2012

Institutions and nations rarely if ever learn from successes, but it is possible and necessary to learn from institutional or national failure. This is particularly true of military operations. Today, 50 years since India and China went to war, there is vigorous public debate regarding India’s humiliating defeat. It is vital that the “how” and “why” of the failure are brought to light so that India, as a mature democracy, can learn from them. The “who” issue is unimpor-tant since all the (…)

Contrary to the widespread view that the former Soviet Union maintained neutrality all through the Indo-China border conflict, this paper argues that the Soviet position on the issue evolved from a position of neutrality to a brief tilt towards China and then switched to open support to India.
The India-China border clash took place at a time when ideological differences between the former Soviet Union and China were approaching the nadir. While scholars mostly agree that territorial (…)

FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
The following open letter to Pravda, the Soviet Communist Party’s daily organ, was written fifty years ago by N.C. as an ‘Indian Marxist’ of 20 years’ membership of the Communist Party. It appeared in Mainstream (November 3, 1962). (It was on that day that he turned 49.) This was a reply to a Pravda editorial, published on October 25, 1962, recommending the Chinese terms for peace talks for India’s acceptance. It is being reproduced after fifty years to once again (…)

Even as German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, who was on a visit to China, diverted himself to Istanbul in a mission on October 13 aimed at tamping down Turkish-Syrian tensions, Der Spiegel calmly reported that the information about the “non-civilian cargo”, which led to the interception of a Syrian aircraft by the Turkish Air Force the previous Wednesday (October 10) night, was actually passed on to Ankara by US intelligence.
Furthermore, Der Spiegel disclosed authorita-tively, (…)

November 3 this year marks N.C.’s ninetyninth birth anniversary. He was born on November 3, 1913. On this occasion we are reproducing a few pieces written after his demise (on June 27, 1998) by some of those who knew him closely.
Nikhil Chakravartty launched the weekly Mainstream when the country did not have serious political journals apart from publications of political parties, like the AICC Economic Review, New Age, Janata and Mankind. When the weekly started, it was accompanied by the (…)

It was the mid-forties that I first came across Nikhil. Bundle, my eldest brother, belonged to the outer fringe of the Indian Communist students group formed in England in the late 1930s. Indrajit Gupta, Mohan Kumaramangalam, Parvati Krishnan, N.K. Krishnan, Bhupesh Gupta, Renu Chakravartty, Jyoti Basu, Arun Bose, Rajani Patel, Nikhil Chakravartty were among the members of this group. They all worked with and in the Communist Party of India on their return to our country. At first it was an (…)

Nikhilda had turned eightyfour. Some people live for hundred years and stay perfectly agile, alert and healthy. Though he had an ageing physique, Nikhilda was not a person who would live by obeying the regulations of keeping fit. Four years ago, he took a taxi and went out in the hills. Alone. He was to meet me at the institutes in Mussoorie/Nainital. He reached there on time, attended the workshops, but again went out in the hills. I returned to Delhi and then left for Calcutta where I went (…)

COMMUNICATION
Several eminent contemporaries of Nikhil Chakravartty have already written about his many-sided accomplishments, and what I can add may appear relatively quite insignificant in comparison. Nevertheless, I feel that it may add a new dimension to the understanding of Nikhil-ji if I relate my experiences of how this eminent editor interacted with a very young and inexpe-rienced reporter.
Yes, I was a very young and inexperienced writer (age 21 years) when I first met Nikhil-ji (…)

by A. RASHID
The paradox, which every religion has been grappling with unsuccessfully, is this. On the one hand it demands blind faith to accept its tenets and on the other it tries to make those tenets look scientific and rational. It refuses to see the obvious that a rational idea does not require blind faith. Rationality has been the casualty in this undesirable struggle. As a consequence established religions had to resist science. Though very late in coming, the acceptance of (…)

Saeeda Diep is a Lahore-based activist who has been working consistently on issues of human rights, women’s rights, democracy, against patriarchy, feudalism and communalism and on peace and friendship with India. Quite obviously to work in an atmosphere of religious bigotry and everyday violence is not easy for a woman in Pakistan.
On September 22, she had organised a convention in Lahore on the occasion of 85,000 signatures collected over the last eight months in the cities of Lahore, (…)