The Hindu Huddle 2025: Vipul Rikhi brings Kabir’s teachings amid India-Pakistan tensions

Vipul Rikhi, in his session at The Hindu Huddle 2025, connected Kabir’s 500-year-old wisdom to today’s political conflict

On the second and final day of The Hindu Huddle held at Taj West End, Bengaluru, on Saturday, the air was heavy with discussions of the pressing India-Pakistan military conflict. Across multiple sessions, prominent speakers dissected political strategies, diplomatic manoeuvres, and the national mood in the face of escalating tensions. Yet amidst these high-stakes conversations, a different session stood out; not because it ignored the central issue, but because it offered a parallel, wider lens to look at it.

In ‘Beyond Love and Hate: Kabir’s Message of Non-Duality,’ poet, translator, singer, and storyteller Vipul Rikhi brought the 15th-century mystic Kabir into the heart of contemporary geopolitical anxieties. Vipul acknowledged upfront the importance of addressing the political realities of today. However, he gently urged the audience to also “zoom out”, to hold both the immediacy of current events and the timeless perspective that great poetry and wisdom traditions offer.

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Kabir, Vipul reminded the audience, stood not apart from the world, but squarely in its midst. “Kabira khada bazaar mein,” the poet sang — Kabir stands in the middle of the marketplace, refusing to retreat to the mountains or the forest. He wishes well to everyone, holding neither special friendships nor special enmities. In a time when national discourse often fractures into sides, positions, and calculated interests, Kabir’s stance offers a radical challenge: to act from a space beyond duality, beyond ‘us’ and ‘them.’

Through narration and evocative recitation, Vipul explored how Kabir’s teachings navigate two levels simultaneously: the relative level, where divisions like victory and defeat, friend and enemy, exist; and the subtle, deeper level, where such distinctions dissolve. Kabir, he explained, points us to this subtle dimension, sometimes calling it love, sometimes the divine, sometimes Hari or Allah. When one taps into this dimension, he added, one’s actions are transformed, becoming more real, subtle, and wise.

One of the session’s highlights was Vipul’s telling of an old Rajasthani folk story, paired with a Kabir song: A small bird in a burning forest repeatedly dips herself in water, carrying drops to extinguish the fire, while larger animals scoff at her efforts. “I am doing what I can,” the bird says. In Indian versions of the story, the gods, moved by the bird’s love, bring rain and douse the flames. For Vipul, this story mirrors how small but sincere acts, when done from a space of love, can ripple outward with unexpected power.

Vipul reflected on how easily we separate art, poetry, music, and spirituality from what we deem ‘serious’ political and social matters. Yet, he argued, these dimensions are deeply connected.