Year: 2021
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What does it mean to be ‘Indian’?
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A new book by S.N. Balagangadhara, Balu to his many admirers, has been published recently. Prof Balu is an original thinker and this new book presents his ideas in a manner accessible to a lay audience. Every time I listen to a video or read something written by him, I come away with important new…
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The white sahibs in India: Excerpts (part 2)
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“In order to restore India to its pristine condition, we have to return to it. In our own civilization there will naturally be progress, retrogression, reforms, and reactions; but one effort is required, and that is to drive out Western civilization. All else will follow.” – Hind Swaraj, M.K. Gandhi Our long education brainwashes us…
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The white sahibs in India: Excerpts
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The following excerpts are from ‘The white sahibs in India’ by Reginald Reynolds, a book that we want to re-publish and popularize. The full book is available online here. Excerpt 1: Reference has already been made to the antiquity of this panchayat system. Megasthenes, who visited India three centuries before Christ, described the village communities…
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The white sahibs in India
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At SIDH we are thinking of publishing some books that we consider very important, that are not very well known and are currently out of print. ‘The white sahibs in India’ by Reginald Reynolds, first published in 1937, is the first one we hope to publish in this series. The author in the preface dedicates…
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The science delusion
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(The following is an excerpt from the first part of the talk…) The science delusion is the belief that science already understands the nature of reality in principle, leaving only the details to be filled in. This is a very widespread belief in our society. It’s the kind of belief system of people who say…
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Seeing through the brain fog
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Pawanji says that he sometimes wonders how the illiterate see the world, because he finds himself forced to read everything he comes across – Billboards, road signs, shop names, books etc. We appear to largely live in a mental world created by words and images that we confuse with reality. To see things as they…
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साधारण ही श्रेष्ठ थे
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भारत में कभी साधारण ही श्रेष्ठ हुआ करते थे। आम कारीगर अपना मालिक था, किसी के मातहत काम नहीं करता था और ये कारीगर उन जातियों से होते थे जिन्हें आज हम पिछड़ा और दलित की श्रेणी में डाल दिये हैं। यहाँ की समृद्धि जिसे पश्चिम के अर्थशास्त्र के इतिहासकार ऊंचे दर्जे की बताते हैं,…
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Learning at Bodhshala
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This week we look at some excerpts from a SIDH publication, Learning at Bodhshala, that chronicles a unique educational experiment. I think that, in times to come, this book may become required reading for anyone trying to re-imagine a truly Indian education. Excerpt 1: (The eye of commonality, page 1) I soon realised that, with…
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Learning to learn
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In the accelerated digital world we inhabit today, not many people seem to be doing any serious reading. It is easier to passively watch a YouTube video (at 2x speed) than to read something which forces us to think. The two books on ‘Learning to learn’ try to address this problem by using images and…
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Understanding history
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This week we take a look at another SIDH publication – ‘Understanding history’. First published in 2003 in Hindi as ‘Itihaas ki samajh‘, this small book looks at the importance of history teaching and provides the teacher some tools to make history relevant and interesting for children. Here are some excerpts to give you an…
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A matter of quality
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Over the years, SIDH has published more than 40 books in Hindi and English. This post highlights one such book, first published in 1998, which was based on research done by SIDH on what people from the Tehri-Garhwal area wanted from education. Here are some excerpts from the book. Excerpt 1: (Preface to the first…