Faith

The Tribal Religion 7671

• Special
• Apr 05, 2020

The Tribal Religion of the Odishan tribes is an admixture of animism, animalism, nature-worship, fetishism, shamanism, anthropomorphism and ancestor worship. Religious beliefs and practices aim at ensuring personal security and happiness as well as community well-being and group solidarity. Their religious performances include life-crisis rites, cyclic community rites, ancestor and totemic rites and observance of taboos. Besides these, the tribes also resort to various types of occult practices. In order to tide over either a personal or a group crisis the tribes begin with occult practices

The Hindu Samizdat 3138

• Special
• Mar 12, 2020

Pankaj Saxena

‘Samizdat’ is a word that is hardly common in the vocabulary of the Indian youth in 2020. But to someone who was born in the 80s or 90s, who had seen the twilight years of the Soviet Union, it would be familiar. Under the severe censorship of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, it was not at all possible to criticize the Party, the Secretary of the Party, the ideology of Communism, or any article of belief that the Party and the rulers considered sacrosanct. 

This is not the place to go into the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of the