Hari-Har

Paradox

Vishnu is symbolized as the preserver of the universe. Resting in the cosmic ocean (sheer sagar), he sleeps. The ferocious 100-headed Sheshnag is domesticated and serves as the bed. The goddess of all prosperity sits at Vishnu’s feet, symbolizing his power. Vishnu is the preserver. He symbolizes social structure. Yet, Vishnu takes no real family. Laxmi is more of a consort than a wife. Of course in the mortal avatars, Vishnu marries Laxmi. But Vishnu himself isn't depicted as a family man.

On the other hand, the hermit (vairagi) god, Shiv, is depicted as a family man with a complete household. He has a battery of household staff, residence, legitimate wife, children, daughters-in-law, rides etc. Shiv is represented as a household man, even though his role is that of a ascetic, yogi, and destroyer.

There is a natural dichotomy in this. Why would this be? Is there a narrative explanation? Shiv has been depicted as a family man to showcase that even a vairagi can be a household person. But this is not shown in Vishnu. What other explanations can be there?

Vishnu

Vishnu is the preserver of the cosmic order (dharma), which is beyond the narrow human family unit. If he is shown enmeshed in family, his scope would shrink. His domain is the whole universe. Why tie him to one household?

He doesn’t need children or a household, because Lakshmi herself represents fertility, prosperity, continuity. She is the generative force. Thus, the Vishnu and Lakshmi combination serves as a self-sufficient unit.

When Vishnu enters the world as Ram or Krishn, he takes wives, sons, in-laws, and through them demonstrates righteous conduct in family and society. The avatar “borrows” household responsibilities so that Vishnu himself can remain unbound.

Vishnu’s role is meta-social. He preserves structure, not by embodying it in his personal life, but by overseeing and restoring it through avatars.

Shiv

Shiv is depicted as a yogi, outside the world. Yet, he is at once the most complete family man. This is holds a deliberate lesson – detachment does not require renunciation. One can be rooted in the world, yet free from its boundations.

Unlike Lakshmi who is seen to serve Vishnu, Parvati is a partner – in tapasya, power, and household. Through her, Shiv is forced to engage in worldly life – have sons, fight demons, and care for devotees. He doesn’t preserve order like Vishnu; he challenges it, destroys arrogance, but at the same time nurtures his family.

Shiv’s paradox teaches a different ideal – the sage need not abandon family; the deepest yogi can still be husband and father.

Reconciliation

Vishnu worship historically was linked with kingship and order – kings wanted a god beyond petty family disputes. Shaiva traditions, often rooted in folk and tribal cultures, needed a god who was close to daily life – hence the family setting.

For householders, Shiv provides a relatable deity – even the greatest ascetic cooks for his kids, fights with his wife, solves domestic quarrels. For rulers and administrators, Vishnu provides the archetype – beyond family, concerned with law, order, and dharma.

Dharma is not one path but a balance.

This reversal is not accidental. Vishnu shows how to run the cosmos; Shiv shows how to run the home. The preserver is personally detached; the destroyer is personally entangled. Each battles the idea of detachment and renunciation. Where Vishnu teaches cosmic preservation without personal attachment, Shiv teaches personal attachment without loss of cosmic detachment. Each looks towards the other as an ideal to strive for. They are enthralled by each other and aspire to one another. In the process, they become one – Hari-Har.

Dr. Strange and the Knife’s Edge

"Look, if it´s you or someone you love who´s on that operating table, and it´s life or death, I´m the one you want holding the knife." – Stephen Strange (deleted scene from Multiverse of Madness)

Dr. Strange’s story across the MCU is not just of a man mastering magic, but of a man wrestling with the illusion of moral mastery, forever on the edge between savior and sinner. The audience first meets the powers of the sorcerer supreme is through the Ancient One. We see that the sorcerer supreme wields an immense amount of power, that obviously has the potential to corrupt. The Ancient One is not immune to this and is seen to draw her powers from the dark dimension. She is able to maintain her moral ground with no overreaches of power except that one aberration. But this shows the potential for corruption that the power holds. The Ancient One could have gone down a darker path, but she didn’t. Her student, Kaecilius, did.

