Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Sowing Division: Caste is Crucial in Indian Elections

  10 February 2019

  by L.K. Sharma
  Jaati na poocho sadhu ki, pooch leejiye gyan”, sang India’s saint-poet Kabir. (Do not judge a saint by his caste, imbibe his knowledge). However, the most-asked question in an Indian election is about the candidate’s caste. Political analysts ask it, poll strategists ask it, and the voters ask it. The caste-related issues, appearing frivolous to outsiders, are debated seriously in the TV shows and newspaper articles during an election season. Such weird identity-politics is (…)

• Demystifying the SC Ruling on Reservation Policy

  10 February 2019

  by Kamal Singh, Indervir Singh and Chaman Lal
  The Supreme Court of India in its recent decision upholds the verdict of the Allahabad High Court regarding reservation in the University. As per the decision, while applying the reservation roaster, the Department would be considered as a unit, not the University. This ruling would have far-reaching negative consequences for the aspirants from reserved categories seeking faculty positions in institutions of higher learning.
  This decision (…)

• Can the NDA Rise above its Shortcomings before the 2019 Polls?

  10 February 2019

  by Suraj Sharma
  The following is a contribution from a government servant writing under a pseudonym. It was written sometime ago last year but its contents still retain their validity.
  Experience has shown that the Indian citizens cannot expect visionary and honest political leadership either from the NDA/UPA or any other coalition. All of them have the same character and corrupt tendencies..
  The present age is known as Kaliyuga or the era of Kali. The characteristics of this era are: (…)

• Solidarity with Venezuela in a Changing World

  10 February 2019

  by Archishman Raju
  The American writer, James Baldwin, once remarked: “History, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.”. The situation in front of us in Venezuela is a reminder of a history that we have seen (…)

• Demise of George Fernandes

  10 February 2019

  COMMUNICATION
  Born in Karnataka, George Fernandes will always be remembered as one of the Mohicans of the anti-Emergency movement in India. His historic leadership in the nationwide rail strike made him an icon of the Indian working class movement, especially among the Indian railwaymen constituting the world’s largest public sector unit. He was one of the first to be arrested by the Indira Gandhi Government when the Emergency was declared on and from June 26, 1975. He was arrested on that (…)

• Kalpana Dutt

  10 February 2019, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  The following lines were written by N.C. twentyfour years ago and published in this journal’s February 18, 1995 issue. It is being reproduced on the occasion of the distinguished revolutionary Kalpana Dutt’s twentyfourth death anniversary which fell on February 8 this year. It came and went with hardly anyone remembering her on that day. Kalpana’s birth centenary on July 27, 2013 also went virtually unnoticed. But we in Mainstream have decided to offer our homage to (…)

• Communal Frenzy and Abuse of Religion

  10 February 2019

  by Nilofar Suhrawardy
  Naseeruddin Shah has his right to entertain the reservations he has expressed regarding the “fear” entertained about their religious identity by certain Muslims. In his words, he feels “anxious” for his children, for “if tomorrow a mob surrounds them and asks them are you Hindu or Muslim?, they will have no answer.” But it would be wrong to assume that this “fear” prevails among the entire community of Indian Muslims. In fact, the probability of it prevailing amongst (…)

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  Protecting Republican Constitution

  28 January 2019, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  As we prepare to celebrate our seventieth Republic Day on January 26 this year, a grim situation stares us in the face now that we are approaching our next general elections within a short span of time.
  The poll bugle has already been sounded by both the Opposition parties and the ruling BJP and it appears that it would be a no-holds-barred election campaign this time. If the mega-rally by practically all the Opposition parties held precisely a week before the Republic Day in (…)

• Bapu

  28 January 2019

  January 30 this year marks the seventyfirst anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. On this occasion we remember the Father of the Nation by reproducing the following piece by Jawaharlal Nehru written shortly after Gandhiji’s departure.
  by JAWAHARLAL NEHRU
  Nineteen-sixteen. Over thirty-two years ago. That was when I first saw Bapu, and an age has gone by since then. Inevitably one looks back and memories crowd in. What a strange period this has been in India’s history and the (…)

• My dreams too are endless

  28 January 2019

  My mind knows no fatigue,
  Yet the withered wailing of the boughs,
  Yet the numb cold on plains and meadows,
  And unceasing the sky’s tears.
  Life is neck-craned in expectation,
  Expectation or is it a complex tune!
  Carbon reddness in the blue of desire,
  In that beggarliness wanting is one with receiving,
  The mind is accessible in the body, in the fist the far.
  I do not want peace without you,
  I want you unceasingly,
  Poinciana reddness in bloom, that too is waiting
  That is (…)