2014

“ ‘The next government may adopt a muscular and hawkish approach to internal security...,’ said a senior official [of the Ministry of Home Affairs].” (The Hindu, May 20, 2014, page 10) As bureaucrats tend to be overly cautious, the fact that this statement was made should tell us something.
The catch-phrase “internal security” is a catch-all. It can include anything and everything. It cannot be defined, neither precisely nor even vaguely. The Intelligence Bureau’s report on NGOs and (…)

A good number of commentaries have been appearing, some askance at the rapidity with which the new Modi Sarkar is unleashing its corporate agenda.
It is as though something other than this was expected to happen.
After all, electoral campaigns are often in the nature of con jobs: robbing votes from Peter to pay hefty sums to Paul.
In an earlier article (“The Modi Whirlwind”, Mainstream, May 17, 2014) this writer had stipulated four categories of Modi-watchers: those looking to see (…)

When Narendra Modi broke down in Parliament at his party MPs’ meeting while hailing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a pro-Hindu outfit, as his mother, I thought it was an emotional outburst. And I felt assured when he said after becoming India’s Prime Minister that he would take along with him all the 125 crore Indians on the path to development.
But as the party unfolds its programme, I find that it is only a cover-up of the divisive strategy that the RSS has formulated. Modi projects (…)

Part I
Caste Matters
Caste is perhaps comparable only to poison and/or cancer. Both are too dreadful until and unless urgently cured by strong intervention in time. But caste has no antidote. India is the home of caste, ordained by scriptures and preached by venerable sages and saints over ages, poisoning the mind and body of everybody—sufferer or beneficiary—professing Hinduism. A section of Goebblesian publicists and propa-gandists want the lay countrymen to believe that caste is dying (…)

The way certain forces have expressed their opposition to rational, critical and reflective statements during the elections and thereafter indicate that the spaces for discussion, debate and dissent are on the decline in the State of Karnataka and the country. There are unfort-unately groups affiliated to political parties that use the tactics of terror, intimidation and fear to prevent freedom of thought and expression and thus threaten the evolution of a rational society. Take the example (…)

Thirtynine years ago on June 26, 1975, Emergency was proclaimed throughout the country as the ruling leadership bared its fangs nakedly displaying its dictatorial proclivities. We present here write-ups and poems that bring back the nightmare of those dark days when our freedom was sought to be snatched away and our voice throttled. —Editor

The Editor’s Notebook in Mainstream (June 28, 1975) after the promulgation of Emergency and the imposition of press censorship appeared as follows:
Tagore for Today
Somewhere in the excitement of National Emergency, the editor has lost his notebook. However, Rabindranath Tagore has, in the abundance of his generosity, lent him his own notebook:
Freedom from fear is the freedom I claim for you, my Motherland!—fear, the phantom demon, shaped by your own distorted dreams;
Freedom from (…)

My tablet and my pen, My two cherished treasures Are snatched from me, But does it matter? For I have dipped my fingers In the blood of my heart; My tongue they sealed Bu does it mater? For, I have placed a tongue In every link of chain That fetters me.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz

IMPRESSIONS
Meanwhile, what’s happening in the Congress-ruled States? In the gush of the Narendra Modi cultural revolution, we tend to forget that some States are still under govern-ments with the High Command mindset. Mallikarjun Kharge scored a debating point with his valiant reminder that the Pandavas got the better of the numerically formidable Kauravas. In defence, Narendra Modi could only quote Duryodhana which further empha-sised Kharge’s point. However, Dharmakshetre Kurukshetre (…)

BOOK REVIEW
A Grammar of Democracy by Justice P. B. Sawant; Bhashya Prakashan, Mumbai; price: Rs 299.
The author is a retired judge of the Supreme Court and a former Chairman of the Press Council of India. Written in a simple, lucid style for the lay reader, it seeks “to elucidate as briefly as can be, the significance of the factors which play [an] important role in democracy”. Divided into twentytwo chapters, the book touches upon a wide variety of subjects from Democracy, (…)