 Hello I’m Sudipto Mondal and I’m the Executive Editor of The News Minute. Have you come across What’s Your Ism? It’s a show about progressive ideologies. I started it to address a growing cynicism within me in the lead-up to the 2024 elections. The nearly two decades I’ve spent in journalism have been marked by the excesses of fundamentalists and the inadequacies of progressives. In these years, I saw a great consensus building on one side as the other side scrambled in disarray and withered. As caste oppression, sectarian strife, state repression and human rights abuses grew, so did the confusion over what it means to be secular, progressive and egalitarian. I was often the spectator in a room where everybody disagreed on the definition of the problem. It reminded me of the 2,500-year-old Buddhist parable of the blind monks and the Elephant. It appears in the Tittha Sutta which is believed to have been composed in the time of Siddhartha Gautama. To somebody the Elephant was like a tree trunk because they were only able to feel its legs. To another it was like a snake because they were only able to feel its trunk. What does one do when everybody is wrong and everybody is right but only in parts? How does one build consensus in these divided times? How do we bring our matching parts together and behold the full picture? In the Tittha Sutta, The Buddha (or teacher) puts the quarreling monks out of their misery by making them aware of the parts they were missing. ‘…each to their view they cling. Such folk see only one side of a thing,’ The Buddha said. This parable dates back to a time when Buddhism was introducing radical debates around matters which were considered beyond debate until then. I must confess that when I started What’s Your Ism, I imagined an oversized role for myself in it as a sort of interlocutor of ideas. How wrong I was! In the course of a year, I have interviewed scholars, activists, political leaders, lawyers and journalists who identify with all sorts of progressive isms. I was smug in the belief that I would be able to point them to their blind spots and challenge their certitudes. In that I succeeded very little. It took me just a couple of episodes to realize that I was anything but the interlocutor. The blind man here was me. I now prepare for my show as a student would for class. I am writing to invite you to be part of this journey. Help me find the great teachers of our time. What topics should I discuss, who should I interview, what should I ask them? Let’s prepare for class together. We have done 25 episodes till now, ranging from Shalin Maria Lawrence’s Ambedkarism to Sitaram Yechuri’s Marxism. You can follow the show wherever you get your podcasts from:If you haven’t already, do follow the show and share it with friends and family. On an average, it takes me weeks of reading and research to prepare for one episode and then another week for us to complete the post production. NL/TNM can invest resources and time in the show because we are funded by readers like you! So if you like what we are doing, do subscribe: Subscribe nowWarm regards,  Sudipto MondalCopyright © 2024 Spunklane Media Private Limited, All rights reserved.You are receiving this email because you support TNM Our mailing address is: Spunklane Media Private Limited No 6, SBI Road Bengaluru, KA 560001 India Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list. |
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