When Law Forgets Dharma: Civilizational Crisis in Hindu Personal Jurisprudence

A society that forgets its Dharma—its religious, cultural, and historical foundations—risks losing the very principles that safeguard its prosperity, security, and coherence. Without a deep awareness of its civilizational roots, a nation cannot meaningfully protect life, property, or the moral fabric of its society.

The current framework of Hindu personal law in India stands at a crossroads. Much of what is today classified as Hindu personal law is not an organic extension of Sanātana Dharma or derived faithfully from ancient Hindu texts such as the Manusmṛti, Dharmasūtras, or the Smṛti literature. Instead, it reflects significant colonial intervention—particularly the British reinterpretation of Hindu customs and theology through a utilitarian and orientalist lens. In this process, Hindu law was codified not to reflect Dharma in its depth and complexity, but to fit the administrative logic of a colonial legal system.

Over the past fifty years, the problem has only deepened. Influenced by Western political ideologies—ranging from liberal progressivism to postmodern relativism—Hindu personal law has, in many respects, moved further away from the spirit of Dharma. Rather than fostering moral clarity or social cohesion, it has often been co-opted to reflect ideological trends alien to the Indian civilizational ethos.

This drift has contributed not to cultural resilience, but to fragmentation. Instead of guiding society toward a deeper engagement with Dharma, the current legal discourse frequently encourages imitation of Western intellectual currents—wokeism, radical progressivism, cultural Marxism, and hyper-individualistic multiculturalism—many of which have caused deep societal strain even in the countries of their origin.

It must also be acknowledged that the challenges in Hindu personal law are not unique. Several other religious communities in India retain personal laws that are arguably more anachronistic and more deeply misaligned with constitutional values. The existence of parallel legal frameworks based on religious identity hampers the pursuit of justice and equality before the law.

In this context, the idea of a Uniform Civil Code (UCC)—a single, secular legal framework governing personal matters such as marriage, inheritance, and divorce—deserves serious consideration. A well-conceived and equitably enforced UCC would not only eliminate legal inequality across religious lines but also reorient the personal law regime toward principles of justice, coherence, and national unity.

Such a reform, however, must not come at the cost of erasing the moral and spiritual insights embedded in India’s civilizational traditions. A truly dhārmika approach to legal reform would harmonize ancient wisdom with contemporary constitutional ideals—not by importing ideological fashions, but by recovering and rejuvenating the ethical foundations that have guided Indian society for millennia.

Narendra Modi: In comparison to Thatcher, Xiaoping, Reagan and Gorbachev

Narendra Modi

Narendra Modi seems to be a better reformer and politician than the four other reformist world leaders of the last 50 years: Margaret Thatcher, Deng Xiaoping, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. 

During their tenure as premier, Thatcher, Xiaoping, Reagan and Gorbachev were focused on economic reforms and foreign policy. They did little to strengthen the culture, and the religious identity of their country. Thatcher and Reagan were multiculturalists and globalists. Xiaoping was a materialist anti-Maoist. Gorbachev was a naive dreamer. 

Under Thatcher and Reagan the economy of the UK and the USA grew at a healthy pace, but there was decline in the traditions of conservatism and Christianity. Under Xiaoping and Gorbachev the old communist system was overthrown but no attempt was made to revive the ancient culture (Confucianism in China and Orthodox Christianity in Russia) that existed before the communists had usurped power. 

It can be argued that the policies of Thatcher and Reagan pushed their countries in the direction of globalism, wokism, progressivism, and conservative and religious decline. Gorbachev bequeathed Russia to the KGB oligarchy, and Xiaoping bequeathed China to militaristic CCP tyrants.

In 2014, when Modi became the Prime Minister, there was speculation that, like Reagan and Thatcher, he would be focused mainly on economic reforms. Since 2014, the Indian economy has done reasonably well—GDP has been growing at around 7% every year. In the areas of foreign policy and military strength, there have been some improvements.

But the big success that Modi has achieved is in the area of culture—he has aroused the religious and nationalist sentiments of the masses. For the first time, India has a Prime Minister, who takes initiatives and launches movements to restore ancient Hindu culture, and make people realize what it means to be a Hindu (follower of Sanatana Dharma).

There are no good civilizations and evil civilizations

Laws of morality apply only to individuals, never to civilizations—therefore, there are no good civilizations and evil civilizations. There are only civilizations with a strong sense of culture and religion, and a strong will to survive and thrive. To develop a civilization based on a long-lasting culture, and a vision of God and man’s place in God’s universe—this takes sacrifices and struggles of all the past generations, and this is the greatest achievement that any large group of human beings can aspire for. A civilization’s only true value is to produce men of character and courage who will safeguard their culture and religion.

The savage and the citizen: A philosophy of territory and property

Territory is as old as instinct. In the wild, among wolves and hyenas, lions and dogs, territoriality is a primal impulse—etched not in law but in blood and muscle. These creatures, including early humans in their most unrefined state, claim as much land as they can defend, guided by the rudimentary calculus of strength and survival. To possess is to protect, and to protect is to fight.

