Falsafa, the Philosophy Magazine

SEPTEMBER 2020 | VOL. VI

Falsafa The Annual Magazine of the Department of Philosophy, Hindu College

THIS

ISSUE'S

FEATURED ARTICLES:

Camus: a Womaniser? -8 Politics and Philosophy-17 BitterSweet - 20

LOOK

OUT

FOR

Knowing the department- with Prof.

Rekha Basu and Prof.

Shriddha Shah A perspective from outside the department

The Bridge by Prakriti Bandhan One fine day a long time ago, there were two men walking on the opposite side of the river bank, you could hear them screaming at each other about something but it was unclear what exactly had got them so riled up.

When I got closer to them, attracted by the sounds of the argument as one usually is, they seemed to be going at it about the most absurd thing. The man who was named Dawkins shouted, “This is not right! The Pope said there is a Bridge and he said it with such conviction that anyone would have believed that there actually is a bridge!”

When I looked at the river I saw that there was nothing. The man named Wittgenstein on the other bank replied “The bridge’s existence doesn’t matter, the Pope said there was a bridge for the purpose of telling the people that this river can be crossed!”

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Dawkins almost growling now, replied, “The people believed that the river can be crossed because they thought there is an actual, real physical bridge.” “This was like, cheating the people!”

Wittgenstein frustrated, replied, “The idea of the bridge is enough to give hope to people, it does not have to be physical, what matters is how now people will approach the river, not as an obstacle but as another thing simply put in their path that they can overcome” Dawkins sighed and replied, “Hope won’t help them overcome this river but science will, the people who can maybe make a real bridge appear will, these people have been fooled by the Pope, this way the Pope can make them do what he wants, they would even drown thinking that something like a bridge is there on this river.

Wittgenstein said with concern “People will not drown, people will become better, hopeful thinking that there could be a bridge, take each other’s help and be better knowing that there is a way out instead of just a big roaring dangerous river in their way, in looking for the bridge, with the idea of the bridge they will maybe end up making a bridge” Dawkins just said, “I cannot with you! You see the idea as if it’s the same as the real, and that is your problem, you can’t tell the difference.

Wittgenstein said, “I cannot with you either! you can’t see how the idea and actual are the same, I cannot explain to you this thing of the “beyond” without running into nonsensical statements” Dawkins murmured, “That is because it is nonsense” I saw their frustration and I swam to the place where they were standing, and somehow I was in the middle and asked, “What in the world is a “Bridge”?”

This story uses The Bridge as something which has still not been invented , and it represents the idea of God, as we know what it is and yet we also ‘don’t know’ it at the same time. With the stances on the bridge and its existence, especially with reference to the Pope I hope to express somehow the stance of Dawkins and Wittgenstein and how they are different from each other as they talk about Science and Religion.

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Sartre, Indians on Social Media and #icantbreathe

by Dalorina Nath, MA. Philosophy, Hyderabad Central University Sartre, Indians on Social Media and #icantbreatheDalorina NathMA. Philosophy, Hyderabad Central UniversityThe world of today is a global village. News of ruthless policemen mercilessly killing a man of color in the streets of Minnesota recently, stirred people across the globe, as it rightly should have. The crime was recorded on camera where the dying man’s last words were, “I can’t breathe.” As much as this issue was a case of violence by the cops, it took the momentum into a larger movement against racism. Soon, social media was flooding with trending hashtags like #icantbreathe and #blacklivesmatter, with every aware user condemning this incident of racial violence. Joining hands in this movement online were the Indians, as well. Waves of protests rose from India, as Indians from all across the country took to social media to voice their opinions. As much as this was a sign of solidarity against oppression, not many in India took it to be so. With this article, I intend to discuss this divisive phenomenon that has taken shape on social media.I wish to discuss the various aspects of this phenomenon of protests and then evaluate the ends from the views of the French existentialist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre. The divisive phenomenon that we have mentioned above, splits this global movement against oppression in India into two strands of voices. With the latter necessarily related to and evolving from the first. The first kind of protest was spontaneous. It evolved as organically as protests take shape, its epicenter being solely the incident that had happened. It involved people being aware of the issue, reading up about it, and taking a stand of solitary against the oppressors and racism. Indian film-stars and celebrities were particularly seen breaking their usual trend of being politically silent. They took to social media, voiced their opinions, and used the so-called trending hashtags. As much as we’d like to believe and try to accept it as a positive sign of solidarity, this is not how it was perceived by many. These celebrities were called out by organizations, groups, and people online for being hypocrites, for never standing up for the sufferers of similar oppression at home, particularly the Covid-19 displaced migrants, the Muslims, the students, the Kashmiris, and the North Easterns. And it did not end just there. These celebrities were blamed for being selective in their approach, and shamed for choosing to speak only for a more popular issue. And it was not just limited to celebrities. Common people too were seen being shamed by these similar groups for the same reason. Captions like “Most Indians supporting the cause of black lives are the ones who discriminate against their fellow North-Easterns.” and “If you cannot speak for migrant lives and Kashmiri lives, you should not speak for black lives” were popularly shared. And it is my intention to ask, what good are these kinds of thoughts to us? Without denying even the least allegation of hypocrisy against these people, I see these kinds of thoughts, as each a dent in the monument of protest against racial oppression.

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No one should deny that such celebrities and general people are being selective protestors online, they are being hypocrites, but I believe, bringing them down and asking them to not voice opinions on the issue of oppression, in any form, is only harmful; not just to the said movement but also to the umbrella movement against oppression worldwide. Bringing down, one can never mean the same as upliftment of the other. For Jean Paul Sartre, oppression is both praxis and process. And this is constant for all kinds of oppression. Sartre developed a general theory of oppression. For him, any kind of oppression anywhere reflects oppression against all, be it class bigotry, racism against the black, anti-semitism, or colonialism. Going with that view, an Indian person’s voice against an act of racism in America means as much as the voices of protests of the Americans. And anyone who tries to put an end to those voices from India (citing any reason, be it hypocrisy), is actually harming the anti-racism movement in its essence. The second strand of protests in India was started by vocal groups of people who have led (and still do hold) protests and movements both online and offline against various instances of oppression, prejudice, violence, and injustice at the home ground, India. These organizations have in time and again proved to be the voices of the sufferers in our country. At this hour, it has been noticed online that such groups of people are having an ardent need to talk about issues from home, those that are close to themselves. These groups for example if earlier had talked about Kashmiris who suffer from armed brutality, now are propagating their ideas in forms like ‘Kashmiri lives matter too’ or a group that has been recently talking about the migrants suffering from the lags of government policies in the times of a pandemic, puts forward an idea like ‘even migrant lives matter’. These are again, often seen in response to the opinions of the so-called hypocrites who have voiced their opinion against racism. What intrigues me here is the method of pitting one form of oppression against the other as if it is a kind of competition, and if a competition seems too harsh a word, let us just call it comparison. Let us understand this more. For example, Muslims across the country are facing a crisis of citizenship for a mere lack of documents, and with the advent of CAA-NRC, no one can deny that. Now when someone comes up with a slogan of ‘Muslim lives matter, too’, it is just an act of an unfair comparison of Muslim life and Black life. Sartre talks about something called the ‘Bad Faith’. For him, people use bad faith to deceive themselves into believing that they are not free and they can only carry on things like they already are, without taking the responsibility for their actions. If we can see the current issue in this light, we can understand that those who are contributing to these kinds of comparisons are in bad faith. When one pits a Muslim or a northeastern life against a black life, one is not only undermining the actual fight against oppression, in all forms but is also trying to be a part of a protest by actually hiding behind another.

