In conversation with an ordinary Indian: Kaliyuga, war, end of the word and Hindutva

This conversation between a private security guard, Dharmendra Panchal, and Irfan Ahmad serves as a window to understand contemporary India from the perspective of an “ordinary” or “common” man, an ardent and articulate supporter of the current ruling party and its worldview. At the centre of this conversation is the salience of Hinduism in politics, not only at the national level but also internationally. Addressing such issues as the visibility and assertion of Dalits (ex-untouchables) in the public realms, inter-caste and inter-religious marriages, prostitution, development, technology, corruption, terrorism, the notions and practices of war, the United Nations and the current world order, in this conversation Panchal describes his worldview according to which the current dark time of Kaliyuga marked as it is by untruth (adharma) is about to end. The advent of Kalkī, future avatar of god Vishnu, will end the present Kaliyuga and herald the age of truth (Satya Yuga) which Panchal saw actualized well in his own lifetime. The new age of truth led by Hindus will establish a righteous and prosperous order at domestic as well as at the world level. Panchal skilfully connects the Hindu metaphysical postulates to the empirical world of politics to present a description and narrative that invite analytical attention. In the previous two issues of Journal of Religious and Political Practice (JRPP), we published conversations with academic intellectuals such as John Keane (volume 1, issue 1) and Richard Jackson (volume 2, issue 3). This conversation, in contrast, is with a non-academic and a commoner.1 An explanation for the choice of conversation for this issue of JRPP is in order. The key idea behind having a regular section in the journal titled “In Conversation With” was to go past the conventional wisdom that only salaried intellectuals well-versed in European languages qualify as “proper” intellectuals. As demonstrated by Paul Radin (1957[1927] in Primitive Man as Philosopher, the so-called primitive and aboriginal races too had philosophers of their own. In Foreword to Radin’s book, philosopher John Dewey (1927, xviii) described it as a “pioneering” work that “introduces new perspectives