Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Role of Karachi in the 1946 Naval Rebellion

  9 March 2016

  by Aslam Khwaja
  The following is a paper presented by the author at an international conference on Karachi at Karachi in November 2015. February 2016 marked the seventieth anniversary of the Royal India Navy’s Mutiny.
  The Royal Indian Navy’s Mutiny was a total strike and subsequent revolt by the Indian sailors of the Royal Indian Navy on board ship and shore establishments at Mumbai harbour on February 18, 1946. Though the initial flashpoint was in Bombay, the revolt spread in a matter (…)

• Formation of the Indian Nation-State and the Future of North-East

  9 March 2016, by J.J. Roy Burman

  Perception about India of Intellectuals and the Colonial Legacy
  Almost all the Indian historians and scholars like D.D. Kosambi, Amartya Sen, Sudipto Kaviraj wrote about the idea of India in terms of an ancient civilisation or a political boundary formed after British colonisation. In their writings they prominently mentioned about Gandhi, Nehru, Tagore and Bankimchandra. Bankim’s writings do not mention anywhere about India, Bharat, Hindustan or Bengali. He rather wrote about arming the (…)

• Drawing the Battle-lines

  28 February 2016

  POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
  The debate in Parliament on Rohith Vemula’s suicide and the subsequent incidents in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has brought out in sharp relief the respective positions of the saffron camp and the entire Opposition on questions of nationalism and democracy. The partly emotional and partly minatory Lok Sabha speech by the Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani from the Treasury Benches was no match for the objective analysis of the present situation and the real (…)

• PM Modi fears Conspiracies against Him

  28 February 2016, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The following article was written just before the Budget session of Parliament that began on February 23, 2016.
  There is no conceivable reason why a government which commands the support of 282 lawmakers in the 543-member Indian parliament should feel wobbly in the legs.
  Narendra Modi has reason to feel insecure. Yet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made an astounding statement on Sunday (February 21) that there is a concerted conspiracy to destabilise his government.
  Modi pointed (…)

• JNU Crackdown: Politics of Paranoia around Sedition can Singe Rajnath

  28 February 2016

  by Bharat Bhushan
  The primary casualty of the fiasco at the Capital’s Jawaharlal Nehru University and the paranoid politics being promoted in the country is not likely to be the JNU Students’ Union President, Kanhaiya Kumar, who faces fictitious sedition charges. It is Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh whose reputation, if not his job, may be on the line.
  Sending police to the JNU campus and his claim on public television that the student protest had links with Hafiz Saeed, a wanted (…)

• Beating of Kanhaiya Kumar in Court brings back Memories of Babri Masjid Demolition

  28 February 2016, by Sandeep Pandey

  The manner in which Jawaharal Nehru University Students’ Union President Kanhaiya Kumar was roughed up in the Patiala House Court premises, while being brought to be produced in the court room, in the presence of observers from the Supreme Court who were there to ensure the security of Kanhaiya and everybody else targeted by the RSS-BJP, has brought back memories of the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition incident. The people associated with the Sangh Parivar, who are quick to accuse others not (…)

• The Ugly Face of ‘Hindu’ Nationalism

  28 February 2016

  by Arup Kumar Sen
  The recent arrest of the JNU Students’ Union President, Kanhaiya Kumar, on the charge of sedition, thrashing him by a section of “lawyers” in the court premises on his way to the hearing, and physical assault on the students, faculty and journalists by the same “lawyers” on the first day of hearing in the presence of the police signify complete breakdown of the constitutional order. The matter did not stop there. The unruly “lawyers” did not even spare senior Supreme (…)

• JNU: What is at Stake?

  28 February 2016

  by Shruti Jain
  A mother, also a student of the JNU, was carrying her daughter on her back, straining to listen to a teacher over thousands of other students and teachers gathered on Saturday evening at the JNU administrative block. She had to strain to hear, as mikes were not allowed by the administration. The child was making mischief and the mother gently rebuked her in satire ‘stop being anti-national’. Her remark for me aptly captures the distorted picture and travesty that certain (…)

• Hindutva Nationalism Versus JNU

  28 February 2016

  by Vikas Sharma
  It is the season of spring characterised by the consistently blowing wind. You may say that the nation is blowing in the wind of nationalism and anti-nationalism. A recent action against a public educational institution by the govern-ment has now turned into a storm. I believe that the contemporary time is not merely about a debate between nationalism and anti-nationalism. It is about the conflicting/contradictory ideas of Hindutva and Hindustan. Hindutva on the one hand is (…)

• Grave Threat to Rule of Law and Constitutional Democracy

  28 February 2016

  by Vijay Kumar
  The slapping of the charge of sedition under Section 124(A) of the IPC on Kanhaiya, the President of the JNU Students’ Union, has extremely grave implications for democracy, rule of law and constitutionalism. The foisting of the sedition charge followed by assault on Kanhaiya, his lawyers, including the panel of eminent senior lawyers deputed to inspect the situation by the Supreme Court, and the journalists including women scribes, when he was produced in the court, have a (…)