Rohan Basu

The European Jesuits who championed Vedanta: Challenging the ‘outsider’ myth of Indian ChristianitySubscriber Only

April 02, 2026 11:17 IST

A group of highly educated Jesuits once championed Indian languages, classical texts, and philosophical traditions, asserting that one could be a culturally rooted Indian nationalist while remaining within the Catholic faith.

Why ‘national’ science has been obsessed with ancient historySubscriber Only

January 08, 2026 16:29 IST

Today, when NCERT textbooks assert that Brahmagupta and Bhaskaracharya developed algebra independently and before Arab scholars, they repeat a logic that has haunted Indian scholarship for nearly two centuries. Such claims are framed as historical corrections. Yet, they obscure a complex reality: the compulsion to locate science in antiquity was itself a response to colonialism.

The forgotten Belgian Jesuit priest who shaped India’s national science movementSubscriber Only

October 24, 2025 11:01 IST

Eugène Lafont arrived in Calcutta in 1865 as a Catholic missionary with a deep commitment to scientific education, and his vision aligned more closely with Indian aspirations for intellectual independence than with British colonial designs.