Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Lead, kindly Light....

  27 January 2020, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Every year we dutifully go through the ritual of offering homage to Gandhiji on the day of his martyrdom.
  We shall once again be witnessing the ceremony on January 30 to be conducted as per protocol—early morning prayer at Rajghat, singing of bhajans and hymns, a round of spinning and then during the course of the day, meetings and seminars and a special programme on Doordarshan to remind us of the Father of the Nation. VVIPs encircled by gun-totting security guards (…)

• We Shall See

  27 January 2020

  The following is the transcreation of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s “We Shall See” by Badri Raina.
  Inevitable that we shall see
  Dawn of the promised day,
  When pinnacles of tyranny
  Will come to be blown away
  Like bales of cotton loosely held,
  When the ground shall shudder underneath
  The gumption of empowered feet,
  And bang on the swollen head
  Lightning strike with telling heat;
  When despot-icons shall be removed
  From God’s outraged earthly bed,
  And taintless victims of crushing (…)

• A Pilgrim in Quest of Truth

  27 January 2020

  On January 30 this year falls the seventysecond anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s martyrdom. We pay our homage to the Father of the Nation on this occasion by reproducing some paragraphs from Jawaharlal Nehru’s Foreword to D.G. Tendulkar’s Mahatma (written in Pahalgam, Kashmir, June 30, 1954, and carried in Jawaharlal Nehru: An Anthology edited by S. Gopal).
  by Jawaharlal Nehru
  The long story of humanity can be considered from many points of view; it is a story of the advance and growth of (…)

• DPT—A Man Who Touched Many a Heart!

  27 January 2020

  TRIBUTE
  by Syeda Hameed
  The following lines from Allama Iqbal express what Devi Prasad Tripathi means today to all his friends and admirers.
  Marney waley marte hain lekin fana hotey nahin
  Woh haqeeqat mein kabhi humse juda hotey nahin
  Marne salon ki jabeen raushan hai iss zulmaat mein
  Jis tarah tarey chamaktey hain andheri raat mein
  The man was known to the world as DPT. He was universally loved, he never gave up, he never said no. Symbol of hope, where will we find another one (…)

• Formation of State Government

  27 January 2020

  by P.B. Sawant
  Under our Constitution, we have accepted parliamentary democracy as our political system. It means and implies that the executive/ministry consists of members of the legislature, that is, the Assembly in the case of the State, and they are responsible to the Assembly. Per force, it means that the Assembly, of which they are members, has to be duly constituted as per the Constitution, by swearing in the elected members, and the elected members electing the Speaker to conduct (…)

• Gandhi-Ambedkar Debate

  27 January 2020

  by Ashok Celly
  Gandhi was the inventor of the world’s most original non-violent revolution called Satyagraha. He thought it would prove India’s most effective weapon in her fight for freedom against the British. And it did. The British left India in 1947. Gandhi was also a great crusader against untouchability (and later the caste system). He thought it was a great social evil and a blight on India’s culture. And he did his utmost to root out this evil but he didn’t use very special, and (…)

• Netaji on Our Freedom Struggle and India after Independence

  27 January 2020

  On the occasion of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s 123rd birth anniversary on January 23 this year, we are carrying the following excerpts from Netaji’s speeches and writings while remembering that stalwart of our freedom struggle.
  This is Subhas Chandra Bose speaking to you over the Azad Hind Radio.
  For about a year I have waited in silence and patience for the march of events and now that the hour has struck, I come forward to speak.
  The fall of Singapore means the collapse of the (…)

• ‘Hum Dekhenge’—A Lyrical Ode to Resistance by Faiz

  27 January 2020

  by Mahendra Ved
  Poets and poetry are boundless and eternal. India’s ongoing turmoil has people, particularly the young, from all classes and communities, giving vent to their anger and aspirations through words and verses, reviving some old and long-forgotten, and creating new ones.
  Grannies and mothers with babes in arms braving biting cold have come out in this winter of discontent.
  The media last week captured a diminutive sociology student, Gayatri Borkar, sitting amidst the (…)

• The Making of a Hindu Nation

  27 January 2020

  by Suranjita Ray
  Thousands of men and women across the country have poured into the streets to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019. Despite assurances by the government that no Indian Muslim will lose citizenship, the new citizenship law is widely opposed by the large majority of people. We see increasing anxiety, insecurity and helplessness amongst the latter. Widespread fear and anger amongst the ordinary people, particularly the Muslims, was usual, but what the (…)

• Ablutions

  27 January 2020, by Badri Raina

  A tough old race of ancient men,
  Kin to the dynasaur,
  Now return to recharge the earth
  With ablutions of gore.
  Not a tree that does not bend
  To the whisper of their tread;
  Not a bird of free discourse
  Who is not full of dread.
  What were cities and high-rises
  Are lethal caves and grottos;
  I see mammoths stomp the streets
  Where used to be autos.
  Monkeys with monster tails
  Are sentinels to nations;
  Creatures with elephant heads
  Preside over deliberations.
  For (…)