This article delineates the vision and praxis of Once in a Blue Moon Academia (OBMA), a self-funded, non-profit platform established in 2021 to critically intervene in the intertwined crises of India’s financial and ecological orders. Anchored in the dual focus on the devastating financial ecosystem—exemplified by the Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited (DHFL) crisis—and the accelerating catastrophe of climate change and environmental degradation, OBMA advances a form of academic activism that traverses disciplinary, institutional, and epistemic boundaries. Drawing inspiration from Gandhian non-violent civil disobedience and movements such as Occupy Wall Street, it mobilizes legal challenges, digital campaigns, and critical scholarship to expose crony capitalism, regulatory complicity, and ecological neglect. At the same time, it expands into a broader intellectual–activist ecosystem that interrogates neoliberal political economy, authoritarian democratic forms, institutionalized education, proprietary regimes of knowledge, and epistemic monism, while experimenting with alternatives grounded in commons, decentralization, scepticism, and plural ways of knowing. Guided by the ethical horizon of bahujana sukhaya, bahujanahitaya ca (“for the welfare and happiness of the many”), OBMA seeks not merely reform but a reconstitution of socio-political and intellectual life through interdisciplinary praxis, prefigurative politics, and sustained critical engagement with structures of power, inequality, and ecological collapse.
THE ART OF RESISTANCE
Posted on: 18/09/2021 (IST 11: 15 hrs) Updated on: 22/09/2o23 (GMT 13.32 hrs) Posted On 19th September, 2021 DEBAPRASAD BANDYOPADHYAY AKHAR BANDYOPADHYAY “Suffering comes from three quarters: from our own body, which is destined to decay and dissolution, and cannot even dispense with anxiety and pain as danger-signals; from the outer world, which can rageContinue reading “THE ART OF RESISTANCE”
CONVERGENCE TO PRAXIS: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL ON SUFFERINGS: OBJECTIVES AND DESCRIPTION
This journal tries to demolish the administrative boundaries of academic disciplinary technology by amalgamating all the so-called “subjects” by condemning the objectification, subjectification and subjection. It strives to reach the vanishing point of theory and praxis. Thus, instead of so-called “inter-disciplinary studies”, it emphasizes on the convergence of earthian knowledges and praxiologies. The journal attemptsContinue reading “CONVERGENCE TO PRAXIS: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL ON SUFFERINGS: OBJECTIVES AND DESCRIPTION”
“False”(?!) allegations on the collusion among the BJP, Dawood-Mirchi and the DHFL: A Letter to the BJP President
The article refutes allegations of collusion between the BJP, Dawood Ibrahim, Iqbal Mirchi, and DHFL, claiming they are politically motivated and intended to tarnish the BJP’s image. It argues that these accusations are unfounded and part of a smear campaign. The author defends the BJP, suggesting that the party has no links to these figures or the alleged financial scandal.
Once in a Blue Moon Academia (OBMA): MOA
1. Name of the CommunityThe name of the Society shall be “Once In A Blue Moon Academia”, hereinafter referred to as “OBMA.” 2. Objects of the Society 2.1.To promote and protect human and animal rights in all parts of the world; to study and disseminate knowledge on international human rights issues and the convergences ofContinue reading “Once in a Blue Moon Academia (OBMA): MOA”
The Genealogy of Intoxication in the “Sanātana” Dharma
This article interweaves devotional revival, academic appeal, poetic prayer, and radical self-reflexive critique into a polyphonic offering. It advocates the responsible, scripturally grounded revival of two historically significant sacred preparations in Sanatana Dharma — Vaidic Somarasa, the divine elixir exalted in the Rigveda (particularly Mandala IX and 8.48.3), and Maireya Mada, the refined royal wine celebrated in the Valmiki Ramayana (Uttara Kāṇḍa Sarga 42 and Ayodhya Kāṇḍa Sarga 91) — while simultaneously inhabiting the fragile, absurd third space of refusal. Structured around a formal academic letter to Pujya Acharya Shri Ramdev Ji Maharaj and the Patanjali ecosystem calling for GMP-compliant research, standardization, and production of these formulations or their safe, therapeutically calibrated analogs within Ayurvedic Sandhana Kalpana; a deeply personal devotional reflection as a follower of Drunk Balarama (Madhupriya Haladhara), exploring hāsyarasa and the līlās drawn from the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, Harivaṃśa, and Mahābhārata; and a Vedic prayer-song to Varuṇa for the boundless flow of Vāruṇī, the work runs parallel with the voice of l’étrangère — the tremulous skin (dṛti) of Rigveda 7.89 — who refuses both the compulsory intoxication of speed capitalism and the homogenizing violence of theocratic-market fundamentalism. Drawing upon Vedic hymns, Tagore’s storm-cloud renditions, Marx’s nuanced theory of alienation and religion-as-pharmakon, Brecht’s subversive theatre, Subaltern Studies, and Kabir’s laughter, the article affirms Sanatana Dharma’s sophisticated, multi-layered grammar of madya — ritual, medicinal, ecstatic, and counter-hegemonic — while carving generous space for the sober, ridiculous, creative refusal of all compulsory cups. Ultimately, it calls for a courageous renaissance that is scholarly, devotional, and radically disobedient to the twin fundamentalisms of our time.