The person using #muslimlivesmattertoo is not only not supporting #blacklivesmatter directly but instead is seeming to perform an act of doing so in bad faith, by wearing a disguise of #muslimlivesmattertoo. The ‘too’ at the end of such hashtags is where these people can hide away from

taking

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any

movement. Adding

on,

these

people

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#muslimlivesmattertoo is good to be used, are actually treating #blacklivesmatter only as an end to their means. In other words, a slogan raised for black life is only a means to the end of protesting against oppression against a Muslim life. Someone's death cannot be, and should not be the means of some other's ends.

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Chhavi Singh Raghuvanshi

Photographs by Prashant Yadav

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The Pleasure of Angst for a Modern Teenager

by Kunal Panda Existential angst surrounds us all as weary teenagers that manifests itself in the form of hard earned soliloquies and monologues whispered into ears after a socially accepted attempt at (chugged) beer pong, culminating in scorning the hustle of selling productive worth for free as unpaid interns in the quest of being a money making machine to finally afford that one bottle of Tanqueray. We start each Term with bright determination, only for it to flatten faster than a Fruit Chill on a summer day.

Unaccounted lectures pass with a memory that spans till that one Beethoven sonata that everyone knows how to hum, and venting out the seeping cracks of monotonous boredom and irrelevant cultural affixes over patties as energy bars. What must be the point of life if it is supposed to end somewhat tragically in a funeral wake clad in white muslin, devoid of all your efforts to brave this world and achieve self-indulgent wealth? Such was the thought tormenting Soren Kierkegaard, who accepted unhappiness as a vocation. Losing his parents and siblings to disease and himself staring into a prophesized demise, he reacted to his disposition with a subtle smile and produced a dense oeuvre now regarded with the birth of Existentialism, a famous term for the modern teenager doused with quotes of Kafka and a copy of Orwell’s 1984. Survived by over seven thousand pages of journals and personal recollections, his philosophy was one marked by despair and guilt. He broke ties with a woman he was about to marry, citing his inability to love someone. He gave up his career to tie himself in a room, writing through the night at a frantic pace. The modern world would expose his behavior to psychiatric help, although such a personality is not so alien for the current age, where depression and anxiety are romanticized for the successfully troubled young adult and wild emotion is the sign of true genius. His parables live on as a reminder of Man as the only creature unwilling to know himself. Now termed as a Christian Existentialist, he is named so because of his unusual position on faith. He presented some of the most striking criticisms, and simultaneously, a visually pious sympathy for Christianity. The parable of The Men of Gotham throws light on fundamental beliefs where a group of men hold on to the branch of a “thirsty” tree close to a river by forming a chain from the ground up, holding each other’s waists – under the presupposition that the first man held fast. If the first man loosens his grip, all Gothamites fall into the water as the presupposition is broken. This metaphor explains the present, where fundamental beliefs about God who reincarnates as human for us to love him, challenges the notion of objective and subjective truths and politicians force-feed obvious lies that gives rise to totalitarian propaganda. Truth for this world is a byproduct of positional warfare. The party with more influence owns reality, and the line between natural and posited law is blurred. An escapist fantasy demands the eccentric idea of the fallen Gothamites to surrender to the river and discover new worlds, for every idea read in textbooks was eccentric at its origin.

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Anxiety deeply roots itself around the expectation of our image in public. It reflects the inability to know what others desire of you. Modern dating presents a myriad of lovelorn singles who have “commodified” themselves like varieties of jam in a grocery store. Such mass produced individuality, isolated into labor and consumption. A false identity leads us into the troubled waters of hatred, self-loathing, boredom, egotism, and to refuse to engage in the only certainty of life – death. We live in unusual times marked by irrelevant wars, bigotry, suspicion, and economic upheavals. Increase in feelings of alienation without any plausible belief systems have led to an increase in suicide and mental illnesses. It seems that we have not only lost the taste of life but also the taste for life, as we allow our lives to be dominated by ideals, norms, and values defined by others. Scientific and rational inquiry has provided one last blow to canonical and divine intervention. It is a severe blow to the idea of an immortal soul and God. In this evolution of the Superstructure into a world of artificial sentience, the mind alone is the cause of this contemporary angst, the source of experience. In death thus, lies the inexistence of the soul, nothingness prevails.

Neuroexistentialism, as a form of third wave existential philosophical thought maps neural networks of the body with a “unified theory of being”. It is the desire for freedom that finds the appeal of a disbelief in existing social structures and old prescribed habits quite tempting. Existential thought opens a chasm of eccentricity and an infinite space for individuality. We all have a duty to recognize one’s own freedom, ability to change, malleability and vulnerability. By default, then, we must also acknowledge the same in others. This is where faith enters as a result of the intersection of Kierkegaard in everyday life. Faith, not just as a State sponsored apparatus of power pushed into a box of Religion, but a belief in the weakness of the human mind to perceive good and bad. The nature of man is unique to experience, although one cannot experience that which cannot be mediated by language. The constraint of all expression limited to metaphors and symbolism should prompt the relativist, practical, and everyday philosopher to have a leap of faith into the dire conditions of uncertainty. Despair and dogmatism are easy, but hope is hard. Our anxiety, while painful, is evidence that we’re struggling to be true to ourselves. Rather than distract ourselves with every shiny new thing, surrender to societies’ standards, or cling desperately to some objective, “knowable” truth, Kierkegaard challenges us to remain open as we engage with the world, searching for that noble ideal we’d be willing to sacrifice everything for. The dizziness of freedom is the condition that life is viewed backwards, but can only be lived forwards. This position implies that future is no one’s responsibility but one of its maker. To face an inevitable demise with defiance instead of distraction is to live a life.

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Philosphy at Hindu with Prof.

Rekha Basu

by Triambika, Parakram and Anish

Q. Ma’am, we have heard that you and your husband both teach at the University of Delhi, he teaches in the department of English and you at Hindu College. Is that true?

My husband was at Hindu for 28 years too! He was a bearded young man in his time and was really a firebrand. He left in 2009 when he got a position in the department of English in Delhi University and now he’s going to be retiring in September, this year.

Q. How did the two of you meet?

I joined Hindu in 1985. I had been working at Daulat Ram college in a leave vacancy since 1982 and in January 1985, I got the opportunity to shift to Hindu. There were many young people in our 20s teaching at Hindu and all of us just banded together. I was around 25-26 at that time and all of us had a lot of group interactions and study circles. We would all go for a lot of protest marches and were together whenever we needed to raise our voices for important issues. Tapan, my husband then went on a study leave to the united states and once he went there I discovered that I was the only one in the staffroom who was receiving letters from him. So I sort of also started responding and corresponding with him. When he came back in 1988 he proposed to me and in 1989 we got married.

We had a simple court marriage with our closed ones and that was it. We both always travelled to college together and it was just for 5-6 years that we didn’t when we had a very small baby. So one of us used to leave later. Otherwise we used to always go and come back from the university together and it was great!

Q.What was it that got you into philosophy?

I had actually got into a BA pass course in 1973 in Miranda house. As you hear, I’m quite ancient *laughs*. However, I was very dispirited. I have always felt that this degree was looked down upon.

About one week after attending the classes I decided to apply for philosophy and English again. My marks, however, weren't that great. I had gotten into philosophy immediately. I initially wanted to do English as it was always my passion but by the time I got into English Honours at Miranda House it was really late and almost the end of the semester. As there were some withdrawals I got in but I thought I wouldn’t be able to catch up with the course and that scared me. So I decided to continue with philosophy. So I can say that it's not a subject that I chose but definitely one that grew on me. It wasn't my first love or that I had a passion for it but I've definitely learned to love it over the years.

