Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Emergency: What it meant

  28 June 2011

  Lest We Forget
  Thirtyfour years ago on June 26, 1975, Emergency was proclaimed throughout the country as the ruling leadership bared its fangs nakedly displaying its dictatorial proclivities. We present here write-ups and poems that bring back the nightmare of those dark days when our freedom was sought to be snatched away and our voice throttled. —Editor
  by AMIYA RAO, B.G. RAO
  Not a leaf stirs in my kingdom without my leave. See how quiet my people sit. —Atahuallpa the Inca
  To those (…)

• Ay Eye-witness Account

  28 June 2011

  Published in The Morning News—Sunday Times Service (London) on July 3, 1975. An introduction to the article read:
  “An uncensored account from Jonathan Dimbleby who was in Delhi last week for the Thames Televivsion programme: ‘This Week’. He filed his report from Addis Ababa to avoid censorship.”
  This was included in The Press She Could Not Whip: Emergency in India as Reported by the Foreign Press. —Editor
  The famous Indian journalist sat in his silent office surrounded by notes for an (…)

• Symbol of a Heroic Age

  28 June 2011

  REMEMBERING N.C.
  On June 27 this year falls Nikhil Chakravartty’s thirteenth death anniversary. On this occasion we reproduce the following tributes to his abiding memory that were published in Mainstream on July 11, 1998, July 25, 1998 and July 4, 1998 respectively.
  by P.C. JOSHI
  In the passing away of Nikhilda at the ripe age of eightyfour the country has lost the doyen of Indian journalism and a vigilant watchdog of national interest and democratic rights. And the common people have (…)

• Why I was Drawn To Him

  28 June 2011, by Muchkund Dubey

  I am among numerous others who felt being very close to Nikhilda. He had that remarkable quality, to quote Rabindranath Tagore, “of bringing those who are distant closer to him and making others his brother” ¼nwjds djsN vkiu cUèkq] ijds djsN HkkbZ½-I was drawn towards him because of the unbounded personal affection I received from him and because he embodied the qualities I have cherished most in my life. What drew me towards him was his simplicity; his refusal to be impressed by the vulgar (…)

• Envisioning a New South Asia

  28 June 2011

  by MALINI PARTHASARATHY
  In the passing of Nikhil Chakravartty, this country has lost a distinguished member of a diminishing tribe of nationalists who were unabashed about their zeal and pride in being seen as the first generation of citizens of the new Indian republic. That sense of patriotism in the classical sense imbued all Nikhil Chakravartty’s writings even as it made him stand out as a rare spokesman for the highest political values that he strongly desired the Indian state to (…)

• We Need No Taliban Here

  28 June 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  Eminent artist M.F. Husain recently passed away in London. Remembering him we reproduce on N.C.’s thirteenth death anniversary what he wrote while assailing the vandalism that Right-wing Hindutva fantics resorted to in protest against Husain’s paintings as well as the threats meted out to the country’s foremost painter that eventually forced the latter to go into self-exile.
  Maqbool Fida Husain is at the very centre of a storm whose after-effects are extremely (…)

• Good-bye Feroze

  28 June 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  Parliament has just repealed the Parliamentary Proceedings (Protection of Publication) Act which came into force twenty years ago in 1956. Late Feroze Gandhi, who initiated and piloted the Bill in Parliament, made a powerful case which might have been useful for the present Government to bear in mind. Sri Bhupesh Gupta, in his signed article in New Age of February 1, 1976, has recalled Feroze Gandhi’s speech, from which a significant portion is reproduced here below:
  “For the success of (…)

• Mohan Kumaramangalam — Cameos

  28 June 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  AN OLD COMRADE
  On May 31 this year it was the thirtyeighth death anniversary of Mohan Kumaramangalam. On N.C.’s thirteenth death anniversary we reproduce the following tribute that the founder of this journal penned under the pseudonym ‘An Old Comrade’. M.K. and N.C. were indeed close comrades since their days in England in the 1930s and the friendship bloomed during their collective struggle in the communist movement; it was retained in subsequent years and even when Mohan joined the (…)

• The Thai-Cambodian Border Dispute: From Friction to Fire

  28 June 2011

  by Panchali Saikia
  The recent ASEAN Summit held in Jakarta in May 2011 was dominated by the Thai-Cambodian issue, but it failed to reach a consensus about how to resolve it. Before the summit, both Thailand and Cambodia agreed to accept an Indonesian observer team to monitor a ceasefire. But, weeks later there was another military confrontation along the border. The armed confrontation was witnessed between February 4 and 7, 2011 near the Preah Vihear temple and from April 22 to May 3, (…)

• CPM, Jyoti Basu, M.N. Roy

  28 June 2011

  COMMUNICATION
  I congratulate you on your two editorials: one, Mamata propels historic change in West Bengal, and the other in a later issue on the debacle of the CPM in the West Bengal elections.
  In this context I wish to refer to two incidents—one, when I travelled with your late illustrious father, Nikhil Chakravartty, who, according to me, was the topmost Communist intellectual of his time. While travelling together I said that Jyoti Basu will help Bangladesh on the water issue and (…)