.

NARAYANA GURU AND Raja Ram Mohan Roy. They struggled to realise their vision of a humane society but found themselves defeated by forces over which they had no control.-THE HINDU ARCHIVES

Was there a renaissance?

Many of the ills of contemporary Indian society can be traced to the unfinished agenda of the Indian renaissance.

Gandhiji at Delhis Purana Qila where Muslim refugees prepare to depart for Pakistan, on September 22, 1947. His assassination by a Hindu fanatic was a setback to secularism.-AFP/FILES

Short on secularism

SECULAR India has undergone several convulsions during the past 60 years, so much so that doubts about its survival were entertained by many. Some of

The Somnath to Ayodhya rath yatra led by Lal Krishna Advani (centre) was communal in conception, aggressive in execution and religious in appeal.-THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY

The Hindutva ride

DURING the 25 years of its publication, Frontline has carved out a critical space in the intellectual life of the country by defending progressive cau

March 2002: Mahant Ramchandra Das Paramhans conducting a puja at a workshop to prepare stone pillars for the proposed Ram temple in Ayodhya. The Ram temple movement has lost the steam it had in the 1990s.-PTI

COMMUNAL RECIPE

THE recent electoral defeat is not the reason for the present turmoil in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The defeat is only a symptom. The reason li

Ways of Hindutva

NO other phenomenon has affected life in the subcontinent so adversely as communalism. When this monster came on the stage as early as the beginning o