2011

Jawaharlal Nehru. What a man!
This May, we observed his twentyfifth death anniversary. Six months later, India and the world celebrate his centenary. Without Jawa-harlal Nehru the history of the twentieth century would be incomplete. Nehru, the statesman and leader, left his imprint on India and the world. He changed the course of history.
Jawaharlal Nehru was much else. He was a great author. He enriched the Republic of Letters. Through his writings he reached out to history. But even (…)

by C. RAJESWARA RAO
I am glad that the centenary celebrations of the late Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru have been held throughout the country with due solemnity. He is not only one of the tallest leaders of our freedom movement, but also the creator of modern India and a universally respected world statesman.
We Communists had our own differences with Pandit Nehru in matters of policy and practical issues. But we always held high his contribution to the cause of our country and (…)

Twenty years ago, while presenting his first Budget as the Finance Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh launched “a sweeping set of neoliberal reforms that would dramatically alter the country’s economic landscape. Viewing the crisis as a historic opportunity to ‘build a new India’, Singh argued that it was essential to terminate ‘outmoded’ commitments to Nehru’s economic nationalism. Spouting with gusto French novelist Victor Hugo’s line that ‘no power on earth can stop an idea whose time (…)

AN APPEAL
The following is an appeal Major General (retd) S.G. Vombatkere sent to the leaders of the Forward Bloc, CPI-ML (Liberation), CPI (Maoist), CPI-ML (New Democracy), RSP, CPI, CPI-M, CPI-ML (K.N. Ramachandaran), PDS, UCPI, SUCI (C ), Socialist Party (India), Samajwadi Jan Parishad, Loktantrik Samajwadi Party (Raghu Thakur).
Dear Comrades of All Left parties, groups and persuasions,
I address you in all humility as a Left-leaning person with abiding faith in the Constitution of (…)

INTERVIEW
November 11, 2011 marks Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s one hundred and twentythird birth anniversary. On this occasion we offer our humble tribute to the abiding memory of that courageous secular nationalist by reproducing the following interview and publishing a relevant article.
Rizwan Qaiser teaches history at Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia. In his new book, Resisting Colonialism and Communal Politics, he explores Maulana Azad’s role in building an idea of India. Qaiser spoke with (…)

by MUHAMMAD TAJUDDIN
The only form of state structure legitimate and legal in the world after the Second World War is the nation-state. The same is not true about the nature of governance. Liberal democratic governance has become the universal ideal but still there are autocratic and authoritarian dictators and absolute monarchies in the comity of nations. The idea of the nation and the ideology of nationalism emerged in Europe in the eighteenth century after the renaissance and (…)

November 10 marks Guru Nanak’s birth anniversary.
Guru Nanak combined deep spiritual yearnings with ideas of social reforms that were far ahead of his times. He emphasised equality at all levels—social, economic and religious—and openly declared that he is with those whom the society considers to be the lowest of the low. He openly spurned the hospitality of the most powerful persons and told them on their face that he cannot accept the invitation of exploiters. He spoke strongly against (…)

by GAURAV JOGI PATHANIA
A student of modern Delhi would hardly be aware of the word ‘dhaba’. Thousands of Delhi-ites are oblivious of the existence of a jungle called Jawaharlal Nehru University, right at the heart of South Delhi. Despite being surrounded by big malls, continental hotels and very expensive coffee cafés, JNU has always been famous for its dhabas. These dhabas are the nocturnal hotspot of the university and famous for their tea and samosa, not for coffee. Instead of what the (…)

BOOK REVIEW
by MAHTAB ALAM
Godse’s Children: Hindutva Terror in India by Subhash Gatade; Pharos Media & Publishing Private Ltd, New Delhi; 2011; pp. 400; Price: Rs 360.
The Saffron Condition: Politics of Repression and Exclusion in Neoliberal India by Subhash Gatade; Three Essays Collective, Gurgaon; 2011; pp. X+475; Price: 500.
In December 2010, when Swami Aseemanand, a ‘former’ RSS pracharak and key functionary of the Sangh backed Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, admitted before a (…)

As we go to press the government has today given the oil companies a free run to hike petrol prices by Rs 1.82 per litre that would further fuel inflation which has already recorded a massive rise of late to reach the double digit as food prices are causing unbearable strain on the common man.
And today itself the special judge of the trial court on the 2G scam has rejected the bail pleas of DMK MP Kanimozhi and four others involved in the scam despite the CBI having made it abundantly (…)