Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Preamble, Secularism and Constitution

  16 February 2015

  by Irfan Engineer
  A controversy was generated over the Republic Day advertisement of the Union Government, wherein the facsimile of the Preamble of the Constitution was shown. The words “Socialist” and “Secular” were missing therein. The BJP leaders’ defence was that it was the facsimile of the original Constitution and therein the words “Socialist” and “Secular” were not mentioned. It is a fact that the words “Socialist” and “Secular” were added in the year 1976 by virtue of the 42nd (…)

• Storm in a Teacup

  16 February 2015, by Kuldip Nayar

  The only good thing Prime Minister Indira Gandhi did in her repressive rule during the Emergency was to include the words, Secularism and Socialism, in the Preamble of the Constitution. Morarji Desai, who succeeded her, had all the changes she made in the Constitution deleted, but retained the amendment to the Preamble.
  The Jana Sangh, the earlier incarnation of the BJP that had merged with the Janata Party, raised no objection. Both L.K. Advani and Atal Behari Vajpayee, the Jana Sangh (…)

• This Is Treason, Mr Prime Minister

  16 February 2015, by Rajindar Sachar

  An unimaginable crisis is gripping our country. Only a straightforward clear declaration by the Prime Minister can clear it. I am referring to the advertisement issued by Government of India’s I & B Ministry on Republic Day carrying in the background a watermark of the Preamble to the Constitution. But a devious interloping was done by publishing the Preamble as it was in 1950, thus deliberately omitting the words “Socialist” and “Secular” from the Preamble which are in the existing (…)

• The Fall of the Sri Lankan "Monarch"

  16 February 2015, by Apratim Mukarji

  What was unthinkable till the third week of November 20014 in Sri Lanka has, nevertheless, happened, and the “Monarch” Mahinda Rajapaksa has fallen.
  Challenger Maithripala Sirisena, who declared his defection from the Rajapaksa Government and his candidature in the January 8 2015 presidential election as late as November 21 last, achieved the unthinkable and defeated the redoubtable Rajapaksa in a very convincing manner indeed, by a 3.7 percentage point margin.
  Despite the fact that the (…)

• Black Is Not So Beautiful

  16 February 2015, by Kobad Ghandy

  This article by Marxist/Maoist thinker Kobad Ghandy (who is still lodged in Tihar Jail No. 2, Ward 5), written quite sometime ago, reached us only recently. However, it is being published as its contents have still not outlived their validity.
  “It is perfectly possible to pervert the Constitution, without changing the form, by merely changing the form of the administration and to make it inconsistent and opposed to the spirit of the Constitution. Constitutional morality is not a natural (…)

• Lohia’s Quarrel with Nehru

  16 February 2015, by Ashok Celly

  Not many people know that Lohia was an ardent admirer of Nehru in his youth. In fact, Nehru was one of the two leaders he simply adored—the other being Mahatma Gandhi. So when disillusionment set in, his criticism of Nehru acquired a bitterness, an extremist edge. It was like the reaction of a jilted lover. His hero had let him down. Nehru for Lohia became the God that failed.
  As Lohia saw it, the idealist in Nehru had been superseded by the practical politician as India drew close to its (…)

• India-US Bilateral Investment Treaty: Not An Easy Ride

  16 February 2015, by Kavaljit Singh

  It’s official: India and the US will resume negotiations on a high-standard bilateral investment treaty (BIT). In a joint statement on January 25 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Barack Obama, the leaders affirmed their “shared commitment to facilitating increased bilateral investment flows and fostering an open and predictable climate for investment.” Since 2008, the two countries have been engaged in sporadic discussions to arrive at such a treaty. In the coming days, (…)

• Kalpana Dutt

  16 February 2015, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  The following lines were written by N.C. twenty years ago and published in this journal’s February 18, 1995 issue. It is being reproduced on the occasion of the distinguished revolutionary Kalpana Dutt’s twentieth death anniversary which fell on February 8 this year. It came and went with hardly anyone remembering her on that day. Kalpana’s birth centenary on July 27, 2013 also went virtually unnoticed. But we in Mainstream have decided to offer our homage to her (…)

• Sunil Dasgupta Is No More

  16 February 2015

  On January 8, passed away in Berlin Sunil K. Dasgupta, 86. He is survived by his wife Barbara and two sons.
  His wife, Barbara Dasgupta, sent the following life-sketch of Sunil Dasgupta for publication in Mainstream.
  “Fondly known as ‘Ramuda’ or simply ‘Dada’, Sunil Kumar Dasgupta was born in 1928 in Beldhakan, now Jalakati, in Barisal in a family of ayurvedic doctors. His uncle was Nalini Gupta, the famous Chacha of ‘Chachar Kahini’, one of the founders of the Communist Party of India. (…)

• Appeal to Voters of Delhi

  16 February 2015

  DOCUMENT
  The following appeal to the voters of Delhi was issued in the form of a press release from the Forum for Democracy and Communal Amity on February 5, 2015 just before the Delhi Assembly elections which took place on February 7. Even though the elections are over and the results have been announced, we are publishing the appeal, signed by eminent personalities (like Prof Muchkund Dubey, Justice Rajindar Sachar, Kuldip Nayar), as it brings out several concerns before our polity at (…)