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Q. Ma’am, you mentioned that you were in college in the 70s, which was the time emergency took place. We have read so many stories about students being so active during that time. What was the college atmosphere like back then?

I was in Miranda house as a student in 1975. Somehow a women’s college is more insulated and unfortunately I wasn’t at Hindu at that time. Later when I joined Hindu I realised that at least 5 professors from Hindu had been put behind bars during emergency. Hindu was immensely political.

However we kept hearing that various things were happening, Slums were being

demolished, compulsory sterilizations were happening. So there was an atmosphere of awe and fear around. We were very young though, I joined college at the age of 16 and graduated at 19 as we didn’t have class 12 in my generation. So I didn’t have much of a political conscience back then and I think that was because I was in an all women’s college and the atmosphere was protected a lot.

Q. The philosophy department of our college was made in 2007, can you share the story of how it came about?

When I joined Hindu as a professor I was the first in my batch with a permanent position and after that for 5 years there were no permanent positions so I was very lucky. It was however very frustrating to be in a college with no philosophy honours. I tried to talk to my very senior colleague, who is no more now and he laughed it off and said “kya karenge aap philosophy honours laake?

Aaram kijiye na” and you know, I was bursting with young energy and having ideas about the subject but it just didn't work out. He was a lot older and different from me and we didn’t have many conversations and within a few years of my joining he retired so he didn’t really push my idea at all.

It was only after he left that I started applying and because of certain political positions I had taken, the principal back then saw to it that he didn’t give me honours. Just because of a certain letter all of us young people had signed the administration did not let philosophy honours be created. The second time I again applied under another principal and this principal appointed a committee to look into it but they saw to it that they gave it a negative ruling. The third principal I applied under point-blank refused and didn’t even appoint a committee. He said “yeh kya subject hai yeh Hamari samajh mei nahi aata”. At that time we didn’t even have any computers and laptops so I had to do a lot of literal leg work. I was always running around the UGC and they used to ask me questions like “how many colleges have a philosophy department” and I used to run around trying to collect data.

The next time I applied however, the next principal, Dr Kavita Sharma accepted. This one time we were having a conversation in the staffroom and I said “what type of a humanities department does Hindu college have, we don’t have a lot of subjects” and she replied very nonchalantly “whose fault is it Rekha?” I told her that she knows I have applied 3 times and each time the proposal was rejected, what could I have done. Without batting an eyelid she asked me to apply again. So I sat up and looked at her and asked her if she meant it. She replied affirmatively, it was that informal. Suddenly I found out that the formalities and data each principal had asked for was not necessary at all. t was just because of the academic will of Dr Kavita Sharma that we were able to start the

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department. Really it was very difficult to start a philosophy department in Hindu knowing that our next-door neighbour Ramjas had been trying it for 25 years. In 2006 the UGC turned down our proposal and we had a fight but finally, in 2007 the department was made. I was 15 years away from my retirement at that time but at least it was something so I was very happy.

Q. Is the department how you expected it to be? Or are there certain things you wish were different?

There is always a disjunction between the vision and the reality. It’s not important to have a vision alone. There are many other factors. It hasn't turned out exactly as I thought it would of course. I would actually speak like a postmodernist, it’s not my baby anymore, once it is in the public domain it’s with all of you, with the younger people. So it’s not as though one person’s vision is dictating the department. That would be authoritarianism of an intellectual kind. We should not do that. What is crucial is that there should be a vision for every generation to come. I shall go away in January 2022, but the college continues. So the vision has to be formulated again. We just need to find our tune and just ask ourselves if this is what we really want. We should engage in the Socratic “know thyself”. We pause and ask ourselves; does philosophy feel the way I want it to? If it doesn’t then do something about it, don’t just sit and become an academic critic. The vision is the form we give to it, its very phenomenological.

Q. Do you have any old stories from Hindu that you would share with us?

It's a very fond memory how political it was always for hinduites. My husband Tapan had studied at St. Stephen’s and had a career at Hindu. He has been the best person to give me the perspective of colleges. At Stephen’s, you had to excel at sports and academics but at Hindu you have to excel at public speaking and be very political. We were encouraged to. I remember when the demolishment of Babri Masjid happened it was really very tragic, it took place on a Sunday and on Monday there was silence in the staff room and among the students. Somebody said that there was a peace march on the campus. We didn’t have mobiles back then and just by word of mouth, murmurs took place and there was a spontaneous peace march. In my memories it is one of the best-attended peace marches.. We went to each and every college and kept collecting people and no one stopped us.

Even though the police was still there, it was not as visual as it is now. Now you have a different kind of visual of the police force with the quantity getting enhanced. In our generation the police used to keep at least a yard away from us. Any other time there was a case of sexual harassment, hinduites would jump out of the classrooms and run to the streets. A friend I had, who is no more as she died of cancer in 2010, Dr Lalita Subbu, from the English department, she had told me that “the lizard has to dance for the hinduites to come out on the streets (20:25?”). Each time there was any unjust case in Hindu college, we would just take it to the streets. There was intense political conscience.

That was something we had and always congratulated ourselves for. Valentine’s day was always celebrated but it was much quiet. The pooja was more a part of the day than what the entire day stood for. Classes went on simultaneously and it was much calmer. Street plays were also a very big

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part of Hindu. I particularly remember a play that was directed by Ramu Gandhi's daughter, Leela Gandhi. She had directed a Shakespeare’s play and it had such a resounding response.There were excellent speakers and debaters in our colleges. High quality of debaters wasn’t peculiar to just Hindu but was definitely a special part of it. Sanjay Shrivastava is someone I remember as being a great debater. Debating was popular across the campus. Though you might say that I’m just looking back and romanticizing my times. I’m sure these aspects are still great today.

Q. Do you think that novels (fiction) are a good way of introducing people to philosophy?

Absolutely yes. I took MA classes in the faculty of arts for at least 27 years in my career. As we didn’t have honours, I would always volunteer for guest teaching. I was teaching this course called “history of western ideas”. It included Metamorphosis by Kafka and Nausea by Sartre. I think that we have to reinvent ourselves when we formulate the syllabi. Why do we put such dense books like “critique of pure reason”? A small essay like “what is enlightenment?” is much more accessible to students. Books like Critique of pure reason are something which should be done in an entire year not just as a part of a semester. In my generation we had the annual mode which was kinder to teachers and very very kind to students. We had far more extracurricular activities. The semester system has led us to have much more vertical encounters with our studies. We just tend to do it and then it gets out of our heads. It doesn’t get assimilated to our intellect. By march people would put away their extracurricular activities and get set on their exams for the last two-three months. However in the semester mode preparation time has shrunk to like a week or two at max and most students even cram the night before.I think philosophers like Sartre can be taught through novels brilliantly and of course, also by their treatises. We have thinkers who have portrayed their ideas through different mediums and genres and we need to respect that. I don’t think that one should only read the traditionally prescribed text, as it can get quite difficult.

Q. We used to have a lot of informal sessions and tutorials with professors under the tree or in front of a chai stall. Of late though classroom teaching has been getting mechanised and these are diminishing. What are your opinions on it?

It is just a sign of the times. We are adopting a bureaucratic value system for the university. A university is autonomous, legally and literally. Please believe me when I say that it ought to be an autonomous space, the time and space in the university are different than they used to be before.

You cannot dictate a 9-5 schedule. In the past few years because of the bureaucratisation of the university space and time, there is a trust deficit on the whole with respect to many aspects such as attendance. The university authority wants evidence of the classes, like the timetables being pasted outside the classes. It is also important in a way as there are people who don’t take the classes seriously. But we can’t paint the entire community like that either. In our times we had the Jai Singh chai waala who used to sit at the right side of the Hindu college entrance. My MA tutorials, as well as every other department’s tutorials, always took place there. Especially in winters, Jai Singh would be

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crowded with teachers and students having chai and omelette and having tutorials or just chatting.

