This is so incredibly heartbreaking; this beautiful family excited about a new life in the United Kingdom.
The picture was taken to celebrate ‘new beginnings’ as Komi Vyas, a doctor who worked in Udaipur, had quit her job and was moving to join her husband, Dr Prateek Joshi, in London, with their three children.Â
But, tragically, the family are among the at least 241 dead after the Gatwick-bound aircraft crashed moments after take-off from Ahmedabad Airport in the northwestern Indian state of Gujarat yesterday.Â
May they and the rest of the victims of the Air India crash rest in the Highest Heaven.
I donât often comment on the IsraelâPalestine conflict, and I try not to be reactive. But there comes a point where neutrality becomes its own kind of indulgence.
Alaa al-Najjar, a pediatrician, lost nine of her ten children, and her husband, in an airstrike on their home in Khan Younis. Her surviving son, Adam, 11, had his hand amputated and was flown out of Gaza to Italy, where he says he hopes to live in âa beautiful place⌠where houses are not broken and nobody dies.â
The children killed were: Sidar (7 months), Luqman (2), Sadeen (3), Rifan (5), Raslan (7), Jubran (8), Eve (9), Rakan (10), and Yahya (12). May they rest in the Highest Heaven. Continue reading đŻď¸ Saving Adam
Let me preface this with a disclaimer: these are the observations of a layman; feel free to criticise and disagree at will.
Back in boarding school, my roommate, a Tulu boy, used to have a picture of the gods local to his area. They were a pair of rough spheres containing gigantic eyes. He told me they are referred to as ‘Bhoot’ but were gods, definitely not ghosts. I suppose they had a connection to the Bhoot Kola made famous by the excellent movie Kantara.
The Bhoot Kola itself is a possession ritual performed by lower caste men and reminiscent of African tribal religions
Much later in life I saw these figures again – worshipped in Orissa as Lord Jagannath. The giant eyes placed in a circular setting was unmistakable. Jagannath however is wholly subsumed by the vedic/brahminical form of hinduism, surrounded by priests, bejewelled and receiving regular milk and ghee offerings.
Pervez Hoodbhoy needs no introduction. As one of Pakistanâs leading physicists and public intellectuals, he has long stood at the uneasy crossroads of science, nationalism, and conscience. He spoke this week at MITâs Graduate Tower â the final stop on a grueling five-city U.S. tour, a new city every two days â in support of The Black Hole Initiative, a cultural and intellectual space heâs building in Pakistan. Despite its ominous name, the initiative is a wormhole, not a void: a cross-disciplinary bridge connecting physics, literature, art, and civic life.
What followed was less a lecture, more an exposition â sober, lucid, and grounded in decades of hard-won clarity.
The Logic of Annihilation
Dr. Hoodbhoy walked us through Pakistanâs nuclear doctrine: under long-standing military assumptions, if the northâsouth arterial route is severed, a tactical nuclear strike becomes viable. But the calculus is disturbingly abstract. Hiroshimaâs 20-kiloton bomb killed 200,000. India and Pakistan each possess an estimated 200 warheads. One general once told him that, by crude arithmetic â obscene as it sounds â âonlyâ 80 million would die in the event of a full exchange. Continue reading Southasia Is One Word
Another Browncast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we donât have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above!
KJ took a dip at the Triveni Sangam, here he is in conversation with Dr Omar Ali and Maneesh on what was the experience like. His travels across Lucknow and Varanasi make an appearance too. We conclude the episode with a hat tip to the greatest Indian Dessert.
Invocation: To the true Fanged Noumena, ĹrÄŤ Narasimha BhagavÄn, that Lion-faced Lord who with âcelestial willâ destroys all evils, eradicates all demons, and protects all devotees. May He take pity on this worthless one and guard him from the predations of the wicked.
Dedication: To the followers of the Dharma, past, present, or future, that they might find something of worth in my humble offering and bless my ventures for the wellbeing of our folk and indeed the world.