Kaecilius going astray is proof that mystical power has scope for corruption. There is one guiding light that the Ancient One gives to Dr. Strange as her dying words, which become his moral compass.

“Arrogance and fear still keep you from learning the simplest and most significant lesson of all – It’s not about you.” – The Ancient One

This simple truth, the knowledge that the higher order of things is more important, becomes Strange’s guiding light, even though he continues to struggle with it.

"You still think there will be no consequences, Strange? No price to pay? We broke our rules. Just like her. The bill comes due. Always!" – Karl Mordo

At the end of the movie, Dr. Strange defeats Dormamu by meddling with the laws of nature. Mordo gives his ominous warning. This almost becomes a pattern with Strange where he continues to break the rules, and pays the price. This begs the question, is Strange working to fulfil his duties to the multiverse or for his own glorification?

In Infinity War, Strange makes several key choices. Firstly he is upfront about willing to sacrifice his companions, Tony Stark and Peter Parker, in favour of an infinity stone. However, once having gone through alternate futures, Strange makes the morally ambiguous choice to sacrifice the stone, himself, and half the universe to save Tony Stark. This one decision, would come to haunt him later.

In No Way Home, Strange again makes the choice of meddling with the memories of the entire world to fulfil the whims of a boy. By doing so, Strange literally messes with free will and chooses to play God, taking decisions for the entire world upon himself. In the wake the fallout from that decision, Strange is willing to send back the multiversal visitors to their own universe which would mean their inevitable deaths, without offering them a chance at redemption – a point where he disagreed with Spiderman. Dr. Strange’s reasoning being that the order of the multiverse must be preserved to prevent incursions and a multiversal collapse, i.e. the greater good. History is witness that when a single man takes it upon himself to sacrifice others for the greater good, that’s where morality starts to become dubious.

“You break the rules and become a hero. I do it and I become the enemy. That doesn't seem fair.” – Wanda Maximoff

Arrogance was already a problem with Strange. It was a tool when he was a doctor. It was what made him drive recklessly on a cliff. Like the demon Raavan from Hindu scriptures, Strange was a perfect human specimen capable of playing God – extremely learned and capable. But his arrogance had potential to lead him astray.

This pattern of meddling with the universe continues in Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spiderman where Strange enters a new universe to fight a symbiote, only to create a bootstrap paradox that ends up creating the symbiote in the first place.

Next we are shown the alternate paths Strange might have taken through the multiverse. In What If we first meet an alternate version of Strange where Christine Palmer dies instead of him. This sets Strange on a path where he ultimately becomes Strange Supreme. He consumes many powerful beings to increase his own power, to the point that he is  barely able to contain them. And they in-turn begin to control him. He is so driven to madness with his ambition that he ends up destroying the universe. For the first time, the audience witnesses what Strange could have been.

This idea is explored further in Multiverse of Madness. Nicodemus West confronts Strange with the question if the blip was the only way to save the world. Strange knows that there were other ways, and he had made a choice for the world.

“I guess what keeps me up at night is wondering did it have to happen that way? Was there any other path?” - Nicodemus West

There’s a deleted scene from Multiverse of Madness where Strange and Chritine are asked about a new surgical method. The scene recounts that Strange is willing to use risky techniques, till he holds the knife. He trusts no one else with the power. But this begs the question, should be much power be allowed in any hands? But this scene is deleted for being too similar to the opening scene with Defender Strange.

The movie opens with Defender Strange making a choice to take America Chavez’s powers for himself because Strange thinks that the kind of massive power America holds is not safe for a child and only Strange can be allowed to wield it safely. For this, he is willing to sacrifice America Chavez as well.

“This is the only way.” – Defender Strange

In the same movie, we also see the Strange from Earth-838 using the darkhold to defeat Thanos on his own. This again, breaks the rules of mysticism. But Strange takes it upon himself to break those rules for the greater good. He even accepts death as punishment from the Illuminati for his discretion.

