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Tag: society & social sciences

Can Urdu Regain Its Lost Glory?

Posted on by Penguin India

The Minority Conundrum is the second volume in the Rethinking India series. It explicates what it means to be a minority in majoritarian times. The contributors identify vulnerabilities that encumber the quest for the realization of substantive citizenship by minority groups.

In an essay titled ‘Is There a Future for Urdu?’ Mahtab Alam explores whether the language can regain it’s glory.

Here are some points he makes:

Treat Urdu as a mother tongue

 

…Urdu should be treated as a mother tongue rather than just a language of a religious, cultural or linguistic minority group.

What does treating it as a mother tongue mean….

There are two components to my proposition: first, primary education should be imparted in one’s mother tongue, and secondly, it has to be of high quality, as providing mediocre education in the mother tongue will not solve the problem.

Promote the language through books

Commissioning and publishing quality Urdu translations of good books across genres and languages is another useful mechanism to promote the language.

 

Use Urdu to bridge the cultural gap

In addition to translating from Indian languages, useful texts from Arabic, Persian and other world languages, apart from English, should be translated into Urdu. All this is important because there is an availability of rich literature in these languages. Moreover, this will also help in bridging the cultural gap, which is very important given the growing segregation of our societies.

 

Provide more fellowships to scholars, researchers and translators

In order to publish and promote quality content in Urdu (translations as well as original writing), fellowships and grants must be provided to scholars, researchers and translators.

Focus on digital is also important

Similarly, special efforts should be made to make Urdu digital-friendly. In this regard, special consultation with different stakeholders (such as software developers, writers, translators, online search engine optimization specialists, etc.) must take place.

 

The government would also need to pitch in…

The role of the government and its agencies is very crucial because both the promotion as well as development of the language require capital investment and human resources.

His conclusion:

In short, the promotion and development of Urdu in the current scenario would require a multifaceted, long-term and planned approach straddling education, research, digital advancement, cultural activities, to making it a language of day-to-day use.

The Minority Conundrum is a thought-provoking volume that considers the minority question in India.

The essays deal with educational attainments, employment prospects in a liberalized economy, possibilities of equal opportunity, violence of the state and vigilante groups, emerging questions of citizenship and employment, linking language with the material life of its speakers, and the receding political voice of minorities amidst a majoritarian upswing.

Who is a Minority?

Posted on by Penguin India

The Minority Conundrum, the second volume in the Rethinking India series explicates what it means to be a minority in majoritarian times. The contributors identify vulnerabilities that encumber the quest for the realization of substantive citizenship by minority groups. The essays deal with educational attainments, employment prospects in a liberalized economy, possibilities of equal opportunity, violence of the state and vigilante groups, emerging questions of citizenship and employment, linking language with the material life of its speakers, and the receding political voice of minorities amidst a majoritarian upswing.

 

Here’s an excerpt from the book:

In a country marked by multiplicity of faiths, speeches, castes, ethnicities and geographies, the question ‘who is a minority?’ is riddled with complexities. What adds to the intricacy is that each of these collectivities is segmented into status groups, sects, forms of worship, and regional variations to the extent that the difference offsets the commonality. Identities are multiple, and each of these intersects with the other to complicate the situation further. A Santhal convert to Christianity bears no resemblance to the Syrian Christians in Kerala, be it in language, custom or the status that she enjoys in the wider society. A Tamil Muslim has far more points of interaction with a Tamil Hindu than with his co-religionists in Kashmir and in Urdu-speaking areas. This is a complexity that afflicts the formation of majority identity as much. Minorities are contextually produced, and violence is key to it: Biharis in Maharashtra, Tamil speakers in Karnataka during the language riots, Bengalis in Assam at the peak of the Assam movement, Sikhs in 1984. On similar grounds, the rise of Hindutva nationalism in India corresponds with the exclusion and demonization of and the use of targeted violence against the Muslims, and occasionally the Christians.

