India Insight with Sunny Sharma

Send us Fan Mail Quotation Themes:   Primary themes: Truth, risk, liberty and justice, morality, personal responsibility, conscience. Secondary themes: Fragility of democracy, reputation/legacy, service, demanding rights, tyranny, duty and patriotism, societal and common welfare, fundamental rights, legality, reform, individual and collective agency or action, and constitutional liberties. In this...

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, born in 1891 and died in 1956, was indeed a unique visionary who combined practical advocacy with his education as a Ph. D. in economics and his training as a lawyer. He tested his principals in the fiery chasm of social and political liberty in India through the development of political parties and the testing of his academic scholarship. We have his princ...

Send us Fan Mail Malcolm X not only reimagined the place of black people in America and around the globe, but he also told the truth about the political mechanisms and techniques in society that denigrated the poor and working class. 

Send us Fan Mail  Just like America served as an example to the world in 1776, America again must be a beacon of hope showing their ability to reform themselves in line with the greater visions of their society. More importantly, we need an antiwar grassroots party and movement to counteract an ever increasingly dangerous world where war becomes more hazardous every day as nations are positioning...

Send us Fan Mail In this podcast, we discuss what Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, the Dalit (untouchable), illustrious writer of the India Constitution in 1950, lawyer, anthropologist, economist, and political human rights defender, meant by radical social democracy which has its origins from first and foremost Buddhism and secondarily from the Enlightenment era specifically the French revolution (liberty...

Send us Fan Mail Mahatma Gandhi was not just a peacemaker, he was a trouble maker. Initially, it was his talents as a social reformer through community organizing and law, not his occupation as a saint that built his career as one of the pillars of the Indian community in Natal, South Africa. He fought a paper war through petitions and new correspondence to highlight the inequities of Indians with...

Send us Fan Mail In this video I expound upon some insights and quotes from the book Gandhi before India by Ramachandra Guha from Chapter 2: Among the Vegetarians. I discuss why Gandhi carried the ethos of India, was so radical even in his twenties, and was such a radically intelligent social reformer as seen through his early community organizing, job as lawyer, and being a dedicated student of p...

Send us Fan Mail As Malcolm X evolved throughout his entire life, he stood for self reliance, black nationalism, dignity, and equality for all human beings.  Malcolm X knew the power of solidarity through an international coalition to defeat the evils of imperialism which underlined racist institutions throughout the world. He sought to bridge the psychological gap that the underclass, especially...

Send us Fan Mail Lived from 1888-1948 Christian Writer, Political Agitator, Whistleblower, WWI Soldier, and Human rights defender The French Catholic Novelist and Thinker Georges Bernanos was not just a free man, but he was indeed a man of the people, the greatest representation of France's coinciding spirit of liberty. For Bernanos, writing was indeed a transformative process for him and was...

Send us Fan Mail Georges Bernanos, like President Barack Obama, has helped me to understand my responsibility, place as a citizen in America and the power of individual agency to transforming our society. Yet, if I strive to be a social reformer, I can indeed heed the words of Bernanos's writing, but I must understand that Bernanos in no way lays out the blue print for change in society. Yet...

Send us Fan Mail Georges Bernanos voice represented the conscience and spirit of France's coinciding spirit of liberty. As demonstrated by his Christian fiction and political thoughts, Bernanos is certainly one of the greatest writers in human history. He was not just a man of rights, but more importantly was a man of responsibility, duty, and love. Bernanos questioned all complacent ways of...

Send us Fan Mail Plea for Liberty was published in 1944 during World War II. In this book, Bernanos makes a scathing criticism of the French bourgeoisie and hopes that free man and women will save Europe and open the door to childhood as he had done throughout his life. Bernanos famously said, "The modern state only recognizes rights, it no longer recognizes duty." Bernanos felt in his h...

Send us Fan Mail The immigration system has become so entangled with the criminal justice justice system to the point that detainment of families is leading to separation of children from parents. We have a long legacy of our systems of legality and enforcement evolving into greater and more extensive systems of control that no single individual could have predicted. Today that system is the Immig...

