Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• The Chinese Aggression

  21 November 2012

  On November 14 this year was observed Jawaharlal Nehru’s 123rd birth anniversary. This year also marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Chinise aggression of 1962 that tragically cut short the life of our first PM. On this occasion we are reproducing the following speeches of Nehru in the wake of the Chinese attack. We are also reproducing and publishing relevant articles and a speech (made in the Lok Sabha).
  From Jawaharlal Nehru’s Speeches
  Comrades, friends and fellow countrymen,
  I (…)

• The Proclamation of Emergency

  21 November 2012

  For five years, we have been the victims of Chinese aggression across our frontiers in the north. That aggression was, to begin with, rather furtive. Occasionally there were some incidents and conflicts. These conflicts might well be termed frontier incidents. Today, we are facing a regular and massive invasion of our territory by very large forces….
  This strange twist of history has brought us face to face with something that we have not experienced in this way for over a hundred years or (…)

• The If-ing of Nehru

  21 November 2012

  by M. Chalapathi Rau
  If only Jawaharlal Nehru had insisted on Tibet’s independence in 1950; if he had only propounded no Panchsheel with the Chinese; if only he had aligned India with the West—these are the irritant ‘ifs’ bandied about in coffee houses by people who read little history and have not written any. Far more imponderable ‘ifs’ have been sufficiently canvassed—if Don John of Austria had lost at Lepanto; if Napoleon had own at Waterloo; if Kerensky had shown an ounce of courage; (…)

• Rally behind Nehru

  21 November 2012, by S G Sardesai

  The India-China border question has reached the point of open armed conflict. The entire Chinese operation in the NEFA, started in September, was a premeditated affair, surpassing all that they had done in Ladakh in the past.
  Why should the armed conflict in Ladakh have reached the NEFA region at all? The protest note submitted by the Chinese Government to India on October 10 gives the following explanation of this development: “….it (India) is determined to realise by armed attacks its (…)

• With Nehru All The Way

  21 November 2012

  by Bhagwat Jha Azad
  History knows many a betrayal of friendship, but the one committed by the Chinese will go down in history as the most unfortunate and an unmatched instance of a friend being stabbed in the most treacherous and inhuman manner.
  The Chinese we treated nicely. We gave them all support and help in their national issues and lent them prestige by taking them out of world isolation. We extended uniformly our hand of friendship and goodwill on the basis of recognition of each (…)

• ‘Indian People Unitedly Back 
Jawaharlal Nehru and his Policies’

  21 November 2012

  The following are excerpts from the speech that Deputy Leader of the united CPI Group in Parliament delivered on the Chinese aggression in the Lok Sabha on November 10, 1962.
  Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise with a deep sense of responsibility in this grave hour of national emergency to pledge on behalf of my party our full support to the Prime Minister’s rallying call to the nation for national unity at this juncture of history when our country is facing a danger greater than it has ever faced (…)

• Nehru’s Vision of Asia and Asian Identity: An Introspectional Foray

  21 November 2012

  by Muhammad Tajuddin
  As a liberal intellectual, Nehru ‘discovered’ India not in the spirit of self-centricism but as a champion of internationalism. Indian nationa-lism is visible in all his three important works but nowhere he sounds xenophobic. India, as admitted by Nehru, is ‘present in his blood’ which he has explored and narrated in its neighbourhood that is Asia. Not only in Discovery of India but also in his Autobiobraphy and the Glimpses of World History he has presented a vivid (…)

• The Paradox of Leadership

  21 November 2012

  by Tarun Patnaik
  After the exposure of the power muscle of Mukesh Ambani over the functioning of the Congress, a few fundamental questions come to mind. It is clear that political parties need money to survive in the field of power politics because money plays a big role on which they can come to power.
  Our electorate are quite amenable to short-term gains and short-term loyalty. Other than direct purchase of votes, there is the indirect effect of buying the power-brokers. Next comes the (…)

• Indira Gandhi’s Place In History

  21 November 2012, by K. Natwar Singh

  November 19 this year marks Indira Gandhi’s ninetyfifth birth anniversary. On this occasion we are reproducing the piece the former External Affairs Minister wrote in Mainstream (October 31, 2009). Natwar Singh worked under the late PM for several years.
  From May 1966 to April 1971 I was working in the Prime Minister’s Secretariat (it was renamed Prime Minister’s Office by Morarji Desai). I was the first foreign service official to serve in the Prime Minister’s Secretariat.
  At that time (…)

• Retreat from Left Politics in the
 Service of Bourgeoisie

  21 November 2012, by Barun Das Gupta

  BOOK REVIEW
  A Fistful of Dry Rice: Land, Equity and Democracy: Essays in Honour of D. Bandyopadhyay by K.B. Saxena, Manoranjan Mohanty and Sumit Chkaravartty (editors); Aakar Books, New Delhi; pages: 434; Price: Rs 1295.
  Debabrata Bandyopadhayay, a member of the Indian Administrative Service, was the man who carried out the ‘Operation Barga’ of the Left Front Government, which it continued to cash for three-and-a-half decades. It was its greatest achievement for which it claimed all (…)