Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Mother of all impunity from terrorism charges

  28 March 2020

  by Mustafa Khan
  Impunity in Indian context differs from region to region and from group to group. When witches were hunted tried and condemned to be burnt at the stake there was no avoidance in the western countries. In New England the people believed that the devil lived just off the clearing in the forest. In Delhi they are burning Bharatvasi who are passed off as Indians without a religious tag! And now when the deadly coronavirus is raging this Friday the PM Modi is still fiddling with (…)

• Signs of the times

  28 March 2020, by Humra Quraishi

  Musings - March 25, 2020
  If we are over with clapping and banging on thaalis and the other noise rendering sessions, its time to sit up and see the dark realities hitting millions amongst us. Lack or rather the near-absence of water. And when we say wash hands every twenty minutes with water and soap to keep off the Corona virus, do we realize that millions do not have access to water nor soap. At times not even a drop of clean drinking water! Nor do they have access to the basic food (…)

• Shivaji Maharaj and his layered and contested memory

  28 March 2020, by Anirudh Deshpande

  Islam and Hinduism are only different pigments used by the Divine Painter to picture the human species. To show bigotry for any man’s creed and practices is to alter the words of the Holy Book.
  Shivaji to Aurangzeb, 1679
  It is not true that Shivaji succeeded because he believed in the Hindu religion. Evidence suggests that he set out to do something better for the world than merely save his religion.
  Govind Pansare
  Shivaji (19 February, 1630 — 3 April, 1680)
  The contested social (…)

• Subversion of the Judiciary in Recent Times

  28 March 2020, by Arup Kumar Sen

  In summing up the role of the Indian judiciary in post-Emergency years, the eminent scholar of Jurisprudence, S. P. Sathe observed: “Post-emergency judicial activism was probably inspired by the Court’s realization that its elitist social image would not make it strong enough to withstand the future onslaught of a powerful political establishment. Therefore, consciously or unconsciously, the Court began moving in the direction of the people…it facilitated access to the courts by relaxing its (…)

• When Muslim Women Became My Saviour

  28 March 2020, by Sandeep Pandey

  Before the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act, National Register of Citizens and National Population Register dharna at Ghata Ghar was symbolically withdrawn on 23 March morning, I happened to visit the dharna site on 21 March evening with the purpose of sitting their with my spinning wheel or Charkha in support of the women. Immediately the police arrived and wanted me to leave the site citing that it was a women’s protest. I’ve been here earlier and have spun a couple of times outside the area (…)

• PM on Corona Crisis, Gogoi in Rajya Sabha

  24 March 2020, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  Shorn of any partisan approach the PM’s address to the nation yesterday on the corona crisis across the country highlighting the need to comprehend in full measure the enormity of the danger before us was indeed welcome as he spoke, for once, as the PM of the entire nation, a task he has seldom performed with the desired effect. On March 19 he spoke like a national leader underscoring the words “sankalp” (resolve) and “sayyam” (restraint), most necessary in the prevailing (…)

• The Quiet Revolution

  24 March 2020, by Devaki Jain

  In the midst of darkness, light exists—is a saying attributed to many great minds including Mahatma Gandhi. In the midst of so much hate, violent actions and speeches, feminists’ voices and actions rise like the lotus from the swamp. Muslim women have been sitting in various neighborhoods across India, peaceful, com-posed—the perfect Satyagrahis. No noise comes from there but once spoken to, they explain why they insist on calling attention, not only to the injustice but the ignorance behind (…)

• Perceived Roles of Hinduism and Islam Reversed

  24 March 2020, by Sandeep Pandey

  On January 26, Republic Day, 2020, while protests simmered against the Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens throughout India, a dozen North American cities also witnessed historic protests. Indian Embassies have been witness to protests in the past. But this time it was different.
  In Washington D.C., 800 Indian Americans, many of whom had driven hours from neighbouring states, assembled at the lawns on the south side of the White House. Marching towards the Embassy, (…)

• Sonia Gandhi Should Realise Only Democracy Can Save the Congress Now

  24 March 2020, by Badri Raina

  I write this as a 79-year-old citizen with no formal political affiliation but a lifelong allegiance to the ideals of the anti-colonial freedom movement enshrined in the Preamble of the Indian Constitution.
  I hold to the view that, contrary to the monochromatic Western models of nationalism, it was a monumental achievement of the leaders of that movement led by the Indian National Congress to forge a post-colonial nation and republic from an inclusive and pluralist vision.
  I have also (…)

• Yes Bank Crisis: A Breach of Trust or a Trust in Breach

  24 March 2020

  by Sanjoy De, Atanu Sengupta and Niladri De
  Introduction
  “I have no doubt that this habit of secretly burying the precious metals, and thus withdrawing them from circulation, is the principal cause of their apparent scarcity in Hindoustan.”
  Travels in the Mogul Empire (AD 1656-1668) by Francois Bernier—A revised and improved edition based upon Irving Brock’s translation by Archibald Constable and Company.
  Long ago in the Moghul era during the reign of Emperor Aurangzeb, French (…)