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Gargi #Decolonization 🇮🇳

@gargiuvacha

Oct 17

1.
My husband bought a book in India to take it back home for a Pakistani friend.
I found it weird. So I opened it and started reading.
First page, and I knew why. It’s banned in Pakistan.
I read two chapters, and what I found will shock you.

2.
We Indians, especially Hindus, either refuse to see it or are so blinded by the “secular” blindfold that we think this mindset died in 1947.
It didn’t.
It simply got a flag and an army.
And it is trying to raise its ugly head again.

3.
You know Liaquat Ali Khan, right?
Pakistan’s first PM, the man we studied in British India history.
But here’s what textbooks hide:
His grandfather helped the British crush the 1857 War of Independence (a war which Hindus and Muslims fought should to should - read Savarkar).
That loyalty to empire got his family land & power.

Read 16 tweets

Gargi #Decolonization 🇮🇳

@gargiuvacha

Oct 15

🧵1/10
Sanatani Women and Samskrit!
While the West fought for women’s rights, voting & education, Bharat has ALWAYS produced Viduṣīs! This is PROOF against propaganda calling Sanatana Dharma patriarchal. Meet Dr Shruti Kānitkar – our newest Aṣṭāvadhāninī! 🇮🇳✨

2/10
On Oct 12, 2025, at Shubham Karoti Maitreyī Gurukulam, Bengaluru, young Sanskrit scholar Dr Shruti Kānitkar became an Aṣṭāvadhāninī!
She aced extempore poetry challenges from 8 expert Pṛcchakas. No fanfare, just pure Sanskrit brilliance! 🙏

3/10
What’s Aṣṭāvadhānam?

Ancient feat testing poetic genius! A woman scholar (Aṣṭāvadhāninī) composes verses INSTANTLY on themes, meters & tough conditions. History: Rāmabhadrāmbā, Śukavānī (16th-17th CE). Unbroken legacy! 📜

Read 10 tweets

Gargi #Decolonization 🇮🇳

@gargiuvacha

Sep 23

The Edinburgh Gazette, January 2, 1920, Pg 28 has the names of some admirers of Gen O’Dwyer and Dyer (remember 13thApril 1919). 1 of the names is:

Dewan Bahadur Kunj Behari Thapar of Lahore - the Golden Temple management, head of Akal Takht, Arur Singh, (the predecessor of the SGPC) presented Dyer a Kirpan (sword) and a Siropa (turban) along with Rs. 1.75 Lakhs contributed by Kunj Bihari Thapar, Umar Hayat Khan, Chaudhary Gajjan Singh and Rai Bahadur Lal Chand. It is shocking because Golden Temple is a next door to Jallianwala Bagh and most of the victims were pilgrims. Thapar’s family was newly wealthy, having made their fortune in trade during the first world war, as commission agents for the colonial British Indian Army. Kunj Behari Thapar did everything necessary to please his colonial masters to keep his hold in the British Indian Army. For loyalty during Jallianwala crisis, Kunj Behari Thapar was awarded the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1920.

What are commission agents for Colonial British Indian Army during the First World War?

When the war was declared, many sections of the Indian elite fell over themselves to offer help to the British cause. Nowhere was this more evident than in Punjab. The old Sikh nobility was more than keen to prove the loyalty of the martial race. The Chief Khalsa Diwan condemned the Ghadarites and helped recruit soldiers. Even Gandhi, newly returned to India, joined the recruitment drive despite his avowed adherence to the principles of non-violence. However, the most enthusiastic supporters of the war effort were the contractors and agents who profited handsomely from arranging supplies and recruits (our Mr Thapar being one of them). They fanned out across the province and used all means fair and foul to arrange recruits, supplies and contributions to war funds. The demands became greater as the war dragged on and the death toll mounted. Recruitment quotas were set by district, or even individual village, and ever more young men were taken into the army using false promises and intimidation. In many place, the relatively wealthy purchased young men from poor families to replace their own children. In other places, they made large contributions to the Imperial War Fund. Lieutenant Governor O'Dwyer ramped up the incentives for the contractors. In addition to their monetary commission, they were given thousands of acres of irrigated farmland next to newly built canals. They were also given fancy imperial titles. 'Dwyer would later write that the system of rewards 'were such as would appeal to the Oriental mind, such as the Indian titles of honour from "Raja" and "Nawab" down to "Rai Sahib" and "Khan Sahib", robes of honour, swords of honour, guns ...'. He also states that the land grants could go up to 15,000 acres! The contractors and agents quickly became a staunchly loyals nouveau riche. In the early years, there may have been some members of the general population who voluntarily signed up for the army in exchange for regular pay or adventure. However, as the death toll mounted, voluntary recruitment all but disappeared. There are several eyewitness accounts of how local officials and agents colluded to 'herd' poor peasants into the army.

