Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Search for a New President

  18 May 2012, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  While the Central leaders maintained a studied reticence in talking to pressmen about Dr Zakir Husain’s successor until the late President’s funeral was over, one could hear the muffled whispers on the subject even as the VIPs drove into the cobbled courtyard of the Rashtrapati Bhavan on the fateful Saturday afternoon for Sri Giri’s investiture as the acting President.
  Those unversed in the realities of New Delhi’s politics regarded such talks as betraying indecent (…)

• ‘Reservations for Muslims is My Positive Contribution’

  18 May 2012

  Syed Shahabuddin, a former member of the Indian Foreign Service, is one of the most articulate Muslim politicians of independent India. He was also a Member of Parliament for sometime.
  This freewheeling interview poses all those questions which were never asked of him earlier and should facilitate historians in the future in understanding the dynamics of society and circumstances which helped breed a personality like him.
  Q. Generally, Muslim bureaucrats opt for pro-establishment (…)

• Militarising Minds, Hindutvaising the Nation

  18 May 2012, by Subhash Gatade

  SEVENTYFIVE YEARS OF BHONSALA MILITARY SCHOOL
  ..to bring about military regeneration of the Hindus and to fit Hindu youths for undertaking the entire responsibility for the defence of their motherland. to educate them in the ‘Sanatan Dharma’, and to train them “in the science and art of personal and national defence”
  —(aim of ‘Central Hindu Military Education Society’, NMML, Munje Papers, subject files, n 24, 1932-36)
  This training is meant for qualifying and fitting our boys for the (…)

• Isolating Muslims from Mainstream Banking

  18 May 2012

  COMMUNICATION
  The write up, ‘India needs Islamic banking for Inclusive Growth...: , by H. Abdur Raqeeb (Mainstream, Vol L, No 9, April 28, 2012) tries to cover up well-organised nefarious designs of Islamists in India in using banking as part of their agenda to advance the cause of ‘pan-Islamism’. These forces are committed to ensuring the hegemony of militant Islam or Wahabi Islam in India . The success of the secular nature of Indian polity and society is something they cannot swallow. (…)

• Dismantling the Social Safety Net in America

  18 May 2012, by Eddie J Girdner

  BOOK REVIEW
  RULING CLASS STRUGGLE AND THE FOX IDIOT BOX
  The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism by Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson; New York: Oxford University Press; 2012; pages: 245.
  The United States is a mature capitalist country on the down side of history. Under neoliberalism, the economic policy since the l970s has been centred on an agenda of rapid and radical de-industrialisation to ensure higher corporate profits. Jobs have since been exported en masse, (…)

• Remembering Karl Marx

  18 May 2012

  (On May 5 this year was observed the one hundred and ninetyfourth birth anniversary of Karl Marx. On this occasion we remember that immortal revolutionary with the following excerpts from his unforgettable writings and speeches. We are also publishing some relevant articles in the following pages. —Editor)
  “In direct contrast to German philosophy, which descends from heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven. That is to say, we do not set out from what men say, imagine, (…)

• Reflections on Marx, Lenin and Us

  18 May 2012, by Mohit Sen

  (The following are excerpts from the chapter ‘Reflections’ from the autobiography of noted Communist ideologue Mohit Sen, A Traveller and the Road: The Journey of An Indian Communist.)
  Though the birth of the Communist movement took place in 1847-48 when Marx read out the Communist Manifesto, it would not be unfair to date its birth from the victory of the Russian Revolution on November 7, 1917. The news of its victory was sent ’To All! To All! To All!’ Since then, despite defeats, it (…)

• Marx and Engels on the Use of Parliamentary Institutions

  18 May 2012, by Anil Rajimwale

  A STUDY OF ENGELS’ INTRODUCTION
  “The Communist Manifesto had already proclaimed the winning of universal suffrage, of democracy, as one of the first and most important tasks of the militant proletariat,” (Engels’ Introduction of 1895 to Marx’s The Class Struggles in France, SW1, Moscow, 1973, p. 195)
  These are the words of Frederick Engels on the attitude of the Communists to the struggle for universal suffrage. In this entire para, Engels clearly expresses himself in favour of not only (…)

• Our Common Victory and Its Lessons

  18 May 2012, by Vyacheslav I. Trubnikov

  [Vyacheslav I. Trubnikov, one of the best and most respected Russian ambassdors to this country, wrote the following article on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the Victory over Fascism on May 9, 2005 when he headed the Russian embassy in New Delhi. It was carried in Mainstream (May 14, 2005). It is being reproduced seven years later as we observe the 67th anniversary of the end of Hitlerite Fascism on May 9 this week.]
  In Russia’s calendar of memorable dates the 9th of May (…)

• Maoist Actions and State Operations

  13 May 2012, by SC

  Several moves by the state, judiciary and ruling party to muzzle the press have come into focus on the national plane of late. In the global arena, especially in the West, May Day this year has been observed by the working people venting their anger at the growing joblessness and rising austerity measures, and this anger threatens to topple the rulers in Paris and Athens; but in Moscow more than a lakh of workers celebrated Labour Day with a Soviet-style march demonstrating their support for (…)