NOTA: From Symbolic Dissent to the Horizons of Radical Democracy
India’s NOTA — born from the Supreme Court’s 2013 PUCL judgment — gave voters a secret, counted way to reject all candidates. Over a decade later, even the Court admits it has “hardly made any impact” on criminalisation, dynasticism and money power. The May 2026 state elections (1.09 million NOTA votes across West Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry) changed zero outcomes. Its impotence is structural — trapped by FPTP’s winner-takes-all logic, the absence of binding Right to Reject and Right to Recall, hollow decentralisation, and all parties’ addiction to extractive growth amid climate crisis. Globally, it lags far behind Colombia’s voto en blanco or Indonesia’s kotak kosong, which can force fresh elections with new candidates. NOTA is both symptom and seed. Its fulfilment demands proportional representation, constitutionalised Reject/Recall powers, empowered Gram Sabhas, genuine fiscal decentralisation, and a degrowth, cooperative, ecologically grounded economy — the path to a partyless, dialogue-based society of self-governing ecological communes.
An Anti-Fascist Phenomenology of Haircuts and the Corporeal in Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator”
Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940) performs a radical phenomenological dissection of fascism as a regime that disciplines the body — beginning with the head as command centre and extending to hair, moustache, and razor as instruments of masculine authority and ideological inscription. Yet the film’s subversive genius lies in how these very tools are turned against their masters: the razor that polices masculinity becomes an agent of rhythmic care and tender absurdity; the frying pan a weapon of domestic insurgency; the hand grenade and rogue artillery shell instruments of intimate, comedic sabotage. Through shaving sequences, foam-moustache laughter, and phallic banana-crushing, Chaplin reveals that fascist power depends on rigid assignment of function — and collapses the instant the ordinary body slips out of place. This corporeal grammar finds its brutal contemporary counterpart in India under BJP-RSS rule. The same razor that restores dignity in the barber’s chair reappears as the financial “haircut” in the DHFL scandal — a legally orchestrated dispossession that stripped lakhs of ordinary depositors of seventy to eighty percent of their savings to enrich crony capital. What was intimate care becomes fincide; what was artisanal attention becomes procedural theft. From the disciplined fascist head to the managed economic body, the article maps a single arc: authoritarian power inscribes itself upon surfaces both facial and financial, yet the body — whether individual or collective — retains the capacity for interruption, refusal, and reclamation. The interruption is always possible. The razor can still be turned toward care.