Now, let’s see look at the Loyalist’s Descendants.

1. Grandson, Romesh Thapar: Maxist Romesh Thapar, a member of Communist Part of India started Seminar, as a monthly journal and established a stable revenue model – predictably, nearly all the advertising revenue came from the government and a large proportion of the sales were also to government institutions and libraries. Thapar also shifted base to Delhi from Mumbai in order to leverage his growing political clout in the socialist and “socially progressive” Nehru-led dispensation. He was duly allotted prime property at a low rate by the government. Thapar and his wife grew especially close to Indira Gandhi through the 1960s and 1970s. Although he had known her earlier, it was after Nehru’s death that Thapar became a part of the inner circle of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. This connection brought Thapar significant clout in society and government, and numerous sinecures were showered on him as patronage. Thapar served, at various times, as director of the India International Centre, National Books Development Board, ITDC and as vice-chairperson of the National Bal Bhavan, Delhi, all of which are government sinecures conferred on him by successive Congress Party governments.

Read 6 tweets

Gargi #Decolonization 🇮🇳

@gargiuvacha

Sep 16

1/8 🚨🍚 Gene-edited rice is being pushed to our plates, and we need to wake up now.
• Pusa DST-1 & Kamala set for release
• Made by cutting/deleting rice DNA
• Before it hits our plates, know the stakes: food, farms, Dharma
• Gene edited crops are the new GM crops.

2/8 🧬 Gene editing is sold as “precision”, but in living genomes it is a cut-and-delete gamble.
• “Cut-and-paste” changes in a complex genome
• Not the same as traditional breeding
• Claims of precision ≠ full understanding of gene networks

3/8 ⚠️ The health alarms are real, immediate and cannot be brushed aside.
• Unintended & off-target mutations seen in other countries
• Vector fragments incl. antibiotic-resistance genes can embed
• Potential toxins/allergens; deletions of 366 base pairs & 33 bp reported in 2 gene edited rice varieties

Read 8 tweets

Gargi #Decolonization 🇮🇳

@gargiuvacha

Sep 3

1/Do you know who she is?

She is living proof of why Gurukulams are indispensable today.

Rushmita, alumna of Isha Samskriti Gurukulam, has just launched her first book on Kindle—Siddha Amritam: Agasthya’s Light on Life and Health.

2/ For the first time, the profound Siddhamritam text has been translated from Tamil into English in a comprehensive way. She blends ancient Tamil verses, insightful commentary, and practical guidance to open Siddha medicine to a wider world.

3/ I had “Introduction to Siddha” in my MTech curriculum with @DrVRamanat53847 , IIT BHU, Varanasi. We had limited reference material—because everything was in Tamil. This gap is exactly why such work is invaluable.

instagram.com/reel/DOH0M7AEg…

Read 5 tweets

Gargi #Decolonization 🇮🇳

@gargiuvacha

Aug 30

1
Sambhaji Maharaj wasn’t the only one.
In 1716, Banda Singh Bahadur was forced by the Mughals to eat the flesh of his 4-year-old son before being tortured and cut into pieces.
Let’s learn about the man who shook the Mughal empire.

2
Born as Lachhman Dev in 1670 at Rajouri (Jammu), he was skilled in archery, horse-riding, and martial arts. After killing a deer and seeing its unborn fawn die, he turned ascetic, renouncing the world. He wandered as Madho Das Bairagi, worshipping and meditating in Nanded.

3
In 1708, fate brought him to Guru Gobind Singh at Nanded. The Guru pierced through his ego. Madho Das surrendered, and became Banda Singh Bahadur. The Guru gave him five arrows, a Nishan Sahib, and a mission: punish tyrants, defend dharma.

Read 14 tweets

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Gargi #Decolonization 🇮🇳

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Gargi #Decolonization 🇮🇳

Gargi #Decolonization 🇮🇳

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