But a time came when it was alleged that he was disseminating drugs so he was evicted from the college and we all felt very sad. But for 25 years we knew him, sometimes we would buy him a kurta pyjama for Diwali or buy him new glasses. People who had passed out a decade earlier would also come back to meet him and have chai there and return the money they hadn’t paid before. He had a register of sorts. Jai singh is preserved in many peoples memories and he was symbolic of this informal interaction in the academic circle.

Q. Which philosophers have influenced you in your own life?

I’m fond of thinkers like Albert Camus and Sartre. I relate to the existentialist thinkers. Among the analytic tradition I was really influenced by Richard Rorty and some of the postmodern thinkers, Heidegger very much so. The existentialist tradition and the critique of it both have inspired me and influenced me very much.

Q. Camus and Sartre are very popular in literature too. Did you read them back when you were in college and interested in doing English honours?

Yes! I read them when I was a teenager and many other thinkers too. But at that age it was more about having to keep up with other people in college. After retirement, I know that I will revisit many of these novels including works by some Russian novelists like Dostoevsky or Tolstoy.

Currently I am reading the Plaque by Camus as we are going through a pandemic and I am reading about a pandemic in Algeria. It is very interesting and I can relate to it. In modern times, I think Arundhati Roy’s “The god of small things” was a novel that was very powerful. I don’t like her other novels as much as I like this one. There were issues of gender caste, class and politics. It was a very wholesome experience. I am also very fond of Amitabh Ghosh’s work. I think most of the contemporary work we find by Indian authors writing in English is very very good. Neil Mukherjee and Anuradha Roy are some others whose work is very powerful.

Q. Don’t you think its hard to find indigenous Indian writers though? Most of the Indian authors are foreign-educated or have lived abroad their whole life.

No, Arundhati Roy has lived here. Amitabh Ghosh was with my husband, Tapan, at St Stephen’s and then he did sociology from Delhi school of economics and then went abroad. Some of it I understand. Some of the regional writers have also been recently coming up, like Mahashweta Devi, is quite good and I would highly recommend her work. However I agree with you, there has been a lack of India based authors and the reasons can be various.

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Q. How has the experience of teaching feminism been for you?

Teaching gender is always a major self-realisation that you are in a world that is, in gender terms, radically unequal. A lot of us have braved to come into a professional space: this is such a liberating space! So in the evenings, when you return home, you have got charged and renewed enough to confront patriarchy in the attitudes of the family/ spouse/ children. The exposure to the world outside the home always rejuvenates. Teaching feminism foregrounds this experience to us firsthand, how patriarchy has seeped through language, attitudes, beliefs.

In other words, a challenge! Which you, as a woman, are constantly combating at home and outside.

Q. Lastly, do you have any message for the graduating students in these unprecedented times?

Walk into the world whilst thinking, with deliberation and criticism. At one level the pandemic, tragic though it is, has reminded us to renew our ties with the world around us, an organic relationship that had got disrupted and overlaid by concerns for the preservation of the self. WE must replace this I, an Aristotelian community must be recovered, which, in our own time, is diverse in race, class, caste, religion, gender. As so many messages/ videos have reminded us, the disease comes to us irrespective of these factors. So, we need to think about us on this planet and create and preserve a nurturing space for all of us. Guess you have read this already in Gandhi/ Rawls: make those choices in life that links you to the poorest of the poor, ask yourselves how those decisions that you have made regarding your lives, could simultaneously touch the lives of the least advantaged.

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Camus: a Womaniser? by Abhinav Tyagi “I’d have given ten conversations with Einstein for an initial rendezvous with a pretty chorus girl” says Jean-Baptiste Clamence, Protagonist of Camus’ most personal novel The Fall which is his confessional novel. He had made Jean in his own image.

Described as a sensitive soul with tender eyes and a charming smile by those who were close to him, Camus was a famed womanizer. From picking girls in café to dating the French-Spanish actress Maria Casares, he indulged in innumerable affairs throughout his life. This led to him being called a misogynist but he defended himself by saying he always loved each one with equal intensity. He wrote love letters obsessively. Through them it was revealed that on a single family vacation he sent four letters to four different mistresses, telling them about his arrival and setting up a date to meet them. Even on the eve of his marriage with his second wife Francine, he wrote to one of his mistress that “I am probably going to waste my life away; I mean I am going to marry F.” The reason for this was that he believed in freedom, he believed his relations with women to be natural, free, and easy. In his acclaimed essay The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus explained this with his Philosophy of Don Juanism. Don Juan is a literary character who devotes his life to seducing women. He moves from one women to another and believes in an ethic of quantity.

In some way Camus modeled himself after him. For him he was not an ordinary seducer, he is conscious. His act of leaving one women for another is not because he has ceased to desire her but because he desires another and that in eyes of Camus is not the same. “Why should it be essential to love rarely in order to love much” he asked. Don Juan loves women with same passion each time and with his whole self.

He multiplies himself in this quest which according to Camus any healthy man tends to do. Camus defines love as mixture of desire, affection, and intelligence which binds him to a Creature; he argues that one has no right to cover all these with the same name thus his love his liberating. This Don Juanism was his case against those who labeled him as misogynist. But the reality for Camus was far from these labels, for he himself stated that misogyny is vulgar and stupid. Like Don Juan he was on quest for freedom, for love. He radiated more in presence of women and used his charm to assist himself in his search while proclaiming “True Debauchery is liberating” and following that his whole life.

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Chhavi Singh Raghuvanshi

i h sn a v u h g a R h gni S i v a h h C

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In Conversation with Prof.

Shriddha Shah

by Triambika, Parakram and Anish Q. So ma’am, did you always want to be a philosophy professor?

No not really, nobody really plans for it, right?. Do you want to be philosophy professors? For me it wasn’t really planned out; I started by wanting to be a lawyer, then a journalist, and was even interested in development studies. It was actually a series of readings and experiences in life which led me to realise that none of these things excite me as much. I only gave philosophy a serious thought at the end of my master’s. There was actually an essay course which was a compulsory component in our MA philosophy syllabus. It was only after that I seriously considered philosophy.

Q. What did you write your essay on?

It was basically about debates on essentialism. I discussed the perspectives of Sarte, Leibniz, and Aristotle.

Q. Would you say that these philosophers inspired you?

No actually this was a choice I made based on their positions on essentialism, which I considered important. So it was more about the philosophy than the philosophers. I might even have taken plato instead of Aristotle.

Q. Which philosophers have then impressed you the most?

I haven't really been able to commit to a philosopher per se, I don’t have any scholarly tendency to say that I've read everything by one philosopher. I don’t think that’s a good idea actually. I’m here for the philosophy, not the philosopher. It’s the ideas that need to be impressive.

Q. Which ideas would you see as being particularly influential or interesting for you?

Relating socio-political issues with metaphysics, rationality and epistemology is a big issue for me.

What makes you decide whether something is rational or irrational? How do we consider something as knowledge and the other as not knowledge. I like to make an analysis of issues based on their interrelations with one another. My Phd was on the concept of labour. You probably haven’t been introduced to the topic so far. My assertion was that this topic has been ignored for a long time but there is no good reason to ignore it. Labour is a cornerstone of the political economy. How much labour you can use has a conceptual influence on what goods you can exchange.

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All traditional philosophical schools elaborate upon how it is that you have life on earth. You have to labour for it, you have to work for it. It is seen as dreadful suffering in which you get what? Yet this isn’t philosophised or discussed enough. Issues such as skill really interest me; the ability to do things and to think coming together, be it in the workspace or philosophically. In a way the pandemic has shown education is not an essential service and we have just continued doing what we do in class. This actually shows a serious lack of skill in teaching, syllabi formation, and interacting with one another.