India represents one of the most complex multinational and polyethnic societies to be governed by modern democratic structures. The presence of at least 1600 speech communities has been recorded by the Indian census, of which at least thirty-three are more than one million strong. More than 3000 castes and nearly 350 tribal groupings form the Indian cultural mosaic. Further, the adherents of almost all the world’s major religions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism and various forms of animism—are to be found here. About 80 per cent of the population practises Hinduism, which in itself is a highly plural system of beliefs and practices. The disaggregation of the population along regions and religions provides an intriguing scenario. There are merely 2.3 per cent Christians in the country, but they form the majority in three states, namely Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland, and are a significant proportion of the population in Kerala, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur. One of the most prosperous states of India, Punjab, has a Sikh majority. The Indian Muslim population, though only 14.1 per cent according to the latest census, constitutes the third highest in the world in its sheer magnitude. Given the situation, quite often, the neat compartmentalization of majority and minority appears mythical. Stretching the argument to an absurd extent, a single- judge bench of an Indian court declared in 2007 that Hindus were a true minority if caste and sectarian divisions were to be taken into account. The judge’s order read that Muslims were in fact the ‘only majority religious community in comparison with other religious communities’, and all others were ‘in minority comparison to the Muslims of India’. Mercifully, realizing the preposterousness of the order, and its far-reaching consequences, a division bench of the high court swiftly overturned it.

India represents one of the most complex multinational and polyethnic societies to be governed by modern democratic structures. The presence of at least 1600 speech communities has been recorded by the Indian census, of which at least thirty-three are more than one million strong. More than 3000 castes and nearly 350 tribal groupings form the Indian cultural mosaic. Further, the adherents of almost all the world’s major religions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism and various forms of animism—are to be found here. About 80 per cent of the population practises Hinduism, which in itself is a highly plural system of beliefs and practices. The disaggregation of the population along regions and religions provides an intriguing scenario. There are merely 2.3 per cent Christians in the country, but they form the majority in three states, namely Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland, and are a significant proportion of the population in Kerala, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur. One of the most prosperous states of India, Punjab, has a Sikh majority. The Indian Muslim population, though only 14.1 per cent according to the latest census, constitutes the third highest in the world in its sheer magnitude. Given the situation, quite often, the neat compartmentalization of majority and minority appears mythical.

 

From a strictly juristic reading, the Constitution of India recognizes religious and linguistic minorities for the purpose of conferring special rights to establish educational institutions of their choice. Articles 29 and 30 carry the empowering provisions in this regard. The reticence of the Constitution-makers in defining who constitutes a minority has led to endless litigation. Were they to be decided numerically? Given India’s federalism, were the minorities to be determined at the level of the state or at the national plane?

 

In its cognitive framework, the volume The Minority Conundrum privileges the material lives of the minority groups over the spiritual or the cultural. In the real world, the two spheres rarely exist in compartments. Nonetheless, the task is to identify vulnerabilities that encumber the quest for the realization of substantive citizenship by minority groups. The essays therefore singularly emphasize educational attainment, employment prospects in a liberalized economy, possibilities of equal opportunity, violence of the state and vigilante groups, emerging questions of citizenship and employment, linking language with the material lives of its speakers, and document the receding political voice of minorities in times of a majoritarian upswing.

The Minority Conundrum is available now.

Channel the Worldly Wisdom of Chanakya

Posted on by Penguin India

The names Kautilya and Chanakya, representing the same personage, are an integral part of history from the period when Mauryan Emperor Chandragupta reigned over India. Kautilya is well known as the author of the seminal Indian treatise on politics, administration, diplomacy and war called Arthashastra. But it is the vast collection of aphoristic sayings in Sanskrit attributed to Chanakya, and therefore called Chanakya Niti, that have remained relevant and memorable over the centuries.

What is that wisdom which has enabled Chanakya’s verses of observation and advice to keep the place of honour in the oral tradition of India even as these have been lauded across the world in various translations?

Chanakya lures us in with one of his introductory verses:

With perusal of these precepts,

the best of men will understand

the famous teachings on true duty,

 on good and bad, on what to do or not.

 

Read on for 7 nuggets of worldly wisdom from Chanakya Niti–

 

  1. Chanakya warns against errors of judgement in choosing that which offers immediate succour over learning and values that may carry one through life and beyond.

One who discards the permanent,

and pursues just the transient—

the first values are by him destroyed,

the second perish in any case.

  1. The wise one who rose above his poverty and physical appearance to make himself indispensible to the ruler reminds us to see value in all things.

Nectar seek, even from poison,

gold even from excrement,

knowledge even from one base,

and the girl that is a gem, even from a family low.

  1. Experienced in the ways of the world, Chanakya exhorts man to speak in a measured way and reveal only what is necessary and conceal that which is yet incomplete.

Some work considered in the mind,

when speaking do not public make,

just think about it privately,

till it is indeed accomplished.