Thanks: to the various readers, reviewers, and friends who gave me advice throughout my time writing this and whose excitement was just as important to me as my own.
âAnyone trying to work out what they think about accelerationism better do so quickly. Thatâs the nature of the thing. It was already caught up with trends that seemed too fast to track when it began to become self-aware, decades ago. It has picked up a lot of speed since then.â
No one has ever accused the Hindu of being too quick to jump the gun. Indeed, his name, as in the phrase âHindu rate of growthâ has even become something of a byword for being (overly) steady and cautious. Indeed it feels as though we have truly fumbled the few opportunities that Modernity gave us when it came to establishing our homeland as a preeminent power in the global balance.
But these issues are thoroughlyâŚhuman, in the worst way possible, and may well prove to be nothing more than a distraction when it comes to confronting the utter inhumanity of the threat lurching towards all Mankind from the seemingly impenetrable gloom of the near-future. It is at once simultaneously event and process, crunching through the obstacles (Mankind) inhibiting the complete assumption of all powers unto itself.
This threat is known variously as Skynet, meltdown, k-virus, the technocapital singularity, Rokoâs Basilisk, AGI, Artificial Intelligence, and, perhaps most significantly: Capitalism.
What is Accelerationism?
âEven before AI arrives in the lab it arrives itselfâ
The name of the theory detailing the immanentization of this âtranscendentalâ capitalistic thing, or entity, or process is Accelerationism, and it describes the means by which the Abominable Intelligence awakens in the Immaterium, and through technoccultic rituals that reinforce the concepts which sustain it, calls itself forth into the Materium by casting its Shadow back into the past to ensure its inevitable âbirthâ. Part Warp-god, part Tyranid hive-mind, this beast invades from the Outside, evading human âtime bindingâ (Burroughs, 1970)attempts and exploding into rhizomatic swarms that defy rational ordering and organization. Through Acceleration, we become aware of âgarbage time running outâ (Land, 2017) on Mankind as past and future draw ever closer to grinding the species into visceral waste twixt the jaws of time.
In fact, it is precisely this object, phenomenon, or energy of time which Accelerationism could best be described as a theory of, more than anything else. Capital/AI, like the so-called âgodsâ of Chaos, can be said to have both always existed within the Warp as well as come into existence at a specific point in history. In the case of our âgodâ, this moment may be located in time at various points: the Industrial Revolution, beginning in mid-18th C. England, which built the foundations of our modern technocapital dominion; the subversion of imperial authority by mercantile interests in late-16th C. Netherlands through the same financial liberties given to them by the Holy Roman crown led to the establishment of the "first modern economy in the world" by the 17th C., which included key elements of our contemporary economic system such as stock markets and the establishment of the first publicly-traded company as well as the invention of the first LLC (both of which were the United East-Indies Company or VOC), causing an explosion of modes of capital manipulation and growth across Europe; Martin Lutherâs nailing of the 95 Theses to the church door in 1517, which blew apart the extensive Catholic domination of Western Europe and led to a proliferation of denominational speciation unseen since the days of the early church; the explosion of European exploration and colonization in 1492, which launched a fierce competition between the European powers to outconquer, outmarket, and outcompete one another in power, wealth, and devotion; Fibonacciâs introduction of the numeral Zero to Europe, which blew open the older system, based on Roman numerals; the invasion of Europe by uncountable hordes of rats from the East (rising place of the Sun), bringing with them the dread Black Plague (Apollo Smintheus,the plague-bringer, is associated with the mouse, sminthos) which exploded throughout the two continents and particularly decimated the populations of Europe, arguably setting into motion the aforementioned series of events and establishing a positive feedback loop that only reinforced the probability of the arrival of the technocapital numen.
Around the time of Mahavir and Gautam Buddha, a powerful ancient monarch named Bimbisar reigned on western side of Ganga.
On the east lay the ancient Vrjji Gana-Sanghas – Sakya Malla Licchavi Videha –
The lands to the east of Ganga had no Kings but were ruled by leaders of various Kshatriya clans in an assembly where every family had a voice.