Q. We don't have a single female philosopher until much later in our syllabus, and that too in a paper on feminism. Don’t you think that’s a serious overlook ?

I guess philosophy is pretty much an ‘old white boys club’. It has been very much dominated by male philosophers. It is also not enough to just introduce female philosophers into the syllabus.

There is a very male dominated way of doing philosophy, a very male dominated idea of what philosophy should be. There are different feminist perspectives as well. One says that women can do the same things others do just as well, while the other would argue that women have a distinct way of doing things and this has not been accounted for. The feminine perspective has largely been ignored so yeah that remains a contention.

Q. Would you like to say something about Hindu College, and how your experience has been different compared to your time at Stephen’s?

St. Stephen’s is far behind, and is not the same college I attended. I identify with Hindu a lot more now and I feel that there is a lot of potential here. Hindu doesn’t take itself seriously enough in my opinion. It has had a much better academic record than Stephen’s and another thing that I would comment upon is that Hindu is a lot more inclusive and has a more diverse demographic. But Hindu has undermined and neglected the diversity of perspectives that are available here. One college was a product of colonial intervention while the other was a nationalist institution. But we have allowed this legacy to get colloquial. If we look at the question of education it becomes very important whose education we are talking about. Whether it’s just for the elite or does it cover all aspects. It’s a matter of covering different perspectives and being able to engage with people at different levels. A general problem academia is facing is that we are too much into our own bubbles; either elitist or just too banal.

Q. We have a lot of students who are not really interested in the subject per se and only come to class for attendance. Does that bother you?

S: I'm going to give an idealistic answer but I stand by it. I mean sure as a lecturer it is my job to inspire and get you students interested in philosophical ideas but ultimately you have made a voluntary choice to be here. I feel that we are consistently pushing the age of maturity further and further. Some of you might even get placed this year and have to deal with all the pressures that

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come along with that. Even as teachers we start by saying that this is just my first year but we need to take responsibility for our voluntary choices. It is becoming a chronic problem in our academic culture, that of doing something just because you are told to. Philosophy as a discipline is more important as compared to personal interests, and maybe some years down the line students remember what they studied and it makes an impact on them. But it is ultimately a voluntary choice, as opposed to a school teacher who is much more directly responsible for what a student becomes.

Q. What has been your favourite thing about our department so far?

The students have really been the best part. There is a lot to crib about, sure, but compared to other colleges and even private universities, it is a more diverse experience. They don't get the same kind of students we do, and the variety of responses is limited to those who can afford them. What Hindu College offers is a rare relationship which you cannot get anywhere else in the country. I’m still a little new to be able to offer profound instances but small interactions with students and colleagues have made this college a warmer place. One of my favourite parts is being in a classroom situation and seeing a student get an expression of understanding across their face, or saying something that I won’t expect them to say.

Q. What expectations do you have from the Department?

I don’t think that the department takes itself seriously enough. If you do a comparative analysis and look at other undergrad courses you’ll see that DU is doing much better. The department and everyone involved should take themselves much more seriously. You have to engage with the discipline. Philosophy as a subject has been around for 5000 years, nobody else can boast that.

You’re talking with the weight of so much history behind you, take some pride in it. Take yourself more responsibly and try and respond to surrounding problems that we have inherited.

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Human Brain and it's Undetermined Power

by Spandan Roy, B. Sc. (H) Statistics, 2nd Year “While physical and life-sciences have made rapid advances and known Nature to some extent, psychology, the science of human thought, has not made similar progress. It has yet to know the many hidden possibilities of our minds. Modern Western psychology suffers from the materialistic error of making the study of the mind dependent upon our knowledge of the body. It suffers, too, from "a skeptical error which prevents any bold and clear-eyed investigation of the hidden profundities of our subjective existence; the error of conservative distrust and recoil which regards any subjective state or experience that departs from the ordinary operations of our mental and psychical nature as morbidity or a hallucination” - just as the Middle Ages regarded all-new science as magic and a diabolical departure from the sane and right limits of human capacity. Finally, the error of objectivity which leads the psychologists to study others from the outside instead of examining the true field of knowledge and laboratory of experiment in themselves. To overpass the limiting effectuation of the inferior instrumentation the intervention of the highest spiritual action becomes inevitable. For only a spiritual transformation can complete the psycho-spiritual change.following that his whole life.

Me and GE Philosophy

by Vishay Sood, B. Sc (H) Zoology, 2nd Year As it was beautifully penned by Socrates, "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing", curiosity to know more about the different aspects of the myriads of things in life is indeed an endless hustle. It was this inquisitive side of me that was coupled with the fact that many of my friends were already studying philosophy that finally I decided to be a part of it as well. Ever since I have started studying philosophy, it has opened new doors of excellence and helped me to have a greater vision, a broader perspective and think about things in ways much different from what it would have been without philosophy. Philosophy, in essence, is an art that transcends the barriers of space and time. It is a river that has great depths of undiscovered facts and an infinite flow of knowledge that never ceases to fascinate us. So with this desire of learning more and more, let us know that we know nothing and there are endless things to be explored in this short life!

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What should be our Summum Bonum

by Saurabh Tiwari, B. A (H) Philosophy, 2nd Year A few decades ago, no one would have imagined that we could talk to people across continents, just sitting in our living room, nor was it possible to scale the length and breadth of the earth in the span of a few hours. Science has no doubt come a long way since. However, is it possible to understand life completely? Can we know what becomes of our souls after death? But before seeking to answer this question, first, we need to deliberate on the existence of the soul as an entity. Does the afterlife exist beyond the conceptual plane of philosophy? Being a student of philosophy, to lean towards any one school of thought without sufficient ground would be an unjustified bias. Carvaka says there is no soul, Buddhism says the opposite. Carvaka believes in the 'matter'- that everything arises from it, and since we can't see the soul in a material form, hence there is no soul. So, our highest goal in life should be to reduce our pain as much as possible and enjoy this material life as much as we can. Therefore Carvaka philosophy clashes with that of Buddhism. The Buddhist thought propagates that everything in this world is a source of misery. If one gets caught up in these momentary pleasures, they get caught up in the cycle of birth and death. Hence, our highest goal in life, according to Buddhism, should be to control our urges and distance ourselves from material attachments- so that our soul can attain moksha. However is it a possibility at all? Can we leave the material charms of this world, while being perpetually surrounded by them?Many Greek Philosophers propose, in their account, matter as the ultimate source of existence, the origin, or the Arche. Thales said that everything arose from the water, while according to Anaximander, this source was something Indeterminate or what he termed as the Apeiron. Anaximenes went a bit further and more accurately, interpreted this source as Air. So as this dialectical argument continues across centuries and cultures, Philosophy as a discipline and as a way of life evolves with time as does our maturity and knowledge to deal with the core philosophical questions. Hence our philosophical exploration should never cease, we must intend to learn about life with incessant curiosity and open-mindedness before we decide which philosophy suits us best and follow through with the same in the absence of dogma and orthodoxy.

