Mainstream Weekly

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• Nandigram : CPM Exposed

  3 December 2007, by Neerja Chowdhury

  Nandigram is no longer just an area in East Midnapore district of West Bengal. Nor another name for a struggle against the acquisition of land to create an SEZ, which has the potential to trigger off similar protests around the country.
  Like Bofors entered the Indian political lexicon as the equivalent of corruption and people would openly ask in 1987, ”Is maen kitna Bofors hai?”, so also Nandigram has become synonymous with the blatant support of the state apparatus for a policy of an (…)

• Transparancy versus Contempt of Court

  3 December 2007, by P K Chatterjee

  There is no controversy as to the necessity for the summary power given to the High Courts and the Supreme Court of India to punish civil contempt, that is, deliberate disobedience of the order or deliberate obstruction to the proceedings of the courts. It is the power to punish summarily for criminal contempt of scandalising of courts or judges, that has given rise to controversy. Should it be allowed to continue at all or should it be statutorily defined and restricted so that freedom of (…)

• Reminiscences of Radhakrishnan

  3 December 2007, by Hiren Mukerjee

  November 23, 2007 marked Prof Hirendranath Mukerjee’s birth centenary. The veteran parliamentarian, CPI leader, distinguished scholar-historian and eminent Marxist intellectual passed away in Kolkata on July 30, 2004 at the age of 97. Remembering him on this occasion we are reproducing an article he wrote in Mainstream (April 26, 1975) following the death of Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan. We are also reproducing two pieces written by distinguished parliamentarians Prof Madu Dandavate and Rabi (…)

• Remembering Hiren Mukerjee

  3 December 2007, by Madhu Dandavate

  How do I remember Hiren Mukerjee after his recent death? I took out a book from the shelf with the caption Gandhiji—A Study written by him and published in 1958.
  In the ‘Last Phase’, in the concluding chapter of this book, Hiren Mukerjee wrote:
  When at last, by devious pathways, freedom came to a partitioned India, Gandhi did not have long to live, and he was too anguished even to wish to live much longer. He had often before expressed the desire to live to be a hundred and twentyfive (…)

• My Reminiscences of Professor Hiren Mukerjee

  3 December 2007, by Rabi Ray

  I had the good fortune of knowing Hiren Babu intimately when I was elected to the Fourth Lok Sabha in 1967. I had also the unique privilege to come in close contact with a distinguished galaxy of veteran parliamentarians like Dr Rammanohar Lohia, S.A. Dange, Acharya J.B. Kriplani, H.V. Kamath, Nath Pai, Madhu Limaye, Morarji Desai, Dr Karan Singh, Surendra Dwivedi, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Justice M.C. Chagla, Dr Ram Subhag Singh, Ram Sevek Yadav, Hem Barua, R. Umanath, Smt Tarakeshwari Sinha, (…)

• A Communist Rishi

  3 December 2007, by Gopalkrishna Gandhi

  I began a letter sent to Professor Hiren Mukerjee in December 1998 with the traditional ‘Pujya Hirenbabu’. I was not sure whether the veteran Marxist leader would like that worshipful form of address. Came the reply written in his distinctive hand: “You were right in guessing that I do not take kindly to being addressed as ‘Pujya’, but of course I am grateful for the generosity behind it.”
  There was no generosity operating there. I had just then read the remarkable text of his speech on (…)

• Prescription for Disaster—the ’Modi Model’ of Governance

  3 December 2007, by Bharat Dogra

  In a relatively short time Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat, has become one of the most widely discussed political figures in India. Although the discussion around him is mostly in the context of his collusion in the communal massacre in Gujarat in 2002, there have also been laudatory references to efficient administration facilitating high rates of growth. As Modi seeks re-election as the Gujarat CM in December (and later perhaps a wider national role), it is useful to see what (…)

• Statement on the Gujarat Carnage 2002

  3 December 2007

  The recent Tehelka expose of the “Gujarat riots” of 2002 demonstrate very starkly that these were neither “spontaneous” nor “riots”, but were in fact mass murder, loot and mayhem orchestrated and organised by the top echelons of the Gujarat units of the VHP, the Bajrang Dal, and the BJP with the full connivance and complicity of the Gujarat Government headed by Narendra Modi. The Tehelka tapes show senior functionaries of these organisations and of the government bragging and confessing to (…)

• NACO and HIV/AIDS in India

  3 December 2007, by Javed M Iqbal

  The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), is the leading infectious cause of adult deaths in the world. Given the scale of the epidemic, HIV/AIDS is now considered not only a health problem, but also a developmental and security threat. Even if a cure is found tomorrow, the toll of death and suffering by 2010 will far exceed any other recorded human catastrophe, any other previous epidemic, natural disaster, war, or incident of genocidal (…)

• Tibet and Indian Diplomacy

  3 December 2007, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  In the hurly-burly of day-to-day politics, Tibet has receded quite a distance in our horizon. Even when we talk about the political environment in our neighbourhood, Tibet rarely figures in it.
  In the discussions with the Chinese, whether in official or non-official capacity, at the governmental or political level, we have practically ceased to raise the question of Tibet and the Tibetan people. But the Chinese always make it a point to impress upon us the benefit of Chinese rule for the (…)