Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Peoples’ Agenda 2014

  12 April 2014

  The following is the Peoples’ Agenda 2014 prepared by a group of academics on behalf of the Indian Political Economy Association (IPEA). This document is a necessary intervention at a crucial time when people are going to make a choice in the forthcoming elections for the future of our country. This is expected to generate a healthy discussion on issues related to people’s needs keeping in view the fact that most policical parties are presently avoiding serious debates on major social, (…)

• For a Broad United Secular Front to Resist Fascist Takeover of Indian State

  12 April 2014, by Sumit Chakravartty

  The following is a message sent by the Mainstream editor to a seminar on Left unity organised by the Communist Party of Bharat in Kolkata on April 6, 2014.
  I wholeheatedly welcome the initiative you have taken to approach all Left parties, formations, non-party Left individuals without any exception to forge the broadest possible Left unity in order to break the bipolar political arrangement at the national level.
  However, the national situation is grave. There is imminent danger of a (…)

• Face of the Danger

  6 April 2014, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  More than a month ago it was written in these columns in the March 1, 2014 issue of this journal on the occasion of the twelfth anniversary of the 2002 Gujarat pogrom.
  For all secular democrats.... the main objective of the coming elections should be to resist Modi from leading the BJP to victory at the hustings because that would herald the end of the idea of India—a pluralist, multi-religious, multi-ethnic country that can never become a Hindu-Pakistan. But the major pillars (…)

• Parties Ignore Human Rights

  6 April 2014, by Kuldip Nayar

  Dictatorships get a fillip when democracies falter. India committed this cardinal sin when it abstained from voting at the UN Human Rights Council. A resolution was sought to be passed to seek an international, transparent inquiry to find out whether Sri Lanka had killed in cold blood 40,000 soldiers and others in the wake of hostilities against the Liberation of Tamil Tigers Eelam (LTTE). They had surrendered unconditionally.
  India’s abstention reminds me of the words of Prime Minister (…)

• BJP’s Dangerous Politics / We Must All Resist BJP’s Two-Nation Theory

  6 April 2014, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  BJP’s Dangerous Politics
  One of my earliest reporting experiences was the great Calcutta killing of 1946. Fierce communal passions were unleashed and thousands were done to death on both sides in the course of a couple of days. But behind that gory carnage was the fight for the city of Calcutta: who should get it? Pakistan or India? Religious beliefs are made use of to rouse mass anger among innocent people, but those who whip up such passions do so only for (…)

• Bare Facts

  6 April 2014, by Badri Raina

  In terms of geographical spread and demographic reach, India has one national party, namely, the Indian National Congress, and one quasi-national party, namely, the Bharatiya Janata Party—quasi because among a hundred and fifty or more parliamentary seats in India’s eastern and southern States it has next to no organisational or political hold. Which is not to say that it is not the loudest in propagating its primary claim to “Indianness” on Hindu-cultural grounds, a dearly-held indigenism (…)

• RSS-BJP, Sardar Patel and Mahatma Gandhi

  6 April 2014, by Anil Rajimwale

  The RSS/BJP continue to act innocent on the Mahatma Gandhi assassination issue. Fresh attempts are being made by their leaders, on the eve of the elections, to ‘clarify’ that the RSS was in no way involved in the crime. This does not convince anyone.
  The RSS has tried to use some technical details to free itself of the charge, without replying to the crucial aspects of the question. Both the RSS and BJP have also been selectively using Sardar Patel’s statements, and distorting them in (…)

• Defence and Self-Reliance

  6 April 2014

  [We have come across two articles related to defence and self-reliance in Business Standard of late. Since the subject is under intense discussion in recent times we are reproducing, with due acknowledgement, the two articles for the benefit of our readers.]
  The Missing Military-Industrial Complex
  Genuine Strategic Autonomy lies in creating Conditions Conducive to Private Participation in the Defence Industry
  Hemant Krishan Singh and Sanjay Pulipaka
  As Asia grapples with the (…)

• The Path of Revolution

  6 April 2014, by Bharat Dogra

  ‘Revolution’ has been a very inspiring word for millions of people working for creating a better world. However, vested interests have often also misused this word. So it is important to try to define ‘revolution’ in the present-day context in clear and simple terms.
  Whether we see at world level or at the level of our country, it is clear that pain and suffering exist on a large scale. Most of this distress is related to inequalities, exploitation, domination, cruelty, insensitivity and (…)

• Muslims and the Indian Election 2014

  6 April 2014

  by Imtiaz Ahmad Ansari
  The 16th Lok Sabha elections for the world’s largest democracy, India, will be held in nine phases from April 7 to May 12, 2014. The total number of voters for this election is 814 million. This election is important in many respects. But one single figure who has captured the centre-stage is the BJP; prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi. It is more because of his involvement, direct or indirect, in the ghastly 2002 anti-Muslim communal riot in Gujarat and his (…)