Property, by contrast, is not a fact of nature but a fiction of civilization. It does not emerge from instinct but from institution. Unlike territory, which can exist in a world without politics or language, property requires an architecture of rules, a scaffolding of law, and a sovereign authority capable of enforcement. Where territory is animal, property is human—or more precisely, it is the invention of humans who have transcended the animal condition through law, contract, and consensus.

In this light, the distinction between brutes and citizens becomes clear: the former seize land by force, the latter acquire property by law. One marks his dominion with tooth and claw; the other with title deeds and court orders. Territory belongs to the jungle; property, to the polis.

Two failed ideologies: socialism & capitalism

Socialism creates tyrannical and nihilistic nations; capitalism creates schizophrenic and woke nations. Socialist nations die from economic and political decline; capitalist nations die from cultural and intellectual decline. If socialism and capitalism are the only two choices, then mankind is doomed.

Journalism: The Frightful Monstrosity and Delusion

“Journalism possesses in itself the potentiality of becoming one of the most frightful monstrosities and delusions that have ever cursed mankind. This horrible transformation will occur at the exact instant at which journalists realise that they can become an aristocracy.” ~ G. K. Chesterton, The New Priests (1901)

Chesterton wrote these words more than a century ago, but their prophetic resonance has only deepened with time. In the twenty-first century, we no longer live under the shadow of medieval churches or monarchs; our world is atheistic in temper and nihilistic in drift. Yet the collapse of older forms of authority has not left us freer. Instead, a new priesthood has arisen. 

Its vestments are not of cassock and robe, but of camera and column. Its pulpits are not altars but television studios, newspaper pages, and social media feeds. Journalism has assumed the sacerdotal role—dispensing doctrines disguised as news, preaching sermons under the guise of analysis, shaping belief with the authority once reserved for religion.

Every day, the faithful are summoned to the liturgy of “breaking news.” Headlines blare like the bells of a cathedral, summoning the masses to attend to the latest revelation. The journalist speaks with the solemnity of a confessor and the certainty of a prophet. But unlike the old priests, who at least gestured toward eternal truths, today’s journalists traffic in shifting narratives, manufactured spectacles, and ideological dogmas. Their task is not to seek truth but to generate obedience; not to illuminate reality but to colonise perception.

The result is precisely what Chesterton foresaw: journalism has discovered its aristocratic vocation. It has become not the humble recorder of events but the maker of reality itself, declaring which facts are admissible and which must be exiled, which voices are worthy and which must be silenced. Under its dominion, pseudo-science masquerades as settled science, buffoons are canonised as intellectuals, and lies, repeated often enough, harden into the substance of collective memory.

Thus journalism, which once styled itself as the guardian of liberty, has become its usurper. It promised to speak truth to power, but it has become power; it promised to hold aristocracies accountable, but it has become the crooked aristocracy of our time. Its members sit not merely above governments and markets but above conscience itself, certain that their “narrative” is the final word.

Chesterton’s dire warning has been fulfilled. Journalism, unmoored from humility and truth, has indeed become a frightful monstrosity—a delusion more pervasive than any priestcraft of the past. It governs not by reasoned persuasion but by saturation, by the endless liturgy of the spectacle. And until it is dethroned from this aristocratic self-image, it will remain the most dangerous delusion of our age.

Rama Rajya: The Civilization of Faith & Reason

The Rama Rajya (Godly civilization) envisioned in the ancient Hindu texts is more magnificent, advanced and happy than the utopia of the communists and the ‘woke AI-world’ of postmodern tech-oligarchy. 

Faith and reason are eternal attributes of the human mind. To create a healthy and balanced society, you need both faith and reason. In Rama Rajya, faith and reason are given equal importance and they balance each other to encourage morality, economic and scientific progress, political stability and social harmony. If a society rejects faith and relies solely on reason, it must fall prey to nihilism, corruption, alienation and decadence. 

There is no room for faith in the communist utopia and the ‘woke AI-world’, which are founded on the idea of supremacy of reason. In the communist utopia, the General Secretary is the biggest repository of reason. Whatever the General Secretary is accepted by all as the voice of reason. In the ‘woke AI-world’, the tech oligarchs have the monopoly on reason. Woke oligarchs like Bill Gates are viewed as the repositories of reason.

4 Most Powerful Geopolitical Forces in History of Civilization

The 4 most powerful geopolitical forces in the history of civilization are: pandemic, apocalypse, war and belief in one true God. The propagators of these forces are the great movers of history who have forged new empires after destroying old ones. 

In the last 1500 years, the empires of the Middle East and Europe have used the fear of pandemic and apocalypse, the slogans of war and the idea that their God is the only true God to control their own people and conquer and enslave many other lands. 

In the postmodern digital-information society, in which a significant part of humanity lives today, not much has changed. Geopolitics is still being driven by the mass movements related to the forces of pandemic, apocalypse, war and belief in one true God.

The richest and most powerful tyrants in the world today are those who control the mass movements which propagate some aspects of the four geopolitical forces.