  1. Befriending one who has revealed his base nature can lead man down the road of misery. Being a keen observer of virtue, Chanakya reiterates the importance of keeping good company.

Wicked, and badly behaved,

he lives ill, casts evil looks—

one who makes of such a person

a friend will soon get destroyed.

  1. Pouring his enlightened self into a verse that is as simple as it is deep, Chanakya shares a core fact of existence in a way that equalizes all distinction.

Which family is free of faults,

which person has not suffered disease,

who has not faced adversity,

whose happiness is permanent?

  1. Mature and learned as he was, the great teacher Chanakya shares a lesson in moderation.

For beauty great was Sita seized,

Ravana slain for too much pride,

   for giving too much was Bali bound—

 as such, always, excess avoid.

  1. In an unforgettable verse that showcases him as the shrewd master of politics, Chanakya hints at the perils of walking the straight line in a crooked world.

Too upright, straight, one should not be,

go to the forest and there see:

straight trees cut down repeatedly,

while standing stays the crooked tree.

It is perhaps his ability to dig into the depth of human nature and tease out the knotted truths of human behaviour that has kept Chanakya alive for Modern India to engage with.

Haksar writes, ‘Overall, it is both their meaning and their style that has made the Chanakya verses so memorable for so long.’

Translated from the original Sanskrit by A.N.D. Haksar, read Chanakya Niti for more wisdom!

Steer Clear of Life’s Pitfalls with Master Strategist Chanakya’s Niti

Posted on by Penguin India

In the rather complex history of our vast nation, the name Chanakya symbolizes the worldly aspects of India’s ancient thought and knowledge while being synonymous with legendary wisdom and political skill. Chanakya’s numerous sayings on life deal with subjects ranging from family and social surroundings, friends and enemies, adequacy or absence of wealth, official and personal encounters to benefits of knowledge and the inevitable end of everything. These sayings have been compiled in collections and anthologies with the entire corpus referred to as Chanakya Niti.

The aphorisms, written in straightforward language devoid of the ‘alamkara’ or embellishments which were used in traditional Sanskrit verse, belie the depth of the content which, in a way, is reflective of Chanakya’s position as despite being an indispensable ally to the ruler Chandragupta Maurya, he led a simple life.

A.N.D. Haksar writes ‘ …Chanakya has been described as a poor but learned person of unattractive appearance, but nonetheless skilled, determined and cunning, with a strong, vengeful personality.’

Read on to know what Chanakya Niti teaches us about friends and foes:

Know him to be your friend who stands next to you when you are beset by danger and difficulty

In times of sickness or bad luck,

in famines and enemy attacks,

at the ruler’s door or in the cemetery,

the friend is one who stands by you.

Be wary of the one whose tongue drips honey while his hand wields a dagger

He speaks before you sweetly,

but spoils the work behind your back:

such a friend should be discarded—

 like a poisoned pot with milk on top.

Value all that adds meaning to your life and aids your passage through this world

In foreign lands, one’s friend is learning,

at home it is the wife,

in sickness, the friend is medicine,

 in death it is the virtuous life.

Know those to be your enemies who give in to their weakness and stray from their righteous path

The father in debt is one’s enemy,

and the mother who is adulterous,

a beautiful wife is also a foe,

as is a son without education.

Guard your wealth as floundering fortunes cause friends to turn fickle

Friends leave one who has no money,

also servants, kinsfolk, even one’s wife,

but all come back when he has wealth—

that is man’s real friend on this earth.

Sharpen your intellect so it can become your shield against enemies

What can enemies do to one

who very intelligent may be?

They are like raindrops or the heat,

  on a chariot with a canopy.

Devise your strategy so you can turn a weakness into strength

A sharp foe may be neutralized

with the help of another enemy:

a thorn that gets stuck in the foot

with another thorn can extracted be.

A.N.D. Haksar, a well-known translator of Sanskrit classics, offers a roadmap into Chanakya’s Niti with selected aphorisms which continue to be recalled and quoted in many parts of India.

To learn how to manoeuvre through life, read Chanakya Niti!

Books to read this World Wildlife Day

Posted on by Penguin India

The Indian subcontinent along with the rest of the world, faces the urgent threat of a dwindling wildlife population.This World Wildlife Day learn about the world’s wild animals with these fascinating books.

