Mainstream Weekly

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• Meerut: The Danger Signal

  9 November 2014

  November 7 this year marks the birth centenary of Prof Santimay Roy, distinguished freedom fighter (he served a total of 12 years imprisonment and internship in British India), Communist and former member of the National Integration Council (1968-79) who played a prominent role in dousing the flames of communal fratericide in different parts of the country in the post-independence period.
  Born on November 7, 1914 in Mymensingh district (now in Bangladesh), Prof Roy tirelessly helped the (…)

• Santida: The Less Travelled Road

  9 November 2014, by P.C. Joshi

  Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
  I took the on less travelled by,
  And that has made all the difference.
  —Robert Frost, Selected Poems
  My introduction to Santida had come about in an unforgettable way. It was a gift from Puranda (my namesake and Communist leader and very soon my brother-in-law) to Number 2 as he affectionately called me then. In May 1955 I was proceeding to join the Indian Statistical Institute at Calcutta as a Research Technician in its newly started Planning (…)

• Academics Must Question More: Romila

  9 November 2014

  On October 26 this year Prof Romila Thapar, the distinguished historian and Professor Emeritus, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, delivered the Third Nikhil Chakravartty Memorial Lecture, organised by the Book Review Literary Trust, at the Capital’s India International Centre. (The first lecture was delivered by Prof Amartya Sen in 1999 and the second by Prof Eric Hobsbawm in 2005.) A report on the lecture was carried in The Hindu the following day and on October 29, 2014 appeared in (…)

• A Question for Intellectuals

  9 November 2014

  by Jawed Naqvi
  Increasingly of late, Prof Romila Thapar is required to assume the nearly impossible role of Emperor Akbar who, according to the official plaque at his tomb near Agra, had “created a nation out of a mob”. To her credit (and sorrow), the ageless historian stands firm among a handful of public intellectuals left in India who have refused to be pulverised by the rise of Right-wing Hindutva mobs.
  Indeed, the more the lumpen hordes seek to turn what remains of Nehruvian India (…)

• Historic Significance of October Revolution

  9 November 2014, by Randhir Singh

  On November 7 this year falls the ninetyseventh anniversary of the historic October Revolution that changed the face of Russia and led to the birth of the USSR three years later. Remembering that Revolution we are reproducing excerpts from the chapter “Crisis of Socialism” in Prof Randhir Singh’s Five Lectures in Marxist Mode (published in 1993). These excerpts appeared fifteen years ago in Mainstream (November 9, 1996). Prof Randhir Singh is a distinguished teacher and a renowned Marxist (…)

• Lenin: Theoretician of United Front

  9 November 2014, by Anil Rajimwale

  It was Lenin who really conceptualised the idea of united front. Though it is found in Marx-Engels, united front as a concept emerged in full form in the imperialist era. Lenin was the founder of the concept of imperialism, and therefore naturally of united front.
  Lenin defined the Russian revolution as the first major revolutionary product of the imperialist age. In his extraordinary theoretical breakthrough, he discovered imperialism as a higher stage of capitalism. His theoretical (…)

• In lieu of An editorial

  2 November 2014, by SC

  October 31 this year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the assassination of Indira Gandhi. The situation today is markedly different from the one that prevailed in 2004. Yet what appeared as an editorial in Mainstream (October 30, 2004) remains as relevant as when it was written ten years ago. Hence we are reproducing excerpts from it in lieu of an editorial this week when the BJP Government under Narendra Modi, blinded by hatred and prejudice, has decided against observing the anniversary. (…)

• Odds after the Maharashtra, Haryana elections: Turning Towards Inclusive Well-being

  2 November 2014, by Uttam Sen

  On the face of it, the BJP’s ascendancy in Maha-rashtra and Haryana mirrors an extraordinarily unipolar political fabric. The condition has to be viewed in the background both of the political and economic uncertainty which preceded the installation of the government at the Centre, and the undoubtedly decisive image Narendra Modi subsequently presented. The government’s credibility has been subsequently enhanced by a drop in global crude prices which has automatically kept food inflation in (…)

• Neither Love Nor Jihad: The Politics of Hate-Mongering

  2 November 2014

  by Navneet Sharma, Harikrishnan B. and Pradeep Nair
  Love Jihad would literally mean the ‘war for love’ but is understood more symbolically as a war cry for the spread and propagation of a particular religion wherein Muslim men entice or deceit Hindu women into their love and marriage thereby forcing them for conversion to Islam; thus, a conspiracy to rob the honour of Hindus and raise the number of Muslims.
  Love Jihad as a social reality is either denied for its existence or feared for (…)

• Is Winning Elections all that matters in Democracy? What about Values and the Rules of Conduct?

  2 November 2014, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  For a pregnant Sunday morning, only hours before history opens a new page, some timely queries: Is the NCP a Naturally Corrupt Party as Narendra Modi says it is? Is Narendra Modi lowering the dignity of prime ministership by resorting to cheap electioneering as Sharad Pawar says he is? Has the BJP betrayed Hindutva by ditching the Shiv Sena as Uddhav Thackeray says it has? Is Modi a street-level operator as the Congress says he is?
  Elections are the feather on India’s (…)