Next, we meet Sinister Strange in the movie, who also made choices that led to the destruction of his universe, where he was left stranded. But Sinister Strange had reached beyond redemption and fought the original MCU Strange for Christine Palmer.

At the end of the movie, Dr. Strange does consider taking America’s powers like Defender Strange did. But it’s like the Ancient One’s advice comes back to him – “it is not about you”. And he encourages America to take on the Scarlett Witch on her own. Here, we see a character development for Strange. He let’s go of the knife and believes in someone else holding the power. But this may not be true for his variants.

Strange walks the same tightrope in every universe. One misstep – love, duty, ego – and he falls into darkness. Like the law he mirrors, Doctor Strange’s morality is both his shield and his trap – built to protect the world, yet destined to break under its own weight. Strange is the MCU’s purest utilitarian, willing to sacrifice the few for the many. But the question reverberates whether he should be the one holding the knife.

PMLA - Bihar Sand Mining

Patna, August 22, 2025. In a significant development in a high-profile Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) case linked to alleged illegal sand-mining operations in Bihar, the Patna High Court today granted bail to Kanhaiya Prasad. The bench underscored the absence of conclusive evidence against the petitioner and raised concerns about prolonged detention without the commencement of trial proceedings.

Kanhaiya Prasad was first arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in September 2023. In May 2024, the Patna High Court granted him bail, citing constitutional principles such as the right to speedy trial.

The ruling was short-lived. On February 12, 2025, a Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Bela M. Trivedi and Prasanna B. Varale vacated the High Court’s bail order, holding that the High Court had failed to adequately apply the rigorous twin-condition test under Section 45 of the PMLA, which mandates satisfying both innocence and non-flight risk before bail can be granted.

Just days later, on February 17, 2025, the Supreme Court bench hearing Udhaw Singh v. ED applied liberal bail principles, drawing upon precedents such as V. Senthil Balaji and K.A. Najeeb, which emphasize that prolonged incarceration without trial. The Bench also noted that the February 12 order had not considered the precedents in the case of Kanhaiya Prasad.

The latest bail order, issued on August 22, 2025, reflects the High Court fully incorporating those precedents. The court meticulously addressed the Supreme Court’s findings and observations from V. Senthil Balaji and K.A. Najeeb, which were cited before the coordinate bench at the ED's request.

The bench noted that the case against Prasad hinges mainly on "conjectures and surmises." There is no documentary proof tying him to proceeds of crime or showing any nexus between him, his father, and the mining business. The prosecution’s claims regarding a so-called “syndicate” rely exclusively on uncorroborated Section 50 statements of co-accused, deemed insufficient for establishing culpability.

Having already spent nearly 15 months in custody, with no trial commenced or charges framed, the court held that the ongoing detention undermines Prasad’s fundamental right to a speedy trial – a principle repeatedly upheld in Supreme Court rulings.

In a related judgment from May 2025, the High Court quashed most of the predicate FIRs filed against sand-mining companies, reasoning that these entities could not have carried out theft as they weren’t in possession of mining ghats at the material time. The High Court further hinted at administrative laxity, noting that the mining department itself may bear responsibility for any theft. That ruling critically undermines the foundation of the ED’s laundering case.

Consequently, bail was granted with a bond of ₹ 10 lakh and standard conditions including surrender of passport, travel restrictions, and other supervisory measures.

The ED's case encompasses 12 individuals. Presently, nine are on bail, and in one instance, the Patna High Court found the ED’s arrest as illegal. Several of the predicate FIRs critical to the money-laundering charge have now been quashed, making it increasingly difficult to prosecute effectively. Though two accused remain in custody pending bail hearings, this wave of court orders signals growing judicial skepticism of the prosecution’s strategy.

This ruling illustrates a broader judicial pushback against the perceived overreach of PMLA provisions, particularly the draconian dictates of Section 45. While the PMLA was enacted to curb economic crimes, its stringent bail thresholds have often resulted in prolonged incarceration without trial – a scenario decried as "process as punishment" by critics.

