Kevin R.D. Shepherd's Blog

Kicks Iron of Standing Rock Sioux, with headdress of golden eagle feathers c. 1905. Photograph by Frank Bennett Fiske (1883-1952). Courtesy CNN

Over many years, the Sioux Indians were afflicted by broken promises and stolen land. They lost to the invasion of white settlers and greed for gold. The white media vindictively depicted them in terms of primitive poverty and alcoholism. One of the legends depicted “savage” Indians scalping “civilised” whites, a proclaimed reason fo...

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891-1956) became the champion of Dalits , a category known by various identity tags, including outcastes and “untouchables.” His resistance to the caste system of Hinduism was a significant feature of twentieth century Indian political and social events.

Mahar Background

Born at Mhow cantonment, near Indore in Madhya Pradesh, Ambedkar was the son of Ramji Sakpal, a Mahar (Dalit). This pater was headmaster of a military school...

Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) was born in Gujarat. He moved to London for his training as a lawyer, thereafter spending over twenty years in South Africa. His role as a civil rights activist facilitated his subsequent role in Indian Independence.  He became leader of the Indian National Congress.

“Gandhi’s own Collected Works, ninety volumes of them, are but a part of the primary evidence now open to scrutiny” (Brown 1989:3). I do not claim to have...

Upasani Maharaj

Upasani Maharaj (1870-1941), also known as Upasani Baba, was a brahman ascetic of Maharashtra, gaining the repute of a satpurusha. He is little known by comparison with popular gurus who have since flooded global media and markets. Nevertheless, the difference between his example and the sequels is potentially instructive.

Born at Satana, his grandfather was a pundit learned in Sanskrit texts. Upasani himself did not opt for the pundit career, instead choo...

G. D. Agrawal

The instances of two recent Hindu monks, who fasted to death for ecological reasons, comprise a striking chapter in the struggle against industrial pollution. The ex-professor G. D. Agrawal, and his predecessor Nigamananda Saraswati, were both concerned to save the Ganges (Ganga) River from pollution.

The Ganges  is the fifth most polluted river in the world, with the ambivalent reputation of being the sacred river of Hinduism. However, religion is not guiding the fate o...

“Gandhi’s own Collected Works, ninety volumes of them, are but a part of the primary evidence now open to scrutiny” (Brown 1989:3). I do not claim to have read all those 100 volumes, but I can state that I found the CW in the early 1980s at CUL, and was amazed that the author had so much output. I was quite astonished. Most of the Western philosophers never got anywhere near that bulk of material. The 8 vols of Vivekananda were here eclipsed.

“He detested the title of Mahatma and disclaimed...