2011

The politics of Karnataka has verily become the theatre of the absurd! Having been ‘sworn- in‘ three years ago to govern the State, the political leadership was heading for a ‘swear- out‘ at Dharmasthala, an important seat of religion and spirituality in the State. This was to affirm one’s commitment to the truth. The Chief Minister (B.S. Yeddyurappa) challenging a former Chief Minister (H.D. Kumaraswamy) to testify before God at Dharmasthala by means of a government advertisement in all (…)

While the Pakistani state is being periodi-cally buffeted by a series of highly volatile events exposing certain inherent weaknesses of its institutions, its increasing relevance to the world community is also being brought into sharper focus than before.
This apparent contradiction is easily explained when we examine various parameters to determine the changing status of the Pakistani state in the comity of nations.
To simplify our task, we can deal with four of these (…)

IMPRESSIONS
Deceiving, alas, has become part of democracy. It can be brazen or it can be subliminal, the latter being more cunning and therefore more destructive. India goes brazen when big private interests have to be protected. But at the subliminal level, it is continuously deceptive—and continuously corroding the vitals of the country.
When Union Carbide’s Anderson was given a special plane and helped to flee the country in the wake of the Bhopal gas catastrophe, the state was (…)

by Ashok Yadav and Khalid Anis Ansari
The police firing and subsequent killing of five OBC Muslims in Bhajanpur village in Forbesganj of Araria district in Bihar on June 3, 2011 has been analysed in most reports in the public sphere through the frame of ‘communalism’ and there has been little effort to grapple with the other dimensions that the event entails. Increa-singly, it is being felt that the discourse around secularism/communalism is being employed to reinforce the restorative (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
Former PM P.V. Narasimha Rao, who would have completed ninety years on June 28, 2011, was close to N.C. and frequently interacted with him. There existed quite a deep friendship between the two who knew each other well. When P.V. was elected the Congress President after Rajiv Gandhi’s tragic assassination in 1991, N.C. wrote editorially in this journal: “The choice has naturally fallen on the senior leader in the party who can never be accused of domineering—rather he (…)

[Former PM P.V. Narasimha Rao’s ninetieth birth anniversary was observed on June 28, 2011. He was born on June 28, 1921 at Vangara village in Bheemdevarpalli mandal of Andhra Pradesh’s Karimnagar district and he breathed his last in New Delhi on December 23, 2004 at the age of 83. Besides serving the Congress party and the Andhra Pradesh State Government in various capacities, he became the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh in September 1971 and remained in that post till January 1973. (…)

COMMUNICATION
I was grieved to learn of the death of Chaturanan Mishra. His presence and his interventions enriched political life in the country. Never hidebound by party affiliation, never personal, always constructive. His writings provoked thought. If his articles in Mainstream in particular in the last twenty years or so are put together, the publication would constitute a valuable and inspiring collection from the point of view not only of the Communist but also of the (…)

Caste is a social phenomena, an undeniable reality, because of its deep roots in our history, psychology and politics. Caste identity springs from birth, is strengthened by upbringing, education and marriage, and even in the process of finding one’s place in the larger society a man can change his religion or speak a language other than his mother-tongue but just as he cannot change the colour of his skin, he cannot change his caste.
The Constitution prohibits discrimination by the (…)

BOOK REVIEW
by Preet Pal Singh
Local Democracy and Good Governance: Five Decades of Panchayati Raj by Ranbir Singh and Surat Singh (eds.); Deep and Deep Publication, New Delhi; Rs 1280.
Local democracy refers to the local level institutions, and not to those operating at the provincial/State and federal/national/Union levels. A sine qua non of local democracy is the devolution of powers, funds and responsibilities from the highest to the lowest level. In other words, local democracy (…)

History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
—Karl Marx
The famous quotation of Marx from The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, which comes in reference to the rule of Napoleon I and thereafter of his nephew, Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III), actually runs as follows: “Hegel remarks some-where that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” What if it (…)