“Man Na Raṅgāye”: Embodied Austerity and Leadership Praxis During the Climate Crises
On 10 May 2026, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged Indian citizens to adopt sweeping austerity measures—restraining petroleum use, reviving work-from-home, minimising non-essential foreign travel, postponing gold purchases, reducing imports of edible oils and chemical fertilisers, promoting natural farming and Swadeshi consumption, and preferring public transport, carpooling, and EVs—amid West Asia tensions, rising oil prices, and forex pressures. This paper delivers an uncompromising critique of these imperatives, examining their genuine ecological co-benefits in the climate crisis alongside the cross-traditional philosophical demand for ācaraṇa (embodied praxis) drawn from Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Imam Abu Hanifa, Gandhi, Kant, Marx, Tagore, and Kabir; the glaring contradictions with the Prime Minister’s opulent lifestyle, extravagant foreign travels, luxury branding, and high-carbon Z+/SPG security protocols; and the deeper theoretical foundations in A.K. Dasgupta’s Economics of Austerity (1975), the Mahābhārata’s Vana Parva, the Bhagavad Gītā’s teachings on lokasaṅgraha and rejection of karmavirati, and Swami Vivekananda’s Practical Vedanta. It argues that in the Anthropocene, genuine austerity requires visible leadership embodiment for moral legitimacy, ecological efficacy, and spiritual coherence; absent such praxis, Modi’s call stands exposed as the very hypocrisy Kabir satirised in his pad “Man nā raṅgāye raṅgāye jogī kaprā” — performative asceticism and ruling-class doublespeak that fatally undermines its own imperatives. The paper proposes a framework of ecological austerity as lokasaṅgraha, integrating economic theory, environmental analysis, South-East Asian philosophy, and uncompromising political ethics.
Revoke the IBC: India’s Biggest Crony Heist – A Call for Non-Violent Civil Disobedience
The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) 2016, touted as a landmark reform, has entrenched crony capitalism in India under the BJP-NDA regime by socializing enormous losses onto public banks, depositors, MSMEs, workers, and taxpayers while privatizing gains for politically connected acquirers. The DHFL episode epitomizes this plunder: a solvent housing finance company was deliberately forced into IBC, leaving over 2.5 lakh middle-class depositors with negligible recovery on ₹5,375 crore claims, as ₹31,000–45,000 crore in alleged fraud was wiped clean under retrospective Section 32A and transferred for a notional Re 1 to Mr. Ajay Piramal, while being riddled with conflicts with SARFAESI, RBI Act, NHB Act and Companies Act, endless amendments as well as tweaks exposing congenital defects, moratorium abuse, CoC supremacy shielded by judicial deference, and engineered opacity, the IBC stands as a global outlier that destroys value of natural justice, violates constitutional rights under Articles 14 and 21, and devastates MSMEs. Beyond reform, it must be fully revoked and re-made from scratch in a pro-people, pro-depositor manner. This manifesto calls for a nationwide Gandhian Satyagraha through mass dharnas, RTIs, human rights complaints, and economic resistance to scrap the Code, eliminate Section 32A, enforce Section 66 fully, and secure full restitution with compound interest to all victims. The heist must end– NOW.
Mayday… Mayday… Mayday: Dispatches from the Crashing Cockpit of Speed Capitalism
This wanna-be-palimpsest charts the anatomy and ideology of speed capitalism through India’s toxic hassle-hustle culture — from Murthy’s 70-hour sermons, Deshpande’s 18-hour decrees, and the Modi-era cult of exhaustion to the SIR regime’s accelerated erasures, the parliamentary assembly line of rushed legislation, and the gig economy’s algorithmic violence. Diagnosing a civilisation in free-fall, it unmasks the energy fetish and nuclear-speed différance, achievement society’s neuronal violence, McDonaldization fused with Coca-Cola capitalism’s engineered thirst, and the cruel automation paradox of burned-out survivors beside surplus ghosts. Against this hyperindustrial descent, it offers tortoise-time (Kurmāvasthā): deliberate deceleration, creative idleness, and joyful voluntary labour (sahasa aicchik śrama) in moneyless convivial communes — drawing on Tagore’s drowned flute and city-wall critique, Gandhi’s snail-paced wayfaring pedagogy and Bread Labour, Vietnam’s war bicycles, Illich’s convivial tools, and Marx’s emancipatory vision beyond the division of labour. The dispatches culminate in a final reflexive Mayday cry from the crashing cockpit, calling for the reclamation of time, dignity, and the living Earth before hyperindustrial Armageddon swallows all.
নির্বাচন-দিনের নির্ঘুম রাত্তিরে…
This hybrid existential-political lament fuses Sartrean angoisse and Heideggerian Verfallen (falling/ptōsis/casus) with raw grief over India’s perceived democratic collapse under BJP rule. The narrator, haunted by childhood violence in 1970s Baranagar, personal testimonies of “scientific rigging,” black-swan anomalies (ghost voters, duplicate ballots, vanished CCTV footage), and crony capitalism, confronts existential vertigo: agency eroded amid undeclared emergency, EVM-ballot manipulations, and the absurd choice of “which deity to offer one’s vote.” Blending memoir, poetry, rhapsody, philosophical dialogue, and scathing satire on power, media capture, and majoritarian hypocrisy, the work mourns a “partyless democracy” betrayed into loot, violence, and inauthenticity—condemned to freedom yet falling into despair, where hell is other people and resistance dissolves into anguished song.