Age is no bar, there’s a book for every reader on this list:

The Vanishing

Every year, our planet loses over 150 species of plants and animals, and India is very much in the midst of this mass ‘sixth extinction’.
The Vanishing takes an unflinching look at the unacknowledged crisis that India’s wildlife faces, bringing to fore the ecocide that the country’s growth story is leaving in its wake—laying to waste its forests, endangering its wildlife, even tigers whose increasing numbers shield the real story of how development projects are tearing their habitat to shreds.

Animal Intimacies

What do we really know of the intimate-and intense-moments of care, kinship, violence, politics, indifference and desire that occur between human and non-human animals?

Built on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in the mountain villages of India’s Central Himalayas, Radhika Govindrajan’s book explores the number of ways that human and animal interact to cultivate relationships as interconnected, related beings.

 The Girl and the Tiger

Isha is a girl who loves animals but struggles in the confines of school. When she is sent away to live with her grandparents on the Indian countryside, she discovers a sacred grove where a young Bengal tiger has taken refuge.

Isha’s crusade to save the tiger becomes the catalyst of an arduous journey of awakening and survival across the changing landscape of modernizing India. Her encounters with tribal people, elephants, and her search for the wild jungle are the source of her revelations about the human relationship to the natural world.

The Snow Leopard

An unforgettable spiritual journey through the Himalayas by renowned writer Peter Matthiessen (1927-2014), the National Book Award-winning author of the new novel In Paradise

In 1973, Peter Matthiessen and field biologist George Schaller traveled high into the remote mountains of Nepal to study the Himalayan blue sheep and possibly glimpse the rare and beautiful snow leopard. Matthiessen, a student of Zen Buddhism, was also on a spiritual quest to find the Lama of Shey at the ancient shrine on Crystal Mountain. As the climb proceeds, Matthiessen charts his inner path as well as his outer one, with a deepening Buddhist understanding of reality, suffering, impermanence, and beauty. This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by acclaimed travel writer and novelist Pico Iyer.

Indica

Did you know that the exquisite caves of Ellora were hewn from rock formed in the greatest lava floods the world has known—eruptions so enormous that they may well have obliterated dinosaurs? Or that Bengaluru owes its unique climate to a tectonic event that took place 88 million years ago? Many such amazing facts and discoveries—are a part of Indica: A Deep Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent.

Researching across wide-ranging scientific disciplines and travelling with scientists all over the country, biochemist Pranay Lal has woven together the first compelling narrative of India’s deep natural history, filled with fierce reptiles, fantastic dinosaurs, gargantuan mammals and amazing plants.

For the Young Ones:
One Lonely Tiger

The rapidly shrinking forest has a lonesome, friendless tiger who is left with only his own shadow for company. Whom should he play with now that all his fellow tigers have disappeared?

In the tug-of-war over living space between people and the wild, where will the animals go if more forests are cut?

One Lonely Tiger illustrates this urgent threat of extinction and loss of habitat among valuable species, and asks the pressing question: are our trees, wild animals, birds and insects safe amidst us?

The National Park Explorers: Chaos at Keoladeo

Experience all that the jungle has to offer with the first in The National Park Explorers series!

Sameera, Alex and Tarun are headed to Bharatpur with Uncle Avi. They’ve heard that the Siberian cranes have returned to Keoladeo National Park after more than twenty years.But things just don’t seem right at the park. The three young explorers find themselves in the midst of things wondrous and wild as they spot birds and animals, bump into wildlife biologist Rauf Ali and sleuth around to solve mysteries along the way.

Chaos at Keoladeo is an entertaining adventure, travelogue, encyclopedia and birding guide all rolled into one.

The Globetrotters

Hudhud is horrible to everyone. He polishes off his classmates’ lunches, plays cruel pranks on his teachers and troubles innocent creatures. Until his strange new history teacher decides to set him straight.

The lesson? A curse! Now Hudhud must roam the vast earth . . . with-and as-the greatest migratory animals. His goal? To find the answer to all wrongs. And so begins Hudhud’s remarkable journey: as a blue whale calf separated from his mother in the deep; as a trusting caterpillar who befriends a hunting spider; as a competitive caribou on a perilous trek; as an Arctic tern too scared to fly . . . But fly across the world he must, if he hopes to ever return home.

Discover India: Wildlife of India

Mishki and Pushka are can’t wait to get going. Daadu Dolma is taking them on a safari to see some of India’s famed wildlife.They’re about to see rare animals, meet endangered species, watch some amazing reptiles and spot colourful birds!