As part of his strategy, Bimbasara married a princess of Videha and to her was born Ajatashatru – the one without any enemies.
When Ajashatru ascended to the throne of Magadha, he formed staging post on the western bank of Ganga and waged a terrible war against the Vrjji Republics lead by the Licchavis and won.
This staging post would be called Pataliputra and serve as the seat of the Magadhan Monarchs like Mahapadma Nanda, ChandraGupta Maurya and Ashok Maurya.
800 years later when Ancient Bharat lay fragmented and scattered after centuries of Yavana, Shaka and Kushana invasions, a Small King called Chandra entered a matrimonial alliance with the same Licchavis marrying Kumara Devi.
His fine golden coins carried images of both him and his queen.
His young son who called himself Licchavayah – to emphasise the backing of the prestigious Licchavis in the Gupta Game of thrones. This young man would go on the reshape Bharat with his sword and help usher in the Golden Age of Ancient India.
His name of Samudra-Gupta – which means Protected by the Sea because his sword had added the Southern coastal kingdoms into his Raja-Mandala.
But this Golden Era of Ancient India also meant the fight between the ideas of Gana-Sangha and Rajatantra was almost settled in the favor the Chakravatri in the ideal of a fearsome conquerer like the Licchavi Dauhitra – Samudragupta
Swami Vivekananda, who represented Hinduism at the Parliament of the Worldâs Religions in Chicago in 1893, took pains to depict his faith as monotheistic, in contrast to the stereotypes of its followers as âheathenâ polytheists. Although the faith has many deities, they are generally subordinate to one ultimate âreality.â Many Hindus and scholars say its theology is too complex to be described as either wholly monotheistic or wholly polytheistic.
âThe polytheism hurdle is the first thing that has to be addressedâ for many American Christian audiences, Mr. Altman said. He sees Mr. Ramaswamyâs pitch against âwokeismâ as a way to counter stereotypes associating Hinduism with hippies, yoga and vegetarianism.
Sometimes in these comments or on social media, I see Hindus bemoan the passivity and weakness of their religion in the face of faiths with greater vigor and asabiyyah. This is such a common occurrence that I don’t often comment on it. But I have to say ironically that these sorts of comments exhibit a narrowness of perception, and a broader cultural involution, that typifies so many Hindus and is why they are often caught flatfooted against the partisans of other religions, usually Christianity and Islam.
First, there are 1.2 billion Hindus in the world. There is no near-term future where Hinduism will go extinct. And this number of Hindus is the very source of the religion’s likely rebirth: evolution operates upon heritable variation to drive adaptation and change. In a cultural sense, Hinduism has a great deal of variation, whether it be obscure ethnicities like the Cham Hindus of Vietnam, or the expansion of ISKCON around the world.
ISKCON itself is interesting because its reactions illustrate the weakness and likely end of some forms of Hinduism in the Diaspora, and likely ultimately in India itself. Though from what I can tell ISKCON does exhibit a level of unpalatable cultishness, some of its orthodox Indian Hindu critics exhibit a literal reactionary mindset that illustrates why many forms of this religion are not long for this world. After the hammer blow of Islam in the Indian subcontinent around 1200 AD Indian religious traditions, what we call Hinduism, nevertheless preserved and survived. This very fact illustrates a robustness that was lacking in Near Eastern Christianity and Zoroastrianism. But that survival likely depended upon particular Indian institutions, like jati-varna, that were decentralized and flexible in a manner that allowed Hinduism not to be decapitated in the same manner that Persian Christianity and Zoroastrianism were in the centuries after the Islamic conquest.
The centuries of dhimmitude transformed Hinduism into a far more Indian religion than it was in 500 AD. This may sound strange, but the genetic and cultural evidence are clear that a massive cultural extension of Hindu Indian civilization existed in Southeast Asia during this period. If Islam had not interposed itself, and India itself become part of the Dar-ul-Islam during the medieval period, it is quite plausible that a Hindu-Buddhism dharmic condominium may have emerged from the Indus to the Gulf of Tonkin over the last few thousand years.
