Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Chronicle of wasted time: India’s Spluttering Economic Diplomacy with China and Pakistan

  30 January 2016, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The Time magazine featured Narendra Modi, the then Chief Minister of the State of Gujarat, as the cover story in a March 2012 issue titled ‘Modi Means Business’. Only four Indians had appeared on the magazine’s cover—Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Vinoba Bhave. Time lauded Modi as a “firm, no-nonsense leader who will set the nation on a course of development that might finally put it on par with China”.
  This was the common perception of Modi in the West. It was a (…)

• Tribute to Mrinalini Sarabhai

  30 January 2016

  On January 21, 2016 eminent danseuse Mrinalini Sarabhai passed away in Ahmedabad at the age of 97 due to age-related ailments.
  Condoling her death President Pranab Mukherjee, in a message to her daughter Mallika, wrote:
  “Smt Mrinalini Sarabhai left an indelible mark on Indian classical dance as an eminent danseuse, choreographer and teacher. Educated at Shantiniketan and a disciple of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, Smt Mrinalini Sarabhai was trained in Bharatnatyam, Kathakali and (…)

• Tribute to A.B. Bardhan

  30 January 2016

  It was August 26, 1969. We were at the Palam airport. Distinguished Communist leader and celebrated poet, Maqdoom Mohiuddin, had passed away in a Delhi hospital the previous evening and his body was to be flown to Hyderabad, his work-place. A little earlier it was kept at the CPI’s parliamentary party office at Windsor Place where eminent CPM leaders joined CPI stalwarts, notably S.A. Denge and C. Rajeswara Rao, in offering their last respects to the departed comrade.
  At Palam airport (…)

• Primary Task Today

  26 December 2015, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  As the year comes to an end with Mainstream entering its fiftyfourth year, one is reminded of what was written in these very columns a year ago.
  Surveying the political scenario of the nation at the end of 2014, it was noted in this journal’s Annual Number last year:
  Seven months ago the outcome of the 16th Lok Sabha elections resulted in a political earthquake the tremors of which are still being felt even if the intensity of those tremors has lessened with the passage of (…)

• Time to Rally / Insanity Enthroned / Wanted: Statesmanship of Highest Order / Ayodhya and Hindu-Muslim Unity

  26 December 2015, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Time to Rally
  There is nothing unusual for a nation with complex problems to face to go through difficult times, and a great nations like ours with myriads of problems to clear can hardly be expected to enjoy all the time an even tenor of development. Challenges are inevitable for it to encounter, and as it overcomes them, it comes across new heights to climb in its journey ahead.
  What is being witnessed today in our country is, however, much more serious and (…)

• Building the Idea of India

  26 December 2015, by Irfan Habib

  The following is based on a lecture delivered by the author, a renowned historian, to the students of the Aligarh Muslim University at the AMU’s Kennedy Hall on September 7, 2015. The author has himself edited the text of the lecture’s transcript and sent it to us for publication.
  Young Friends,
  In the preliminary remarks here it was said that the concept of India is a growing one, and I, therefore, propose to discuss how the concept of India arose, how it developed and how India became (…)

• Hindutva {Juggernaut on Roll: Beef-eaters to be out of Indian Nationhood

  26 December 2015, by Shamsul Islam

  The Hindutva propounder, V.D. Savarkar, in his book, Hindutva (1923), and the prominent ideologue of the RSS, M.S. Golwalkar, in his book, We or Our Nationhood Defined (1939), kept Indian Muslims and Christians out of Indian nationhood. According to their definitions, only Hindus could be part of the Indian nation (which was an exclusive Hindu nation) as they only had Aryan racial lineage, in their veins Hindu blood ran, they spoke the Sanskrit language, their ‘Fatherland’ (motherland (…)

• All Well for Now — And How

  26 December 2015, by Badri Raina

  When I spoke of the historical inevitability of the Constitution of India some months ago (see “Republic Resilient”), in contradistinction to inevitability of another kind that we have been taught to expect—namely, the demise of Capitalism at the hands of its own progeny—I could have had little idea that events would rush with such emphasis to prove me right. The crushing assertion of the sensible, secular vote in the Bihar elections—which must go down as watershed in the history of (…)

• Sangh Proposes, Modi Disposes

  26 December 2015

  by Arun Srivastava
  It was soothing to the ears that the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, praising Jawaharlal Nehru, was reaching out to the Congress leaders, adopting a conciliatory attitude towards the opponents, emphasising “if there is any incident of atrocity against anybody, it is a blot on all of us for the society as well as the nation” and asserting that no Indian needed to prove her/his patriotism.
  Listening to the speech on the floor of the Lok Sabha it appeared that the person, (…)

• India: Roller-Coastering Democracy

  26 December 2015

  by L.K. Sharma
  Those who have seen the Indian Prime Minister’s irresistible rise in politics and heard his inflammatory rhetoric over the years, were astounded by his speech in Parliament. Short of quoting from the Bible, Narendra Modi sought to convey to his opponents that his “idea of India” was no different than theirs! And it is this very “idea of India” over which the two sides have been battling with each other. Modi’s critics would not believe the new convert, but his few (…)