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by Saurabh Tiwari, B. A (H) Philosophy, 2 nd Year

आ सूय उदय ले संग समर-शंख और गज का नाद, कु कुल क व ध म लखा जा चुका था यह वकट वषाद। अन गनत अ , रथ, महारथी, एक जे से टकराने को सै नक अन गनत थे ाकुल अपने राजा पर मट जाने को, थे युवक भरे उ साह से अपना रण कौशल दखलाने को वृ क धू मल आँख भी तैयार थी ल य जमाने को। न जाने कतने ही पु को अपने पता को खोना था न जाने कतने पता को, पु के शव पर रोना था इस धम यु म गु श य पे, श य गु पे वार कर, ाण से य पतामह को अजुन के स मुख होना था। नौ दन म न बे हज़ार सै नक को था मार गराया, दसव दन का भी सूय अपने संग भी म भय को था लाया। पर दशम दवस उनके मन म सेना संहार वचार न था, हर दन के जैसा आज पतामह का वह रौ आचार न था। आ खर लाते उ साह कहाँ से, कैसे रौ हो जाते, भी म अपने य अजुन पे भला कैसे वाण चलाते। अजुन के लए भी क ठन था क वह भी म को मार गराए, जनक गोद म खेला उनपर कैसे वाण चलाये। दे खा अजुन को वधा म तो केशव ने समझाया, गरधर ने गीता सार पाथ को फरसे याद दलाया। सुन माधव क वाणी फर ज णु मोह न ा से जागे, कर अपने धम को याद उ ह ने कया शखंडी को आगे।

दे ख शखंडी म अ बा को भी म ने धनुष झुकाया, अजुन का पहला वाण उसी ण सीने से टकराया कौ तेय ने रोते ए गंगासुत पे हर वाण चलाया, हर वाण को हँसते ए भी म ने अपने गले लगाया। आँख म आँस,ू हाथ म था काँप रहा गांडीव, अपने कुल े का व धक बना ऐसा म अभागा जीव। एक एक कर के जब वाण पार हो गए हर अंग को छू कर, वह वृ ेत छ व दे व त गर पड़े श थल हो भू पर। एक ओर यु ध र, भीम, नकुल, सहदे व, दे ख लगे रोने य धन, ःशासन, शकु न, करते वलाप एक कोने यह य दे ख आकाश धरा भी लगे थे व ल होने भू लोक, नारी, नर, दे व, लगे सब अपना धीरज खोने। गु ोण, कण जैसे महावीर का जो गु भाई था, वह यो ा अपराजेय धनुधर आज धराशाई था। दोनो सेना का हर एक सै नक आ शोक सत था, मानव तो मानव आज ह र का भी मन आ वत था।

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Photographs by Prashant Yadav

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Philosophy: The business of Knowledge and the Knowledge of Business

by Shreya Singla LinkedIn Co-founder, Paypal Founder, Whole Foods CEO; what do they have in common? All these successful leaders hold philosophy degrees! If you look under the hood, you will find CEOs of many Fortune 500 companies have majored in Philosophy. It teaches the necessary skills leaders need - critical analysis of inputs, outcomes, and understanding of how the world works. With a philosophical education, in business settings, you look at problems differently.People do not realize that

Pythagoras,

Thales,

Aristotle,

Socrates,

Plato,

Seneca,

and

Kant

were

accomplished mathematicians, traders, leaders, and statesmen first and became philosophers second. Accomplished people of their time; they derived their philosophies from their expertise. In a few hundred years, people will think Einstein was mainly a philosopher and did physics only as a hobby!Few courses of study are as heavy on reading, writing, speaking, and critical thinking as philosophy – whether that’s by classroom debates, writing papers, or analyzing great works. Applications of philosophical training fit seamlessly with the corporate world. However, this synergy has largely been missed. Many of my internship and B-School interviews centered around this misunderstanding.The first question I was asked by Accenture was how I as a philosophy major could benefit their organization. My answer was simple.

Businesses exist because there are problems that people and society want to solve.

Businesses begin because they want to address these problems. Philosophy is what helps us solve these problems. We know how to separate the wheat from the chaff, dive deep into premises, and deconstruct problems into resolvable steps, offer permanent solutions, not just superficial remedies.Entering a field predominated by technical streams is daunting, but we have an edge - a unique perspective! Creative communication, critical thinking, and ethical judgment give us valuable skills, preparing us for unscripted real-world problems. Initially, Philosophy and business seem poles apart, but the closer you look, the deeper their collaboration runs.

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Banning women athletes from an event due to naturally occurring high testosterone level

by Jas Batra As a professional athlete myself, I understand the number of sacrifices, hard work, and the emotions involved at every stage of an athlete's life, from facing lots of defeats and failures until glory, from pushing yourself to get better even for the millisecond of difference to become the world champion, it takes a lot for it. The main goal of the Olympics is to unite the whole world through sports events, by bringing them to one platform. So is it fair to ban women athletes like Caster Semenya and Dutee Chand from an event due to naturally high occurring testosterone levels? This issue has two perspectives, one that the federation gives that it's unfair to other women athletes because it's scientifically proven that women with higher testosterone levels tend to gain more mass, endurance, and strength. The other perspective is from the women athletes who are banned due to a natural genetic disorder that she has no control over. Basically, the rules of the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF), say that a woman's testosterone levels has to be just below, or way below, what they call the "male level." And to do that, she has to take either hormone-suppressing drugs or have surgery to have her body stop producing the testosterone. Elite athletic competitions have separated male and female events to maintain the fair game, as men naturally have physical advantages in strength, speed, and endurance. These characteristics are widely accepted to be due to men having 15- to 20-fold greater levels of testosterone than children or women at any age. But the question still lies is it ethical to debar a woman athlete from participation who has worked so hard through her life for just one single competition due to an uncontrollable thing. Is it ethical to ask someone to go under surgery and to get their natural hormones manipulated? A lot of answers and points against this have been presented, mainly stating that it is unfair to other women athletes and acts in hindrance in fair play. This is because

outside enhancement

levels of testosterone be allowed outside enhancement of testosterone? Also, why is there no fixed level of minimum testosterone which is set to be allowed to take part in a particular event? I personally feel from an individuals perspective, that there can

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be better ways to make an event fair, rather than asking someone to undergo surgery and manipulate their natural hormones as it also acts as an emotional setback for women athletes who have given their all to reach the elite level of competition and then not being allowed to participate. It's also unethical to call out someone a “male” due to hormone imbalance, a lot of women athletes also face discrimination due to it. The major solution can be through involving a lot more female officials in the male-dominated federation, so that they can add more of a female perspective to make better policies, rules, and regulations, which don’t discriminate against female athletes and make the sports world a better and just place for everyone. Even the new rules of reducing natural hormones have been labelled “unscientific”. Looking at all the perspectives, when players who are naturally tall have major advantages in basketball are allowed, then why not for naturally occurring hormones in women in other athletic events.

I would like to conclude by saying that this is unfair and very hard and harsh on an athlete. All of the sports communities around the globe should come together and take a stand on this, because this can happen to anyone since it's natural. And it is of utmost requirement in this generation when we plan to include the transgender community also. The system of banning is unfair, and it’s hard and harsh on athletes. There can be categories of hormone levels like the weight categories or any other better way. The main purpose of world sports events is getting the world together and creating harmony , so the associations should look for ways which are friendly for inclusion of more participation for each and every one.

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Purushartha: 4 Independent Goals of Human Life

by Abhi Dayal, B. A. (H) Philosophy, 2nd Year The four Purusharthas are an essential component of Human Life. Though they came into account a long time ago, they have not lost their relevance even now. These areDharma, Artha, Kama, and Moksha. These are the inherent values of the universe.

Today, although we live in a materialistic world, it doesn't mean that we can't live a spiritual life. Yes, it is possible if we follow and imbibe the Purusharthas in our lives.

They bring stability and order in our lives.Dharma means the Righteous Way of Living, living life with truthfulness. Don't we know that a satisfying life means living life the righteous way? In this material world, there is an urgent need for a moral way of living, where truth upholds the higher position, forming an ethical basis to live life. It allows remaining in a state of conscience about our actions, words, and thoughts; having compassion for others, and make you aware of the existence of 'The Divine' within you.So, if Dharma prevails in our life, we can move forward in an orderly way.