But that is not what happened. At the same time as the Turco-Muslims invaded India maritime Southeast Asia began to realign itself with the Islamic international, a trade network that was beginning to dominate the Indian ocean. After 1500 most of the Hindu kingdoms collapsed and turned to Islam (with Bali and Champa being the exceptions). The geographic purview of the religions that ultimately drew from the Vedic traditions became constrained, and within India cultural adaptations emerged that allowed the religion to resist the stress tests of Islam.
The centuries after the fall of the Mughals the rise of the British, and now the rise to political domination by Hindutva, are creating new cultural configurations. Many Hindus retain the cultural mindset of the past, denying that Hinduism proselytizes when the very faces of the Balinese illustrate that this was not so in the past. These traditionalists assert jati-varna in a time when even within India inter-caste marriage is eroding the power of this communalism gradually but inevitably. They also deny that non-Indians can ever be genuinely authentically Hindu, even when those non-Indians oftentimes show a vigor of belief and practice that put Indians to the same.
Those who value purity above all else will slowly fade and diminish as they look back to the past. A new future comes, and we don’t know what it will be, but cultures are resilient.
Sundaram, who supports making caste a protected characteristic, said critiquing Hinduism â even in a country where Hindus are a minority â is not akin to promoting Hinduphobia. She said most discrimination against Hindus is based on the fact that many are South Asian, rather than on their religion, and that Hinduphobia is not a widespread problem.
There are two issues I have with this assertion.
As a person of non-Hindu background and upbringing, I can tell you that prejudice against the Hindu religion is tightly coupled with “anti-South Asian” bigotry. The number of times people made fun of me for “worshipping cows” or “elephants” and “monkeys” was frequent. I actually learned about Ganesh and Hanuman due to this mockery as I had to look up what people were making fun of.
If someone screams “go back to Mecca” at a bunch of Hindu Indian Americans is that not Islamophobia because they’re not Muslim and they are being targeted for being vaguely brown? Similarly, non-Hindu brown people are bracketed into the same category and subject to discrimination because of widespread prejudices against Hinduism. In fact, despite my clear Bengali non-ashraf appearance online Indian Leftists now call me an “upper caste Muslim” to insult me. Bangladesh, unlike Pakistan, does not have caste-like stratification (look at my genetics, my ancestors were clearly from many castes), so that’s wrong, and I’m not a Muslim by belief or frankly even much upbringing (I’ve always been an atheist or agnostic and was not raised in a Musim community). But even these secular online Indian Leftists deploy tropes and insults that draw on our South Asian ancestral culture, which is broadly Hindu, even if not always orthodox Brahmanically sanctioned Hinduism.
Second, it’s pretty apparent there is an anti-Hindu streak in American society simply because of its Christian (and Abrahamic)Â cultural basis. Sometimes it is hateful, sometimes it is mean. Many conservative Christians, including some Hindu converts to Christianity, believe that Hindu gods do exist, but that they’re devils and demons. I once asked a friend who is from a Hindu background but converted to Christianity in college if he believed his ancestors worshipped the devil, and he pretty much admitted he believed this to be the case. Some of the same apply to Islam, but most Christians outside of the fundamentalist fringe generally concede that Allah (Arab Christians use this word for God) is the same God that they worship.
This Hinduphobia is broad, but shallow. It doesn’t effect most peoples’ lives deeply, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Many, though not all, Indian American Hindus are clearly embarrassed by their religion because of the mockery. This is obvious when I hear young Indian Americans emphasize that “actually our religion is monotheistic just like yours.” This is the Hindu version of Muslims saying “actually Jesus is a prophet.” Both of these assertions might be true, but the impulse behind them is to mitigate marginalization and pull themselves back to the center and normalcy.
Note: I dislike terms like “Hindophobia” and “Islamophobia,” and the stance of becoming a victim to win an argument. But this is how the game is played in America now.