Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Role of Money in State Assembly Polls

  19 December 2013, by Kuldip Nayar

  The elections for the State Legislatures in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram and Delhi have indicated the mood of the people. Many questions have come to the fore. The political parties face the challenge of finding answers before the parliamentary polls next year.
  Two trends have emerged, one plus and the other minus, from these elections. The positive aspect is that more voters have come to the polling booths than ever before, nearly 75 per cent exercising their (…)

• Whither Bangladesh?

  19 December 2013

  by Shahriar Kabir
  The anxiety about the outcome of the coming general elections in Bangladesh—how the elections will be held, who will be returned to power, what will happen after the elections, etc —has now spread beyond the borders of Bangladesh into the international arena. Heated discussions are going on all around. I have not seen such intense speculations about elections in any other country as is being seen in the case of Bangladesh. The country’s capital, Dhaka, is being visited (…)

• Rise of Religious Fundamentalism in Bangladesh

  19 December 2013, by Barun Das Gupta

  The phenomenal rise of Islamic fundamentalist forces in Bangladesh has created an extremely critical situation in that country which now seems to be poised on the brink of a civil war. To the casual observer, the growth of jihadi Islam in Mujibur Rahman’s Bangladesh may appear to be a paradoxical phenomenon, but a close study of the development of Bangladesh since its emergence as an independent country in 1971, will reveal that two basically antagonistic forces, subscribing to two mutually (…)

• Meaning of Mujib | Communal Amity in Post-Liberation Bangladesh

  19 December 2013, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Meaning of Mujib
  When Dacca, in the grip of an unprecedented mass upsurge on the triumphant home coming of Bangabandhu, heard lakhs of voices spontaneously calling for “Joi Indira Gandhi”, it was not only an expression of well-deserved personal tribute to the Prime Minister of India for all that she has done for the libertion of Bangladesh and for the freedom of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. It was much more significant: a memo-rable landmark in India’s contribution towards (…)

• Hefazat-e-Jamaat, Nothing Else!

  19 December 2013, by Subhash Gatade

  “Talibaner aar ek naam—Hefazat-e-Islam!” (Another name for Taliban, Hefazat-e-Islam)
  —Slogan raised at Shahbag Square
  To such a degree has Religion fuelled conflict, complicated politics, retarded social development and impaired human relations across the world, that one is often tempted to propose that Religion is innately an enemy of Humanity, if not indeed of itself a crime against Humanity. Certainly it cannot be denied that Religion has proved again and again a spur, a motivator and (…)

• Is Bangladesh a Target for a New Cold War?

  19 December 2013

  by Abdul Gaffar Choudhury
  When the vicious Cold War between the East and West ended with the collapse of the then Soviet Union, the famous American intellectual, Gore Vidal, predicted that very soon a new cold war will start in surrounding Asia—this time not between America and the Soviet Union, but between America and China. This prediction did not take a very long time to become true. During the previous Cold War America very shrewdly seduced China to become its ally and destroyed its (…)

• Bangladesh’s Politics is Again at Crossroads

  19 December 2013

  by Shahnaj Begum
  Bangladesh’s politics is once again at the crossroads. The Constitution requires an election to be held by January 24, 2014. But there is no agreement as yet between the Opposition and the ruling party as to who will conduct the election. Election observers, especially those of the European Union, USA-based NDI, Election Working Group and the local election observer groups have already expressed their concern about the current situation presaging a violent confrontation (…)

• Challenge of Religious Fanaticism to Democracy in Bangladesh

  19 December 2013

  by Khandaker Muniruzzaman
  Bangladesh has a long history of struggle for democracy. This started with the partition of the Indian subcontinent. At present what is known as the sovereign and independent Bangladesh, was a part of Pakistan; it was known as East Pakistan. In fact Pakistan, an artificial state curved out of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, was based only on religion and not on linguistic, cultural, social or any other consideration. The then East Pakistan, the esatern wing of (…)

• Bangladesh: Religious Fanaticism and the Secular State

  19 December 2013

  by Syed Badrul Ahsan
  One of the earliest decisions made by the Bangladesh Government-in-Exile—and that was within hours of the surrender of the Pakistani occupation forces in Dhaka on December 16, 1971—was clamping a ban on political parties based on religion. There were reasons behind the move. In the first place, the War of Liberation, that began on March 26, 1971, was a fully and unambiguously secular Bengali struggle for political sovereignty, meaning that Bengalis were finally turning (…)

• Why Minorities are under Attack in Bangladesh

  19 December 2013, by Manas Ghosh

  Ever since the partition of India, the minorities in Pakistan, especially in East Pakistan, had never been allowed to freely exercise their franchise during elections. Things did not change much after emergence of Bangladesh. Except in the 1973 and 2008 parlaimentary elections when they could cast their votes without fear or favour, minorities in Bangladesh have always been attacked by the Islamic parties so that they could not vote for secular parties like the Awami League or parties of the (…)