2010

As the third phase of polling for the Bihar Assembly elections ends today, it is still not certain if Nitish Kumar would return to power at the head of the JD(U)-BJP combine though there appears to be unanimity on the opinion that he and his alliance have a distinct advantage over his adversaries, and former CM Laloo Prasad in particular.
Meanwhile as the country and the Union Government get ready for the Obama visit in the first half of next month, the Union Home Secretary and US (…)

Caste-based regional political parties have come up because the Central Government did not address the problem of regional backwardness. Such regional parties may appear to give the impression of democracy reaching the people down below. But there is one big danger: such regional parties may lead to the balkanisation of the country if they turn into separatist movements as in Kashmir, the North-East region, Bodoland etc. The threat to national unity springing from this phenomenon should be (…)

The sudden accretion of tensions in the United States-Pakistan ties in recent days raises several questions. Most certainly, they were contrived tensions and they dissipated as quickly as they gathered. It all began with a dramatic jump in the US’ drone attacks in Waziristan in the most recent weeks.
Actually, there has been a four-fold increase in September as compared to the average during the past six-month period. In a single month alone, the drones rained death and destruction 22 (…)

I
Mohan Bhagwat, the ‘young’ supremo of an eighty plus-year-old exclusively male cultural organisation called the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, is in high spirits these days.
It is not very difficult to understand the glee on his face which has to do with the latest developments in the cause célèbre of the Sangh Parivar. One can even notice that every member of this different kind of ‘family’ also seems to be upbeat, its representatives can be found in the neighbourhood playground in (…)

by Zafar Meraj
There seems to be no end to the vicious plan of what can easily be termed as selected killings of Kashmiri youth in the most brutal manner. Notwithstanding the tall daims made by the rulers both in Srinagar and New Delhi, a systematic killing spree by the butchers in khaki continues across the Valley.
This leaves little doubt that all this is part of a well-thought-out plan to crush the Kashmiri, to be more specific the Kashmiri Muslim, to an extent that he dare not open (…)

COMMUNICATION
This refers to Uddipan Mukherjee’s article “The Kashmir Calculus” (Mainstream, October 9, 2010). It’s a very well written article but towards the end when he delineates the path ahead, he has dwelt on a number diversions. I agree with him that at this stage our acceptance of the LoC as the international border will not put an end to the insurgency in the Valley or silence the movement for azadi. Neither do I accept Musharraf’s proposal as applicable to the entire state. It (…)

by N.V.K. MURTHY
As a teenager, growing up in India during the freedom struggle, I remember my heart swelling up with pride when I sang poet Iqbal’s celebrated song “Saare Jahan Se Acha Hindustan Hamara”. Now, looking back at my life over the last seven decades, I begin to wonder as to how any sane person could believe in such narrow nationalism.
India has been variously described as a continent, as a group of disparate ethnic groups put together artificially by a colonial empire, and (…)

COMMUNICATION
Since from among those whom I addressed my open letter (in Mainstream of September 11), only D. Bandyopadhyay has come up with a rejoinder (in the October 9 issue), I feel obliged to respond to his observations with a few words.
One, he need not have wasted four long paragraphs on trying to convince me of the diabolical character of the CPI-M in West Bengal —since I had already in my letter denounced that party for its “fascist atrocities and crass corruption”, describing (…)

Maoism and Naxalism are nothing but a modern variety of anarchism, which was demolished long ago by Marx, Engels and Lenin. Anybody familiar with their criticism of theories and practice of Bakunin, Kropotkin, Lassalle, Proudhon, Narodniks and other anarchists will in no way be impressed with Maoism in India today.
Marx’s Fights against Anarchist Ultra-revolutionism
IT was in the 19th century that anarchism merged as a petty-bourgeois ultra-‘revolutionary’ trend in the working class (…)

The Indian Government and media are repeatedly telling us that 92,000 square kilometres of geographical area covering 170 districts in nine States of India are out of control of the Indian state. The vicinity is full of natural resources including varieties of minerals, forests and water sources. The territory is ruled by the Maoists; therefore the government has branded it as the ‘Red Corridor’. Actually, the area is highly adivasi dominated, therefore it is supposed to be called the (…)