2014

EDITORIAL
As Mainstream steps into its fiftythird year with this Annual Number, the overall domestic situation has never been as grim as it is today.
Seven months ago the outcome of the 16th Lok Sabha elections resulted in a political earthquake the tremors of which are still being felt even if the intensity of those tremors has lessened with the passage of time. The coming to power at the Centre of the BJP in a decisive mandate with one party securing absolute majority in the Lower (…)

The moral compass has no tones of grey It is white or black It is light or darkness It is good or evil It is Gandhi or Godse.
Suhas Borker
[Suhas Borker is an independent documentary filmmaker and Convener, Working Group on Alternative Strategies and is based in New Delhi. He can be e-mailed at suhasborker@gmail.com]

COMMUNICATION
Haryana Chief Minister M.L. Khattar has stated [<http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/...> ;India Today; “Khaps have better sense of social justice than courts: Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar”; IndiaToday.in, New Delhi, December 6, 2014] that Khap Panchayats have a better sense of justice than the courts do. He also avers that “It has been scientifically proven that marrying within the gotra is not right”.
In the first statement, he makes a grave charge against the (…)

The Bharatiya Janata Party, though a minority party in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, being the party having the larger number of legislators in the Assembly than any other party, was called upon by the Governor to form the government in the State, on the condition that it proves that it is supported by a majority in the House within 15 days. The party failed to prove it, according to law, when it attempted to do it on November 12, 2014. Hence, the government should have resigned on (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
Face of the New World Order
Turmoil in heaven—the heaven which is presided over by the supreme superpower of the day, possessing History’s largest number of deadly nuclear bombs and missiles, the Cruise to the Patriot, who at the same time lords it over the world’s largest money-lending bank. Yes, in such a country advertised the world over as the ultimate repository of power and affluence—in the mighty United States of America—there has erupted a spate of violence (…)

The following is a slightly expanded version of the text of the Third Nikhil Chakravartty Memorial Lecture, organised by the Book Review Literary Trust, in New Delhi on October 26, 2014. Prof Romila Thapar has edited and expanded the text. It is being reproduced, with due acknowledgement, from the Book Review. A recorded version of the lecture is available at http://www.sacw.net/article9874.html and at ndtv.com
by Romila Thapar
Deciding on a topic for this lecture has been problematic. (…)

I cannot recall if political India has ever before had a more momentously contentious ending to a calendar year.
I say “political India” advisedly, because much that seems to be now culturally fraught is at bottom purely political in intent. And, with a vengeance it would seem.
In an earlier article (“Troubled Times for the Constitutiional Republic,” Mainstream, August 30, 2014) I had speculated that consequent upon the victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the general elections, a (…)

There was genuine pain in India over the mindless killing of schoolchildren at Peshawar. Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked all Indian schoolchildren to maintain a two-minute silence in memory of the lives lost in Pakistan. He readily offered any assistance that India could render to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Such gestures transcend the borders. I wish this atmosphere could sustain between the two countries.
Unfortunately, the civil societies in India and Pakistan don’t feel concerned (…)

The Modi Government has decided to introduce a Bill to allow increase of FDI from 26 per cent to 49 per cent in insurance. Outwardly the Congress and the other constituents of the erstwhile UPA Government are threatening to oppose it—though ironically, it was opposed by the BJP when the Congress-led UPA Government proposed it earlier. The enormity of the hypocrisy by both the major political groups hits you in the eye.
In 1956, the Congress, to strengthen its position in the 1957 general (…)

COMMUNICATION
All countrymen rightly condemn and resent the highly deplorable, thoroughly inefficient and corrupt Indian Police and its functioning.
It has earned notoriety for adopting the immensely inhuman torturous three-degree methods leading to custodial death, resorting to fake encounters, production of fabricated evidence in the courts, arresting innocent Indian citizens and keeping them for months as under-trials and for taking bribes. It is full of anti- Muslim bias and (…)