Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• China: Xi’s Hegemony sealed at 19th CPC Congress but Questions Remain

  6 November 2017

  by Sankar Ray
  The 19th Congress of the Communist Party of China ended its six-day jamboree adding “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” to its Constitution as an ideological addendum to the already lengthy verbiage of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Theory of Three Represents and the Scientific Outlook on Development. Insertion of Xi’s thought into the Party rulebook connotes a leap forward along the ongoing (…)

• Taj Mahal

  6 November 2017, by Badri Raina

  When great historians write about the past,
  They know they must rise above the facts;
  Facts are often petty impediments
  To the grand vision they wish to enact.
  Thus years ago it was boldly writ
  In a journal called the Hindu Vishwa,
  That Jerusalem was actually Yedushalyam,
  Abode of the mighty Yadava
  That the Kaaba was a grand Vishnu temple,
  St. Paul’s Cathedral a Gopal Mandiram,
  Notre Dame a temple to goddess Durga,
  And Paris in fact Parmeshwariam.
  This was because “in (…)

• Can Interlocutor Help Solve Kashmir?

  6 November 2017, by Kuldip Nayar

  The Government of India has appointed Dineshwar Sharma, the former Intelligence Bureau chief, as an interlocutor to find a solution to Kashmir’s problems. This is not the first time that such an exercise is being conducted. New Delhi has had interlocutors in the past. Then instead of officials, Ministers were appointed so that the issue could get urgency as well as immediate attention. But nothing came out of these exercises.
  The Kashmiri leaders wanted more than what New Delhi would (…)

• Decoding Dera: A Perspective on its Historicity and Guru Phenomena

  6 November 2017

  by Geetanjali Atri
  With the imprisonment of Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in the 15-year-old rape cases in the last week of August this year and the violence that followed, the sacred imagination of the masses has been marred by turmoil. The event sparked debates on a multitude of issues concerning the dera phenomenon in general, and the Dera Sacha Sauda (DSS), the Sirsa-based socio-spiritual organisation headed by Singh, in particular. The intelligentsia on the popular media was talking about (…)

• Red Star Glows Brighter

  6 November 2017, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  November 7 this year marks the centenary of the October Revolution that heralded a new dawn in the world. Today a hundred years later the Soviet Union, the product of that Revolution, has ceased to exist. Yet the significance of the Revolution remains undiminished. To mark the occasion we are reproducing some pieces from this journal, including the following write-up by N.C., written fifty years ago at the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution, and (…)

• Russian Revolution and India

  6 November 2017

  by Shaukat Usmani
  The approaching fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution brings to mind many episodes connected with it. This Golden Jubilee of that great historical event of 1917 takes us back to the blessings of our own national liberation struggle which was then intensifying. It is no exaggeration to state that the October Revolution had a great impact on Indian natioinalism and on the colonial revolutionary movemnt throughout the entire enslaved Orient.
  Inspiration
  The (…)

• Thoughts on the Occasion of October Revolution’s Centenary

  6 November 2017, by Arun Mohanty

  Human society has witnessed so many revolutions but no revolution has influenced human history so much as has the Great October Revolution of 1917. No other revolution has triggered so profound socio-economic and geopolitical transformation in the global scale as has the October Revolution. The further we move away from the history-making events of 1917, the more we realise the global significance of this revolution. The October Revolution led to the birth of not only the first socialist (…)

• Revolution Belied

  6 November 2017, by Barun Das Gupta

  What exactly was unique about the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia? What was it that made this revolution fundamentally different from all other previous revolutions? Why was it that it was something new, something unheard of, something never before imagined, in the entire history of human civilisation.?
  Rabindranath Tagore in his inimitable language summed up this uniqueness succinctly in his book Letters from Russia, which he wrote when he visited the Soviet Union in 1930. He wrote: (…)

• October Revolution and Women

  6 November 2017, by Gargi Chakravartty

  ‘Ten days that shook the world’—the tremor of the October Revolution was felt throughout the world with its cascading effects on society, polity and economy at large, its far-reaching impact on the national liberation struggles of Asia and Africa, while giving specific direction to the working class movements across the globe. What Rosa Luxemburg, a stalwart in the communist move-ment, wrote in her article entitled ‘The Russian Revolution’ in September 1918 while she was languishing in (…)

• On N.C.’s 104th birth centenary: I. A. Rehman and Mubashir Hasan

  6 November 2017

  On November 3 this year fell Nikhil Chakravartty’s 104th birth anniversary. On this occasion we are reproducing two eminent Pakistani public figures’ article and message sent on N.C.’s birth centenary four years ago when a two-day conference on “Media Engagements in Contemporary World” was held in New Delhi on November 4-5, 2013 under the aegis of the Centre for Media Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Editors Guild of India and Nikhil Chakravartty Memorial Foundation. Both the (…)