Decisions in V. Senthil Balaji, K.A. Najeeb, and Manish Sisodia have carved out exceptions – granting bail when the procedural delay is unjustifiable and the case’s material weakness is evident. The latest bail order reinforces that constitutional protections under Article 21 must temper statutory draconianness, especially when trial pendency extends indefinitely.

The Patna High Court’s August 22 bail order for Kanhaiya Prasad marks not just a personal reprieve but a significant pivot in PMLA jurisprudence. It underscores that even in serious economic offences, courts must balance statutory tough-on-crime mandates with constitutional liberties. The decision – and the corresponding relief extended to other accused – may well compel the ED to rethink its prosecutorial approach in long-drawn money-laundering cases, especially when evidence is tenuous and procedural timelines indefinite.

Paganism and Creationism – A Hindu Perspective

Introduction

Human civilizations have always sought to explain their origins. Two major schools of thought dominate the religious imagination when it comes to creation. Various cultures have attributed different names to these two broad philosophies. For the purpose of this article, we shall name them as:

1.      Paganism: Rooted in the worship of nature

2.      Creationism: Based on the divinity of a transcendent creator.

The word paganism is Eurocentric – coined by Christians to label pre-Christian faiths as primitive. Paganism is often better understood as animism or naturalism, i.e. the worship of nature. Paganism is by definition a polytheistic practice and does not even fit in the definition of “religion” as perceived by Creationists.

Creationism, on the other hand posits that God stands outside the world, rather than being a part of it. God creates the universe and its inhabitants rather than being the universe.

The interplay of these two perspectives has shaped nearly every religious tradition. Curiously enough, Hinduism seems to contain both.

Paganism

Paganism, in its many forms, is the world’s oldest spiritual instinct. In this view, divinity is immanent. It dwells within nature rather than beyond it. The gods of the Greeks, Romans, Vedic Indians, native Americans, European Pagans, Zoroastrians etc. were not abstractions of morality but embodiments of elemental forces. The pantheon of Gods included the sky, thunder, water, fire, lust, horses, and even the Earth. To worship meant to engage, to harmonize with the living powers that governed existence. There was no clear line between the sacred and the natural. Man was not made in the image of God; he was a participant in a divine continuum.

This worldview naturally aligns with Darwin’s evolution: the idea that life emerges and adapts through natural processes rather than divine decree. The pagan cosmos is not static; it is a field of becoming. Its Gods evolve, merge, and dissolve, just as life itself does.

Creationism

Creationism by contrast, posits separation. The God of the Abrahamic faiths, i.e. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, stands apart from His creation. He speaks the world into existence. Man, made in His image, is unique among creatures, endowed with free will and moral responsibility. Here, nature is not divine but designed; its beauty testifies not to its own power but to the mind of its maker.

The central theme of creation is the separation of mankind from God by gaining knowledge and self-awareness. Free Will itself is the forbidden fruit of knowledge that has separated Man from the Almighty and Man spends eternity in trying to return to his maker. The struggles of Man and life itself is attributed to this separation.

The symbols of this worldview are deeply anthropocentric: the Garden of Eden, the Fall, the divine command, the covenant. The relationship between man and God becomes one of obedience, redemption, and moral testing. The world becomes a stage for divine purpose.

The Hindu Synthesis

Hinduism stands at a fascinating crossroads of these two conceptions. Early Vedic religion, as reflected in the Rigveda, is unmistakably cosmological. Its hymns are dedicated to the elemental deities and its rituals are designed to maintain harmony between human life and the cosmic order. The divine is everywhere, woven into the fabric of the universe. Mathematics naturally emerges as the language of the universe.

Yet, as centuries passed, Hindu thought underwent a profound transformation. The Upanishads internalized the external gods into philosophical principles. Fire became tapasya, sacrifice became yagya, and the gods became symbols of consciousness itself. The Puraṇs later expanded these abstractions into stories of Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiv the Destroyer, forming a triad that reintroduced personhood to metaphysical truths.