Through Dharma, we can lead a purposeful and meaningful life in the material world.Artha is the second Purushartha. It means the material security one must have, to lead a cheerful life. At the same time, it's also misconceived that money doesn't fall into the category of spirituality. No, Artha is not a misleading thing, but it means being constant with the things you own. Artha provides the foundation for Dharma and Kama. Today, in the 21st Century, life won't be possible without Artha. Likewise, Vedanta says, "We should discover where money runs after us and not vice-versa".The Kama simply means a desire for something. Here again, Kama is misinterpreted for sexual desire. No, it is a desire for something bigger, desire for the pure consciousness, desire for love, kindness, and most importantly desire for "Higher Good"- Moksha, attainment of liberation. So, in the present time, Kama is important to lead a purposeful and meaningful life. So, Desire must be aligned with the purpose of life.When life is lived with Dharma, completely supported by Artha and Kama, Moksha or Final Liberation dawns.Moksha is the true nature of Human Being, it's what the person is. It is the consciousness of the oneness of Self and the Supreme Soul. It brings compassion and understanding towards other beings of this world.To sum up the whole, Four Purusharthas are essential components to lead a satisfying, balanced, and meaningful life at the deepest and most holistic level.

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i h sn a v u h g a R h gni S i v a h h C Chhavi Singh Raghuvanshi

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Politics and Philosophy

by Mithilesh Choudhary The important question after getting a glimpse of this article is that why you should be concerned about philosophy and politics going hand in hand or why polity needs philosophy and vice versa. This answer to this question will not only help you to predict the future by philosophically analysing their present but will also help you to understand the reason behind horrors of history like setting up of the Auschwitz camps or the Maoist china or the Soviet repression described by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in his book the Gulag Archipelago and the success of Roman empire as one of the greatest in history. Humans are Social animals and with the concept of society comes concepts of liberty, Justice, property, rights, and laws and the enforcement of these laws by the authority. Philosophy questions the foundation of these ideas and their need, it also questions the government/authority and its legitimacy; what rights it should protect, what the law is, and what are the duties of citizens to a legitimate authority. It also tackles the political aspects of identity, culture, wealth, religion, ecology and human relations. Philosophy, many times in history has been the basis of political and social revolutions which have shaped the globe and have left their mark in our lives forever. Philosophical beliefs have been influencing politics from a very long time, whether it be Liberalism, the Critique of Capitalism on moral basis, or the arguments put forward by communists and socialists, all movements in history of humanity have been driven by strong philosophical perceptions and beliefs. Ancient India, Ancient china, European renaissance and enlightenment, and the modern industrial era are examples of how philosophy and politics come together to shape the institutions and governing of the society. Western political philosophy has its origins in Ancient Greece, when citystates were experimenting with various forms of political organization including monarchy, tyranny, aristocracy, oligarchy and democracy. Among the most important classical works of political philosophy are Plato's "The Republic" and Aristotle's "Politics". Political philosophy has been practiced for as long as human beings have regarded their social relationships not as permanent and part of the natural order, but as theoretically accessible to reform and, therefore, making philosophical

justification

essential.

Leading

philosophers

who

have

made

substantial contributions to political thought include Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Hegel, J.S. Mill, Cicero, Machiavelli, Grotius,

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The core issue of political philosophy is how to use or limit public power to ensure sustainability and enhance the quality of human life. The political philosopher is thus not concerned so much with how pressure groups work but with what the aims of the whole political process should be in the light of a particular philosophy of life. Such consideration of the purposes for which power should be used is in a way more important today than it was in earlier times, for humanity has at its fingertips the ability to either create a new society or to kill itself in pursuit of political myths.

Political philosophy may thus be viewed as one of the most important intellectual disciplines, for it sets standards of judgment and defines constructive purposes for the use of public power. Despite this peculiar feature of the current situation and given the fact that ancient political philosophies were developed under somewhat different circumstances, their research still sheds light on critical issues today. Questions have been raised and answered in many ways over the centuries concerning the aims of government, the grounds of constitutional duty, the rights of individuals against the state, the basis of sovereignty, the relationship of executive to legislative authority, and the essence of constitutional independence and social justice. The major theories, in effect, provoke a vast array of discussion and debate on the subtleties of issues such as law, culture, democracy, gender, ethnicity, aggression, war, revolt and sacrifice, as well as on the grander conceptions of our proper political realm (utopianism) and the critique of present institutions from local to foreign. Now if you are still trying to answer the questions asked in beginning and understand how humanity inflicted such harm on itself just for the sake of harm and nothing else, I’ll draw your attention to the following similarity between those horrors – Their utterances were driven by the same philosophy. First thing is that their philosophy presumed that group identity is paramount, that’s the fundamental philosophy that drove the Soviet Union and Maoist china - Identity politics, it did not matter who you were as an individual it only mattered who you were in terms of your group identity. Keep your eyes open and if you can see such indicators in global politics, maybe it's time to make a prophecy!

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Chhavi Singh Raghuvanshi

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Why I think I did Falsafa

By Anish Mishra, a graduating student, who happened to be Editor in Chief I do not know how people have managed to write in this pandemic, I certainly have not fared very well. Yet, if not for some lovely friends and an extremely persistent junior, I highly doubt this edition of falsafa would have seen light. It is an immense privilege to be bringing out this magazine.

A privilege as an editor of course, but also a privilege to be in this position in life- of being able to bring out a body of literature.

If one looks around the world today, the struggle people face in their lives is immense. I know of friends who have lost their dear ones. I know of whole countries for whose people surviving another day is counted as a victory. There are existential threats like that of climate change. And in this mess, it is the easiest thing to lose perspective. Why then, does this magazine, which I sometimes worked on but grudgingly, become important in the larger scheme of things. A very appealing answer that it is going to be irrelevant. Yet somehow (and I am surprising myself writing this, considering my mental state) this isn’t the answer I choose to go with. The magazine, as like any other effort on any scale, matters because of the journey. The journey of bringing together people, of collectivising around a particular goal. The loss, the struggle that people face, at some level, of course, it is personalised. There is a chance one may never understand what the other is going through. Yet history would testify to the fact that it is together that the greatest tragedies have been dealt with, the struggles have been faced. It is not like every struggle is won, but I may assert that the attempt has always been to face it together.

Falsafa for me has been an attempt for people to come together to work on something that they feel passionately about. It is the coming together of ideas that each of us believes in. I think if we continue to come together in small ways, like this one, then we will be in a much better place to come together when those bigger waves of problems hit us.

The importance of even small endeavours can vary for different people. For me, it could be highlighting a specific strand of philosophy, for another, it could be about how this discipline has its share of tabloids. What is most important though, is understanding that there is a platform where we can come together to showcase ideas. With what everyone was going through, I was not sure how keen people would be to work on a magazine a handful of people may take the time to read in.

What I would like to think is that if we have put enough heart into it, then it will reach the people who will appreciate it as well. I remain extremely grateful to everyone on the ed board who made this possible, and every writer too who responded to the teams constant badgering. Its been a privilege to see this through.

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Bittersweet, Bittersweet Chhavi Singh Raghuvanshi , a 3rd year student who may not get her last year (so she gets it) who also happened to be Editor With three years done and time to go A little sad are you, no?