Democracy for Sale: Anti-Defection Law, Horse-Trading, and the Crisis of the Electoral Mandate in India
The Anti-Defection Law (Tenth Schedule, introduced by the 52nd Amendment 1985 and strengthened by the 91st Amendment 2003) was designed to curb opportunistic defections and safeguard the electoral mandate in India’s parliamentary democracy. Yet its critical loopholes—the two-thirds merger exception (Paragraph 4), unpenalised mass resignations, partisan Speakers, and ambiguities between organisational and legislature parties—have institutionalised sophisticated horse-trading. This article offers a doctrinal and empirical critique, centering on the Shiv Sena crisis (2022–23) and the Supreme Court’s Subhash Desai judgment (2023), which exposed how rebellion, strategic resignations, resort politics, and institutional delays enabled the toppling of a democratically elected government. Examining defection patterns from 2014 to 2026—including the April 2026 merger of seven AAP Rajya Sabha MPs with the BJP—it reveals the BJP’s “Operation Lotus” and “washing machine” machinery, sustained by opaque political funding, crony corporate networks, and quid-pro-quo clean chits, that betray the electorate’s verdict, erode ideological conviction, and accelerate democratic backsliding under the centralising “double engine sarkar” model. These practices undermine India’s federal structure as a Union of States and necessitate radical reforms: independent adjudication, strict timelines, tighter merger rules, bars on defectors, and full transparency in political finance—before the Tenth Schedule becomes a constitutional tool for authoritarian consolidation rather than democratic safeguard.
নোটাঃ নির্বাচনী প্রহসনের “বাইরে” নাকি !?
In this sharp critique of India’s electoral system amid the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections, the author argues that elections have become fully stage-managed spectacles by PR experts, far beyond Chomsky’s 1989 idea of merely ratifying pre-selected options. He views NOTA as a purely symbolic moral protest with no real power — even if it gets the highest votes, the election is not cancelled and the top candidate still wins. The entire process is called a predetermined farce rigged by mass voter deletions (nearly 91 lakh), fake voters, EVM tampering, opaque counting, a biased Election Commission, money-muscle power, and institutional decay. Despite their differences, mainstream parties follow the same neoliberal policies and identity politics, offering no genuine choice. Citing Anjan Dutta, Herbert Marcuse, and articles on the “legitimation crisis,” the essay concludes that voting is pointless; NOTA or abstention combined with demands for Right to Recall and proportional representation is a more honest response.
Exi(s)ting Without Exit in Contemporary India: “Hum Hain Ki Hum Nahin?”
In the shadowed corridors of April 2026, a lone whistleblower’s fevered consciousness spirals endlessly around the single, shattering question — “Hum hain ki hum nahin?” (to be or not to be?)— existence or erasure. Trapped inside a shrinking Mumbai flat that has become both sanctuary and prison, he navigates the razor’s edge between the flickering glow of his laptop screen and the perpetual terror of the doorbell, suspended in the velvet noose of an undeclared emergency where words are crossed out before they can breathe, hate speech cruises freely along golden highways of power, while dissent drowns on isolated atolls of silence. Obsessively rewinding the traffic-island monologue from Haider, he mouths existential defiance as Rabindrasangeet clashes with raw paranoia, Tagore’s ancient frog — merely surviving (without “living”) three thousand years sealed inside a stone — merges with Foucault’s biopolitics and Derrida’s haunting spectres, while the ghosts of DHFL financial annihilation, electoral bond plunder, UAPA’s slow-motion cages, and Piramal’s crushing ₹100 crore SLAPP suit press relentlessly against the walls of his cell. Here, survival has been reduced to mere petrified existence, sanity stands accused of sedition, and compulsive repetition is no longer madness but the final desperate ritual of a fractured society replaying its own nightmare, praying that this time the ending might finally break differently — even as the doorbell continues to ring, the screen keeps flickering, and the question echoes unanswered into the void.
Once in a Blue Moon Academia 