This evolution mirrors, at first glance, to the European shift from polytheistic paganism to monotheism. But the Indian transition differed in its method and spirit. In Europe, paganism was replaced by Christianity. In India, the old gods were not overthrown but absorbed. Agni did not vanish when Brahma appeared; he was reinterpreted as one of Brahma’s many manifestations. Nature was not desacralized but philosophically sublimated.

Aspect	European Transition	Indian Transition
Nature of change	Replacement	Integration
Outcome	Monotheism (one true God)	Monism (one reality, many forms)
Method	Suppression of paganism	Sublimation of paganism
Symbolic outcome	God outside nature	God within and beyond nature

The Indian genius lay in synthesis, not rejection. Paganism and creationism were reconciled in a vision where both creator and creation are expressions of the same underlying consciousness – Brahman. The famous Upanishadic line, Sarvam khalvidam Brahma (“All this is Brahman”), captures this perfectly.

The Question of Theseus: Is Hinduism Still Hinduism?

If the religion of the Veds and that of the Purans differ so greatly, can they still be called the same faith? By Western measures of doctrinal purity, perhaps not. But Hinduism’s strength has always been its elasticity. It never defined orthodoxy through fixed revelation. The Veds are sruti: truths heard from the cosmos. The Purans are smrti: truths remembered and reinterpreted by human minds. Revelation in Hinduism is cyclical, not linear. Truth is rediscovered, not imposed.

In this sense, Hinduism did not change identity; it changed language. What began as a worship of the elements matured into a meditation on being itself. What began as myth matured into philosophy, and what began as ritual transformed into introspection. It is not a religion that abandoned its past but one that continually digests it.

Conclusion

Hinduism may indeed have begun as a pagan religion, a reverence for the divine in nature. Over millennia, it integrated the creational, metaphysical, and moral dimensions that characterize more theistic systems. Yet, unlike Europe’s rupture between paganism and monotheism, India’s evolution was a synthesis. The elemental and the eternal, the personal and the impersonal, coexist within the Hindu imagination.

Thus, the modern form of Hinduism is neither purely pagan nor purely creational – it is both. It stands as a bridge between immanence and transcendence, between nature and spirit, between the god who is the world and the god who creates it. Hence, Hinduism did not cease to be itself; it became more self-aware. To call this Hinduism is not to name a fixed religion, but to acknowledge a timeless process: the universe, endlessly creating and rediscovering itself, through the mind of man. 

Arrest and Bail

The recent advent of the Special Intensive Review (SIR) by the Election Commission of India has opened a new question for consideration: can an imprisoned person be allowed to vote?

Under Article 326 of the Constitution of India, every adult citizen of India who is not disqualified on the ground of non-residence, unsoundness of mind, crime or corrupt or illegal practice, shall be entitled to be registered as a voter at any election.

The Constitution does not bar an imprisoned person from voting. However, the Constitution does mention that crime, corruption, and illegality shall disqualify a person’s right to vote. In effect, the Constitution assumes that imprisonment can only come from crime, corruption, and illegality, allegations that are proven in a court of law and then sentenced from imprisonment. As we shall soon see, the assumption does not hold in India.

But before going there, let us have a look at the much quoted section 62(5) of the Representation of People Act, 1951 (RPA). The RPA states that no person shall vote at any election if he is confined in a prison under a sentence of imprisonment, or is in the lawful custody of the police; provided that this shall not apply to a person subjected to preventive detention.

Section 62(5) of the RPA rests on an outdated assumption that all imprisonment without conviction must be preventive detention. Ordinarily, a person imprisoned should be “under a sentence”. The unstated assumption of the law is that imprisonment is ordinarily levied on a convict. This assumption fails woefully in India.

As per the 2023 report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) under the Ministry of Home Affairs, 74% of the Indian prison population is undertrial, i.e. prisoners who have not been convicted but are awaiting trial or bail. This is nearly 4 lakh citizens. These are not convicts. They are citizens whom the State has failed to prove guilty; yet continues to imprison. The overall conviction rate is 54%. This means that nearly 2 lakh citizens are imprisoned at present who will eventually be acquitted. India imprisons citizens not for what they have done, but for what they might do. The Supreme Court judges have repeatedly called for reforms in imprisonment and bail provisions of the law in view of this gross injustice.