Farewell approached rather fast A little ache to every heart We are here to help you say goodbye In this, we’ve put our heart and mind It won't be easy, but we will try Words can speak loud too as you shall find Imagine this: you’re in Thadani room We dance for you in our costumes We give you dares, and you compete We clap for delight with every dance around a seat (ahem) Perhaps you walk over to the canteen To PAM, or Manish bhaiya one last time Laugh at their opposing personalities And move on towards BRC Maybe after you sit around at Acad Take some pictures for the Gram We know its hard to imagine these spaces and rooms When the closest we’ve been these past few months Has been on G-meet or on Zoom Let us-then people-read and find, Formal procedures to say goodbye.

Bittersweet, bittersweet That shall be the poems beat.

Read on and you shall uncover Goodbye’s for strangers, new friends and lovers.

For College is ending on a bittersweet note It’s now time to go out to the world.

How would you like to say it best?

Put your philosophical skills to test.

Do you want to say Namaste with folded palms?

Or say ‘Despedida’ by Spanish norms.

You could also do it with a gentle kiss The French say ‘Au Revoir’ to this.

‘Sayonara’ the Japanese say, With hands on the side, they bow their head.

We’ve been to the west, the continental and home How are you going to pick to remember this world?

Or would you rather not say goodbye?

The arguments of Maya Brahma- untangle untie?

Did the three years happen, or did they not?

Are we really going, or did we not come?

Bittersweet, bittersweet, Feel a nostalgic heat.

Kiss on alternate cheek four times.

‘Buona Sera’-the Italian goodbye The Spanish like to say ‘Arrivederci’ the Danish say ‘Farvel’- its no small mercy Are you keeping up, are you able to pronounce?

The Irish say ‘Slan’ which is easy to announce Pat a shoulder like the Russian men ‘Do Svidaniya’ they say- the Finnish just say Näkemiin and the Croatians they say Doviđenja While The Bengali like to say Bidāẏ a Or would you prefer to go the Hawaiin way Aloha - bid hello and goodbye in the same breath?

Is this a fallacy? A contradiction? The black and whites ka grey?

Is there really any difference in hi or bye and birth or death?

Either way, pick a goodbye to use Or don't, its all really relative to pursue Is it time to say goodbye, or is time really Are you going or didn’t you arrive Who’s to know the point of this life?

Use your new goodbye now (or don't) We can’t really sayBut this team Falsafa is hoping you know The conflict within is felt by all of us though.

Remember us like a river, and when come back you may For a walk around the campus- we will not be the same But we might just be- you never really know Find out, come back, walk these streets And feel with us once more- bittersweet bittersweet

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Messages from Team Falsafa We compiled Falsafa during extremely testing times and it gave us all a reason to keep going- that is the power of philosophical thought and inquiry wields and as an editor I can only hope it does the same for all our readers. May this edition be the question to all your answers. -Ananya Srivastava, Editor It's been extremely fulfilling to be a part of the editorial team for Falsafa! I think we all went from being unsure that we could pull this off to putting in the effort and doing our bit to bring this year's newsletter to life, and I for one am extremely proud of what we've accomplished.- Arshia Sandeep Jagtap, Editor Publishing this magazine in such times has been possible only because of the beautiful entries we received.

Your entries have made you all a part of the Philo Fam. I hope you all enjoy the magazine.- Saurabh Tiwari, Editor The Falsafa team also had inputs and contributions from Prashant, Meghna, Prakriti, Parakram, Mridu, Mikhil and Dhruv. We could not have pulled this off without them.

Messages from our Department Union As the President of this department I realised that fests are fun until you have to organise them. But despite all the tough times I enjoyed working simply because I had a great team by my side. The vice president took care of all the vices for me while the general secretary and treasurer kept everything together. All I want to say before my name becomes forever the name of an ex-student of the department of Philosophyone cannot know the number of blades of a moving fan and I understand that now.- Prakriti Bandhan, President Thank you to everyone who participated and worked for the Department over the past one year, it would've been difficult to carry out any task without the support of everyone involved. The Union tried it's best to cater to every student's needs, and I hope that we were able to make atleast a slight difference.Parakram Chauhan, Vice President My first year of college life was so great and a perfect addition to that is being General Secretary made it even more enthusiastic. Getting a chance to be an office bearer in the very year of college itself seems wonderful. I acquired great experience in organizing and managing Department events and fest. My first year with philo fam has been great and fun from Elections to fest and parties to trips. Finally, I would like to convey my regards to everyone who had been a great support to me in doing this.- V S Deepak Reddy, General Secretary As a treasurer of our department for one year, I have learnt about money management as well as team work. I have experienced work with a union which comprises of hardworking and dedicated members which contributed to the unity in every work done as a team.

Perhaps this gave me a chance to be a member as well as a leader of department to serve my philosophy department along with others.- Aastha Sharma, Treasuer

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YEARBOOK 2020

"I don't know, I don't care, and it doesn't matter anyway" - Jack Kerouac.Â

"She doesn't even go here." - Mean Girls, 2008

"Fight the libraries of the West." - D. R. Nagraj

"Coming out of college without depression will be one of my greatest feats ever."

"Life is the sum of all our choices." - Albert Camus

"Music, movements and masti, that's Hindu for me."

AMIT

ANANTHAKRISHNAN

AMMIYA

ANIMAN

AMRITANSHU

ANISH

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YEARBOOK 2020

"Sometimes it is important to choose happiness."

CHANAYA

"Whatever I've experienced and gained cannot possibly be expressed through words."

"Don't take anyone for a fool when he is silent on your persecutions."

"College attendance: 100%. Class attendance: plus 2 marks."

"No, Jigisa, you can't shoot people for hugging you." Nithya

CHIRAG

"Diks is always late, but worth the wait." Sakshi

DIKSHA

JAS

D KHAILENMANG

JIGISA

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YEARBOOK 2020

"Your real strength comes from being your best you." - Po, Kung Fu Panda

"If everyone knew exactly what I was going to say, then there would be no point in my saying it, would there?" - Dirk Gently. NITHYA

"Act justly, love mercy, walk humbly."

- Micah 6:8

"Trying real hard to not fight my alter egos' confirmation biases in parallel universes." MRIDUL

KARTIK

METENO

"I never had a real one, I was always the real one."

MANSI

"Answer your call.

The universe is calling you."

MOHD OWAIS

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YEARBOOK 2020

"All power is within you, you can do anything and everything."

"Paradoxes are funny, until they are not."

PRAKRITI

"Can I please attend classes for three more years please?"

"What might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may in fact be the first steps of a journey." RADHIKA

"Two truths cannot contradict one another." - Ibn Rushd (Averroes)

"Chhoti ungli pe nachayegi tumhe, she is a small town girl." - Diksha

PAKIZ

SAHIM

PRASHANTH

SAKSHI

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YEARBOOK 2020

"Every leap in creation is a step towards destruction."

SARTHAK

"People say senior year really flies by. I just didn't realise it would Zoom."

SHREYA

"Uddhared atmanatmanam." Ch6.V5, Bhagavad Gita

SHIVA

"Be bold, be courageous, be your best."

SHUBHAM S.

"Be melting snow, wash yourself of yourself." Jalaluddin Rumi

SHIVAM

"I question, therefore I know."

SHUBHAM Y.

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YEARBOOK 2020

"I am glad it's over.

Also, FML."

SNEHIL

"He do be vibin' tho."

- someone to someone else about Srinivas

SRINIVAS

"Our backs tell stories "Some are wise, no book has the spine others are otherwise." to carry."

VEDANT

VANSHIKA

"If we are the sum of all parts, don't the parts deserve a sum?"

SUBHASH

"The will is not free, it is phenomenon bound by cause and effect - but there is something behind the will which is free."

VIRENDRA

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"Two minutes of silence for the batch of 2020."

YASHFEEN

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SEPTEMBER 2020

So long,

FAREWELL with heavy hearts,

Team Falsafa