Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• On Kashmir

  9 July 2018, by Arup Kumar Sen

  The failure of the democratic experiments in Kashmir has a long history. Kashmir’s strongest leader in post-colonial India, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, was all of a sudden informed by the Superintendent of Police in August 1953, when the Sheikh was holidaying in Gulmarg, that he had been dismissed as the chief of the State and was being interned. The Sheikh stayed out of power for 22 years, until he accepted an accord with Indira Gandhi in 1975.
  The Congress-National Conference alliance, (…)

• A Modicum of Truth

  9 July 2018, by Kuldip Nayar

  I feel honoured that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken notice of my criticism. Indeed, he praised me and said: “I respect veteran journalist Kuldip Nayarji, he fought for freedom during the Emergency. He may be a harsh critic of us but I salute him for this.” The Prime Minister and I are on the same page when it comes to the criticism of the Emergency imposed by Mrs Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister.
  Where we differ is the shape of society we want. He belongs to the Bharatiya (…)

• Fish Out of Water: Setting of the Currency Crisis in India

  9 July 2018

  by Atanu Sengupta and Sanjoy De
  In Tradition
  Formal-informal transactions are not new to India. State control in almost all spheres of life alongside parallel existence of the informal sector has been the hallmarks of the Indus Valley Civilisation. Through the web of cities, towns, villages and even smaller settlements, Indus Valley Civilisation showed a remarkable standardisation in almost all spheres of life. Long after, if we pass on to the period of Ashoka (the Great Mauryan ruler), (…)

• The OHCHR Report on Kashmir

  9 July 2018, by Tapan Bose

  The United Nations, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on June 14 published a “Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Kashmir: Developments in the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir from June 2016 to April 2018”. This is the first such report on Jammu and Kashmir by the UN. It covers both India and Pakistan controlled areas of the former princely state. The Government of India has rejected the OHCHR report as “fallacious”. The spokesperson of India’s Ministry of (…)

• Snapshots at Border

  9 July 2018

  Children being ripped away
  from the arms of their mothers;
  parents not being able to see
  where their kids have gone;
  from within the metal cages
  heart-rending cries rising,
  asking for their papi, mami—
  what a scene of inhumanity!
  But in the intense sobbing
  insensitivity finds a joke:
  child actors staging an orchestra;
  only a conductor missing!
  Then a jacket causing outcry:
  I really don’t care, do u?
  Is it a message against ‘fake news’
  or demonic (…)

• Scanning a Landmark

  9 July 2018, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Important events are graduated into landmarks in History as they are invested with hindsight. Perhaps it would be premature to call an event a landmark on the very morrow of its happening. By this criterion, the meeting of the Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan at Islamabad on June 19-23, 1997 has a significance which needs to be taken into account.
  For years at a stretch, there was no formal meeting at the official level to decide on the agenda for a (…)

• All is Said but not Done

  9 July 2018, by Badri Raina

  Everything has been tried—
  From cajoling to condescension,
  Gentle pellets to ammunition.
  These are people of a different
  Kind; they think they have
  A right to their own mind.
  They do not know that democracies
  The world-over have long left
  That sort of thinking well behind.
  Have we not interlocuted for
  Many a year? Have we not told
  Them what they must hear?
  Whatever may be said has been
  Said; it is their wish to proliferate
  The valley with the dead. Alas,
  What (…)

• Sun Sets on the British Empire

  9 July 2018, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  On July 1, 1997 Hong Kong came back to the People’s Republic of China from Britain. On the anniversary of Hong Kong’s sovereignty having been resumed to the PRC, we are reproducing the following article written by N.C. on that historic event. It was published twentyone years ago on July 5, 1997 in Mainstream.)
  When we were young, our school-books said: “The sun never sets on the British Empire”—that meant whichever way you turned the globe, a piece of British Empire could be seen on the (…)

• BJP’s Pull-out from J&K’s Coalition Government

  9 July 2018, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  The BJP’s political games are writ large in the Kashmir region soon after its pull-out from the PDP-BJP coalition government in J&K. In fact, to go a step backwards, it was more than obvious that the BJP-PDP pairing was more of a mismatch; yet the power-hungry PDP decided not just to form that alliance with the Right-wing but even to go ahead with it, in spite of repeated humiliations that the PDP’s top brass had to face. In fact, the Kashmiris of the Valley hated this alliance (…)

• Christianity and Development among the Tribes of North-East India: Pros and Cons

  9 July 2018, by J.J. Roy Burman

  A majority of the tribes in all the States of North-East India, except Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura, have embraced Christianity leaving behind their traditional religions. However, their traditional social structure based on exogamous clan systems remained intact. This helped in controlling the lands through custodial rights. The traditional dress codes for attending the church masses, particularly for the women, are still in vogue. The traditional festivals, mainly linked to agricultural (…)