So get set to join your favourite happy campers and their good old friend, Daadu Dolma and learn all about India’s incredible wildlife.

The Jungle Radio

When curious little Gul hears some strange sounds coming from her radio, she follows the musical clues into . . . an Indian jungle! On her walk, she finds feathered friends who TWEET, TAPP and TALK. There are some who howl and hoot, and others who play the flute. With a KEE here and a KAW there, Gul discovers songs everywhere!

The Jungle Radio is a little story about the language of birds-their songs and sounds-with a loud and clear call to listen to the world around us.

Uncovering the secret history of the Constitution of India

Posted on by Penguin India

Although Dr Ambedkar is universally regarded as the chief architect of the Constitution, the specifics of his role as chairman of the Drafting Committee are not widely discussed. Totally neglected is his almost single-handed authorship of the Constitution’s Preamble, which is frequently and mistakenly attributed to B.N. Rau rather than to Ambedkar.

With Ambedkar’s Preamble, Aakash Singh Rathore sets out to establish how and why the Preamble to the Constitution of India is essentially an Ambedkarite preamble. It is clear that its central concepts come from Ambedkar’s writings and speeches. In doing so, the book spotlights fundamental facts about modern Indian history – which makes this a highly relevant read today.

The excerpt below gives us a glimpse into Ambedkar’s role within the Drafting Committee:
 

Justice: The Story of B.R. Ambedkar

On 21 February 1948, Dr Ambedkar, in his capacity as chairman of the Drafting Committee, was ready to submit the first draft Constitution that had been prepared over the forty-two sittings. The meetings began on 27 October 1947, the first since the one on 30 August when Dr Ambedkar had been elected chairman. He sent it to the president of the Constituent Assembly, Rajendra Prasad, who had it widely published on 26 February, so that interested members of the public could consider it. The draft was also sent to all members of the Constituent Assembly, asking them to submit their views by 22 March 1948. A number of amendments were suggested, some specific to the Preamble, but not one of them was about the concept of justice.

Front Cover of Ambedkar's Preamble
Ambedkar’s Preamble || Aakash Singh Rathore

The Drafting Committee reconvened on 23, 24 and 27 March 1948 to evaluate the many comments and suggested amendments they had received. Since the committee had introduced both phraseology and substance that seemed to depart from the Constituent Assembly’s earlier decisions, president Prasad decided to assemble a high-powered Special Committee to look carefully into the matters in question—the draft Constitution, the numerous amendments suggested, the Drafting Committee’s opinions on them, and so on. The Special Committee was chaired by Jawaharlal Nehru and consisted of the who’s who of the Constituent Assembly. It included members of the Drafting Committee, of course, but also principal members of the Union Constitution Committee, as well as the Provincial Constitution Committee. Meeting on 10 and 11 April 1948, many of the names who subsequently enlivened the CAD included Bhogaraju Pattabhi Sitaramayya, Khushal Talaksi Shah, Jivatram Bhagwandas Kripalani, Kanaiyalal Maneklal Munshi, Thakur Das Bhargava, and, of course, B.R. Ambedkar, who never missed a Drafting Committee or related meeting. Also present was Naziruddin Ahmad, whose suspicion that the Drafting Committee was prone to taking ‘secret’ and unilateral decisions was now beginning to crystalize.

The minutes of the Special Committee meeting on 10 April 1948 were unusually curious. They began: The committee considered the matters referred to in the letter of the Chairman of the Drafting Committee to the President of the Constituent Assembly of India, dated the 21st February 1948. Preamble: The consideration of the amendments to the Preamble was held over and it was decided that the final settlement of the Preamble should be left to the decision of the Constituent Assembly.

This was unusual because the entire reason behind assembling the Special Committee was to try and scrutinize the changes that the Drafting Committee had introduced to the draft Constitution, one of the most crucial being the unanimously adopted Objectives Resolution. As we shall soon discover, one of the earliest points in Dr Ambedkar’s letter to the president of the Constituent Assembly was to do with the unilateral changes introduced by the Drafting Committee into the Preamble. It appears that Nehru was true to his word and that he ensured—rather to the displeasure of Naziruddin Ahmad—that the Drafting Committee was given the latitude to adapt the Objectives Resolution to the changing times.

A narrative like Ambedkar’s Preamble is crucial for our times today – especially in helping us develop new and important insights into the most important document for our country.  

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