The Government has not been a silent spectator. But Governmental action should not be mistaken for reform; it is simply noise. In 2024, in an attempt to remove the British colonial hangover, India saw a major shift in its criminal laws.  The Indian Penal Code (IPC) was replaced by the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) was changed to Bhartiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS). Interestingly, the CrPC 1973 was not even a colonial legislature. In what can only be termed as a typical fashion of the Government, new names were imprinted on old legislations.

Under section 187 of the BNSS (167 of CrPC), a magistrate can order for a police custody of maximum 15 days and a judicial custody of 60 / 90 days, depending on the severity of the crime. During this time, the investigating authority needs to complete the investigation and file a chargesheet before the court for the trial to take place. The accused is placed under custody for the purpose of investigation, and so that he may not tamper with the witness and / or evidence during the investigation. If the chargesheet is not filed during the 60 / 90 day period, the accused gets “default bail” u/s 187(3) of the BNSS (167(2) of the CrPC).

Once the chargesheet is filed, the case moves from the pre-trial stage to the trial stage. The investigation is complete, but the court needs to ensure the presence of the accused during trial. For this, the courts can continue to keep the accused in judicial custody u/s 346 of the BNSS (309 of the CrPC).

Section 346 of the BNSS allows the court to remand the accused for a period not exceeding 15 days at a time until the trial is over. This 15-day period is repeated each time the court issues a remand order. In practice, the accused remains imprisoned for months or years while being remanded “every 15 days”. The court applies no mind for any fresh reasoning for extending the imprisonment of the accused by simply copy-pasting the previous order.

Remand is not conviction, but the outcome of both is imprisonment. Hence, the state does not need to convict a person to punish him. The state can simply extend remand indefinitely. Remand exists because the State assumes that liberty creates a risk of misconduct. But in practice, this assumption becomes a substitute for proving guilt. Instead of protecting society through evidence, the State protects itself through custody.

This is not a mandate by the constitution, but a risk-averse practice continued from the British colonial traditions. Under the British rule, liberty was secondary to control. Unfortunately, this tradition has continued in independent India. The police take advantage of this practice and oppose bail reflexively, treating custody as leverage on the accused.

The 15-day time-limit was set to ensure liberty, but the courts have converted it into rolling imprisonment. The burden flips to the accused – liberty must be earned, while imprisonment is presumed. The presumption of innocence survives only in theory. In custody courts, the presumption is reversed. The investigating agencies and the courts need not even find a reasonable ground to continue the imprisonment of an accused. In effect, this violates the Right to Life and Liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.

Any law student or graduate will tell you that “bail is rule and jail is exception” and “delay of justice is denial of justice” are some of the first teachings at law school. We have heard that Indians have a right to life and liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution. Yet, in practice, such words are only that… words. In practice, 4 lakh Indian citizens linger on waiting for bail or trials. Often the accused does not even have a family or friend prosperous enough to furnish the bail bond amount.

The biggest prison sentence in India is not awarded by conviction, it is awarded by delay. The solution is simple –

• No “automatic” renewal of remand
• Judges must give reasons for denying liberty of a person while the trial is pending
• Automatic bail hearings where the investigating agency needs to justify the need for continued remand
• Disciplinary consequences for copy-paste remand orders

But it will take a generation of judges to build new habits. Every remand order is a day of someone’s life. If courts cannot justify that day, they have no right to take it. Liberty is not a privilege granted after acquittal; it is a right that may be curtailed only after conviction. Until our courts act on this principle rather than merely reciting it, the Constitution will remain an idea, not an experience.

Changing the names of laws rather than actually changing laws renders the Indian sovereignty as a meaningless change of words, while the Indian mindset continues to remain under the colonial rule. The British once used imprisonment without trial to control a population. Independent India has no reason or excuse to inherit that legacy.

The question before India is simple: will we continue to imprison first and justify later, or will we finally build a justice system where liberty is the norm and custody requires proof?