Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Indian State and the Spectre of Naxalism

  1 November 2009, by Arup Kumar Sen

  Very recently, our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reiterated once again that the Maoists pose the greatest internal security threat to the country. The Central Government is going to launch the biggest-ever operation against the Maoists, Operation Green Hunt, devised by the Home Ministry. The operation will be launched by some 70,000 paramilitary forces in 11 strategic districts along the borders of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand in addition to simultaneous operations through the dense forests in (…)

• Musahar-Maoist Combination: Are the Poorest Asserting themselves in Bihar?

  1 November 2009, by A K Biswas

  The latest round of agrarian violence reported from Khagaria district’s Icharwa char under Alauli Police Station1 of Bihar, disturbing though it is, it seems, is a powerful attempt by the weakest to ultimately defend themselves by the last option open and/or available to them. The char land in the riverine has resulted in bloodshed: 16 deaths of backward caste members including children. The attackers were Musahars, Bihar’s most illiterate and deprived caste accounting for a two million (…)

• Citizens Initiative for Peace and the Maoist Challenge

  1 November 2009, by Nandita Haksar

  I have read the Resolution (entitled “Stop offensive Hold Unconditional Dialogue” in Mainstream) made by the Citizens Initiative for Peace very carefully and I would like to raise some questions about the list of six demands that have been formulated in the light of the discussion and debates around the question of the Indian State’s decision to deal with the “Naxalite problem” with brute military force.
  The Resolution has put forward six “simple yet urgent demands”. The demands are (…)

• After Indira Gandhi

  1 November 2009, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  Twenty years after her great father’s passing away, Indira Gandhi fell, her frail body riddled with the assasin’s bullets, in the winter morning of October 31, 1984.
  She died as she lived—taking danger as her constant companion. And she left behind a nation not only benumbed with searing sorrow but engulfed in insensate fratricidal violence, threatening the very unity of the country to defend which she faced martyrdom.
  This is not the moment to undertake an objective (…)

• to indira gandhi

  1 November 2009, by Sumit Chakravartty

  a year has passed
  without you;
  tears dry up
  on the surface,
  but the pain persists
  down below
  where my heart writhes
  like a wounded fawn
  as it dawns on me
  with every passing day:
  how much we lost
  by losing you.
  New Delhi October 31, 1985

• Remembering Indira Gandhi Today

  1 November 2009, by Sumit Chakravartty

  “The ‘Indira hatred’ slogan of her opponents has died with her, but for a long time the rallying cry in India was her call of ‘Garibi Hatao’ (end poverty). Witnesses bear testimony to the fact that where millions wept at her demise, beyond the family the sincerest tears were shed by the wretched and the poor who feel bereft because they believe that she had genuinely sought to give them succour and shield them against their oppressors.”
  The above lines were written by the outstanding (…)

• Growth Despite Bloodshed?: Intra-state Conflict in South-East Asia

  1 November 2009, by Anna Louise Strachan

  Internal conflict poses one of the greatest obstacles to South-east Asian integration and regional development today. Daljit Singh claims that “for the near future, the main sources of South-East Asia’s insecurities will continue to lie not in its external environment but within South-East Asia itself”.1 This is demonstrated by the fact that most of the countries within the South-East Asia region are stricken by some form of internal strife. In fact, Singapore and Brunei alone can claim to (…)

• State Assembly Poll Results and Beyond

  25 October 2009, by SC

  The results of the elections to the three State Assemblies of Maharashtra (288 seats), Haryana (90 seats) and Arunachal Pradesh (60 seats)—that went to polls on October 13—have come in following the counting of votes today.
  At one level it is a victory for the Congress in all the three States as it has left its opponents way behind—it has emerged as the undisputed front-runner having swept the polls in Arunachal Pradesh, returned to power by securing a majority with its ally, the NCP, in (…)

• Quest for Socialism

  25 October 2009, by Surendra Mohan

  (The Congress Socialist Party was formed on October 21-22, 1934 in Bombay. The following article, by the leading Socialist ideologue in the country, is being published on the occasion of the CSP’s 75th anniversary.)
  The Congress Socialist Party was formed by those Congress workers who wanted to link the anti-imperialist struggle with socialism. They felt that it would, on the one hand, motivate the working classes to join the struggle and provide it the necessary striking power, and, on (…)

• JP: Some Reflections

  25 October 2009, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  Jayaprakash Narayan has carried with him fulsome tributes from all political circles-his adherents and admirers, his adversaries and detractors. A life of ups and downs of heroic times and despairing moments Living beyond the Psalmist’s assigned span, JP had not only witnessed mighty deeds but participated in them in the company of the great and was often acclaimed as one of them. Where History will place him in the pantheon of the architects of our freedom, it will be known only to (…)