The Vanishing Names of Rats
What we lose when children forget how to name the world
Anurag Shukla
9 min read
Dharma Today
Dhīti is a blog for long form essays, expressions of civilizational voice, cinema and literature review, and more.
The Curator and the Clerk - Why Indian Public Policy Needs to Rethink Culture
The piece reflects on the gap between how culture is lived and how it is administered, drawing on insights from anthropology, public policy, and personal fieldwork. It builds on thinkers like Akhil Gupta, James Ferguson, Ashis Nandy, Sudipta Kaviraj, and Partha Chatterjee to argue for a more dynamic, responsive, and culturally intelligent approach to policy making.
Anurag Shukla
7 min read
Culture And Policy
Scenes from a Village That Never Was
From the binaries of post-Independence cinema to the nihilism of contemporary crime dramas, and from the everyday realism of Phulera to its recent slippage into self-conscious performance, the article considers how and why the village continues to be reimagined in TV shows/movies.
Anurag Shukla
11 min read
Culture And Policy
Before the River, After the Flood - Rethinking India’s Water Imaginaries
A reflective piece that traces how our developmental gaze in India has long imagined the river as a fixed line to be mapped, managed, and monumentalized while ignoring the more intimate, seasonal logic of wetness that has traditionally shaped our relationship with water.
Anurag Shukla
16 min read
Culture And Policy
Beyond the Wall - Reimagining Art, Knowledge, and the Epistemic Order
An article reflecting on James Stephanoff’s An Assemblage of Works of Art. The piece explores how museum displays and aesthetic arrangements are deeply implicated in the politics of representation, meaning-making, and epistemic control.
Anurag Shukla
7 min read
Dharma Today
Reclaiming the Forest - Against the Modernist Myth of Environmentalism in India
The piece offers a civilizational critique of Ramachandra Guha’s recent work Speaking with Nature. It attempts to foreground indigenous, Vaidika, and dhārmika perspectives on environmental ethics as lived ontology deeply embedded in our texts, practices, and lifeworlds rather than modern ideology.
Anurag Shukla
12 min read
Culture And Policy
Can Machines Teach What They Cannot Feel? Rethinking AI and the Human in Indian Education
Part 2 in a series on AI and education, taking a deeper look at what is often overlooked when AI systems are introduced into learning spaces, particularly in India. A reflection on five aspects of education that AI cannot meaningfully replicate - consciousness and emotion, social interaction, adaptation and learning, physical presence, and decision-making.
Anurag Shukla
14 min read
Culture And Policy
Girl in the White Frock | Nostalgia, Decline, and the Reinvention of Nirma
A reflection that weaves together business history and cultural storytelling, viewing Nirma not just as a brand that once dominated the detergent market but as a metaphor for India’s shifting aspirations and evolving self-image. What happens when a brand becomes iconic but forgets to grow with its audience?
Anurag Shukla
6 min read
Culture And Policy
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