Send us Fan Mail John Stuart Mill had a mental crisis in his 20s in which he began to question his lifestyle and unique utilitarian education that was predicated on his father's teachings. The ideas of Reason, logic, and efficiency divorced him from the ideas of beauty, aesthetics, and poetry. He came to the conclusion that the pleasure pain principle of utilitarianism had to be subjugated un...

Send us Fan Mail In this podcast, Sunny and Tinku discuss the impact and legacy of one of the greatest intellectuals of common sense, self determination, equality, dignity, and self respect in the 20th century Malcolm X. Malcolm X through the power of persuasion and oratory built the nation of Islam and was at the pinnacle of forming an international coalition of African and Middle Eastern nations...

Send us Fan Mail Countries such as India and America have a long tradition of Civil Disobedience. This is the primary tool to enact public policy reform and social change in society when complemented by legislative action, judicial reform, and executive decision making. From Henry David Thoreau to Eugene Debs to those group of exceptional leaders led by Mahatma Gandhi and Reverend Dr. Martin Luthe...

Send us Fan Mail I continue my discussion with my cousin Tinku on the need for Awareness of Rights,  Accountability, Transparency, and Basic necessities for the common man in India. We also discuss the problem of rampant inequality in India and continue our discussion on the need for a new generation of social reformers in our society like Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar and Vinobe Bhave.  Moreover we disc...

Send us Fan Mail Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta  Lived:  August 27, 1910—September 5, 1997 (aged 87)   Career: Catholic nun, humanitarian Mother Teresa was one of the great servants of humanity. “It was a call within my vocation. It was a second calling. It was a vocation to give up even Loreto where I was very happy and to go out into the streets to serve the poorest of the poor. It was in that...

Send us Fan Mail  John Adams was the most consequential leader and figure when it came to the success and objectives of the American Revolution. Adams spent much of the years 1780-1789 abroad. He helped to conclude the post-war peace treaty with Great Britain, was a Diplomat to Holland and France, and served as the first United States Ambassador to Great Britain. The Constitution of 1780, drafted...

Send us Fan Mail In this 38 minutes podcast we talk about the importance of Dr. B.R Ambedkar and how he foresaw many of the problems of inequality, propaganda harming freedom of the press, class divide through caste, and untouchability in India. My cousin Vinni provides sharp insight on these problems in Indian society while my mom interrogates the place of Ambedkar and hope for the future of youn...

Send us Fan Mail Season 4 Episode 5 In this 16 minute podcast I highlight the legacy of Malcolm X by describing some of his most important ideas, his background, one of his most famous speeches "the Ballot or the Bullet" (1964), and articulating 10 of his most important quotes.  Malcolm X was one of the greatest intellectuals of the 20th century, but was indeed a contradiction. Through h...

Send us Fan Mail In this 8 minute podcast I describe the legacy of one of the Founding Fathers of India, greatest social reformer, and one of the primary drafters of the Indian constitution Babasaheb Ambedkar. Likened to Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King and President Barack Obama, B.R. Ambedkar rose from what would be normally a life of obscurity, neglect, poverty, and disempowerment to be a shinin...

Send us Fan Mail In this podcast, I summarize the lives of two of the most influential figures to the fight for Indian independence, the depressed classes, and diversity. We stand on the shoulders of Babasaheb Ambedkar and Abul Kalam Azad, men who were erudite and impeccable leaders of India's constituent assembly and the movement for human rights. I also talk about the reality of censorship...

Send us Fan Mail In this podcast, I describe the 9 founding fathers and mothers of India's constitutional and democratic system and institutions. I also give an overview of some important events in the Indian Independence movement such as the War for Indian Independence of 1857 and Gandhi's movement of non-cooperation, civil disobedience, and Swaraj (self-reliance). 

Send us Fan Mail In this podcast, I highlight the major reasons why the 44th president of the United States Barack Obama's 2004 Democratic National Convention (DNC) speech was the greatest political speech of the 21st century in America or perhaps even in all of American history.