Mukti Free To Be Born Again

Mukti: Free to Be Born Again is a history-based autobiographical nonfiction created on three decades of fieldwork in Muslim-majority Bangladesh and Hindu-majority India. Many strands of real-life drama have been weaved together with 1947 Hindu-Muslim, secular-Islamic, and 1971 Islamic-secular, ruling-minority vs. oppressed-majority partitions of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Because of precarious plight, individual and village names have been fictionalized. The story focuses on transformation of a society by the oppressor, oppressed, Islam, and Hinduism. The story ties Indian and Bengali history, views of Muslims and Hindus, role of Bangladeshi Hindu refugee elites in India, pogroms, devastation of minority communities, role of anti-Hindu Islamism and anti-tradition Communism, life of poor oppressed-caste Hindus left behind in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, and more. Dastidar is the first to break a taboo by writing in 1989 about the poor, oppressed Hindu minority left behind by the Hindu-refugee elites in India.

What is Mukti? Is it just Freedom? Yes, it is Freedom, Freedom not only from all misery on earth but also Freedom from Rebirth. This book reveals that all misery on earth is because we are prisoners, we are slaves, we are imprisoned in our ignorance, in the myth that we have grown up with. If we want to be free from all misery and sorrow, we need Mukti, we need Freedom. Freedom not just from fear, worry, stress, and anxiety, or from all joy stealers, but also from the continuous cycle of death and Rebirth. Discover Mukti and be free from all misery.

This volume includes fourteen essays by eminent sociologists in memory of Ramkrishna Mukherjee (1919–2017), the last of the founding architects of sociology in India. It also includes two interviews with Ramkrishna Mukherjee by senior sociologists. The essays cover a variety of themes and topics close to the works of Ramkrishna Mukherjee: the idea of unitary social science, methodology of social research, the question of facts and values, rural society and social change, social mobility, family and gender, and nationalism. In the two interviews included here Mukherjee clarifies his intellectual trajectory as well as issues of methodology and methods in social research. Overall, this volume endorses his emphasis on the need for social researchers to transcend the ‘what’ and ‘how’ to ‘why’ in the pursuit of sociological knowledge. The volume is a valuable addition to the history of sociology in India. Students of sociology and other social sciences will find it useful as a book of substantive readings on social dynamics; those researching the social world will find in it a useful guide to issues in designing and execution of social research projects.

Who am I? Who are you? Who is God? What should I do? What is the meaning of life? All of these questions have one ultimate answer: Just Love. But our human nature craves more answers to even more questions in order to address the challenges of life. This first volume of the ‘Questions & Answers’ series of JUST LOVE contains questions posed to Paramahamsa Sri Swami Vishwananda in a number of Satsangs given around the world. The main themes found within this book are Love, Consciousness, Spirituality, and Acceptance, while more than 130 questions include: ‘What is Love?’, ‘What is Self-Realisation?’ and ‘Is 2012 the dawn of a new age?’

Articles on the life style, culture and customs of tribals and non-tribals communities of North East India.

Lectures from Colombo to Almora is a book of lectures delivered by Swami Vivekananda in Sri Lanka and India after his return from the West in 1897. The lectures cover a wide range of topics, but they all share a common theme: the need for India to wake up from its "age-long siesta" and take its rightful place in the world. Vivekananda's lectures are full of powerful insights and inspiring messages. He calls on Indians to embrace their religious heritage, to use their spiritual insights to solve the problems of the world and to take on the responsibility of leading the world into a new era of peace and harmony. Lectures from Colombo to Almora is a classic work of Indian philosophy and spirituality. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the history and culture of India, or in the teachings of Swami Vivekananda.