Mainstream Weekly

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• Bhagat Singh : A Tribute

  27 March 2010, by Bimal Prasad

  [bleu]Seventynine years ago on March 23, 1931, Bhagat Singh and his comrades, Sukhdev and Rajguru, were executed by the British Raj at Lahore Central Jail. On this occasion we reproduce excerpts from an AIR broadcast on Bhagat Singh to mark the fiftieth anniversary of their martyrdom by the eminent historian and retired Professor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Bimal Prasad. The text of the broadcast was carried in Mainstream (March 28, 1981).bleu]
  As Bhagat Singh, flanked by (…)

• Battle-lines

  20 March 2010, by SC

  Parliament went into recess on March 16. But before that the government decided to back off in the Lok Sabha on introducing the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill 2010. The Bill’s introduction has been deferred due to the spirited opposition from the BJP and the Left and both were prepared to call a division on the legislation. But the government’s decision to this effect was also prompted by the low attendance of the MPs belonging to the ruling UPA in the Lower House—an embarrassment (…)

• Women in Panchayats: The Path Ahead

  20 March 2010, by Usha Narayanan

  Now that the Women’s Reservation Bill has been passed in the Rajya Sabha, we are reproducing the following write-up based on the speech the author, the wife of former President K.R. Narayanan, delivered at the inauguration of a National Workshop on “Training Women in Panchayats—Looking Back and Forward” (New Delhi] October 31, 1996). It was the success of women’s one-third representation in the Panchayats that influenced politicians (like Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, for example) to comprehend the (…)

• In the Name of Woman Unite the Adi Shakti, do not Divide it

  20 March 2010, by Suvrokamal Dutta

  The Indian nation and parliamentary democracy are today passing through huge crises of an unprecedented nature never seen before. The issue behind the whole crises today is sadly the issue of woman who for ages has been a force of unity and not division in the family, society and/or state. The woman, who has been projected in Indian scriptures as the Adi-Shakti, Aad-Nareswar or for that matter Shiv-Shakti, has become a huge contention of debate in the name of women’s liberation among the (…)

• On Rammanohar Lohia’s Birth Centenary

  20 March 2010, by SC

  The birth centenary of Dr Rammanohar Lohia, the stormy petrel of the Indian socialist movement, one of the most talented and versatile personalities in the freedom struggle, and a profound, innovative and original socialist thinker, falls on March 23. Dr Lohia was born at Akbarpur, Faizabad district, UP on March 23, 1910. Since his birthday coincided with the day of martyrdom of three of the country’s finest revolutionary freedom fighters—Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru (who were executed (…)

• Left Unity: Lohia’s Approach

  20 March 2010, by Ayub Syed, Ravindranath

  An encounter with the socialist leader would be rather extraordinary without some rough weather but we were not prepared for the squall we ran into the moment we sat down with him in his well-appointed drawing room. He said he would talk only in Hindi. When we remonstrated that one of us had been in the North for only three years, he said he had learnt German in Berlin in three months: “One learns a language only under compulsion.” Finally, he agreed to let us discuss half the questions in (…)

• Remembering Rammanohar Lohia

  20 March 2010, by Pritish Acharya

  Between March 2009 and March 2010 Rammanohar Lohia’s (March 23, 1910-October 12, 1967) birth centenary has been celebrated across the country. Many meetings and seminars, yatras and padyatras have been organised and quite a few writings on him published. Without being noticed by the ‘national’ media, many of these celebrations and publications were outside Delhi and not in English. One such, the Sapta Kranti Vichar Yatra consisting of 25 youths, was started from Maharashtra in August 2009, (…)

• Lohia and Empowerment of Women

  20 March 2010, by Radha Ojha

  Empowerment is a continuous process. It realises the ideals of equality, human liberation and freedom for all. Women’s empowerment implies equality of opportunity and equity between genders, ethnic groups, social classes and age-groups, strengthening the life chances of collective participation in different spheres of life. Power is not a commodity to be transacted nor can it be given away as alms. Power has to be acquired and it needs to be exercised.1 Activists want the government to (…)

• Samajwadi Party at Crossroads

  20 March 2010, by Varughese George

  Finally Amar Singh is out. He has been expelled from the Samajwadi Party on February 2 along with the Member of Parliament, Jayaprada. Yet the parting of ways by Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh is not merely personal, but has organisational and ideological dimensions too. The Samajwadi Party has been losing the elections since 2007 when it had to bow out of power in UP giving way to the BSP. In the 15th Lok Sabha elections in 2009 the party had to be satisfied with half the seats compared to (…)

• The Third Position: Non-alignment with Violence

  20 March 2010, by Sudhir Vombatkere

  McCarthyism in India
  In a charge sheet against Kobad Gandhi produced by the Delhi Police in the Tees Hazari Courts, New Delhi, on February 18, 2010, besides naming some other individuals, some organisations —like the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR)—are named. Much like McCarthyism in the USA several decades ago, in the present circumstances in India, governments may treat members of the PUCL and PUDR as members, collaborators or (…)