2014

EDITORIAL
Election fever has gripped the country.
Today was the third phase of polling for the 16th Lok Sabha. In this phase, moderate to brisk voting took place in 91 constituencies spread over 11 States (including Delhi) and three Union Territories. The polling was by and large peaceful except some stray incidents.
Meanwhile the day the first phase of voting began, that is, April 7, the BJP came out with its Election Manifesto. The three contentious issues of the Ram temple at (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
April 14 this year marks the 123rd birth anniversary of Dr Babasaheb Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. On this occasion we are reproducing the following piece by N.C. to offer our sincere homage to the abiding memory of that towering personality.
The award of the Bharat Ratna posthumously on B.R. Ambedkar raises mixed feelings. No doubt Ambedkar was one of the stalwarts of modern India; the high-water mark of his career was that he contributed most to the drafting of the (…)

women’s world
by Nirupam Hazra
For long, the discourse of women empower-ment and emancipation has generally regarded women as a homogenous, non-hierarchised group; irrespective of the obvious disparity in their social status, economic position, political participation and caste affiliation. Such cons-truction of a woman as a unified homogenous group or entity is based on the male-female gender binary which overlooks the multiple aspects and differences that govern the identity of a (…)

A notable feature of the 2014 elections seems to be, at least on the surface, that development, particularly the inter-State differences in levels of development (and the associated role of governance of the leadership), variously understood and projected with no sharp and clear articulation (about its socio-economic content and sustainability), has been brought centre-stage. Clearly the intention seems to have been to make development the talk of the town (and, of course, villages and tea (…)

by Neville Maxwell
Following the publication of Kuldip Nayar’s “Neville Maxwell and Brooks’ Report” in Mainstream (March 22, 2014), Maxwell wrote in an e-mail from Australia: “Sumit, I have read Kuldip Nayar’s article with interest and surprise and wish of course to submit a response ASAP. Will you please give me a deadline .... and send me his piece in a form I can print out for reference?” On March 31, it was conveyed to him by the Mainstream editor that his rejoinder would be published (…)

Preamble
The two major Left parties, the CPI and CPI-M, speak of a Third Front that is both non-INC and non-BJP, and have sought to join hands with the AIADMK in a pre-poll alliance (since withdrawn as a “mistake”). Any thinking person would find it odd that these major Left parties are trying to forge pre-poll or post-poll alliances with non-Left parties and groups without making any moves towards unity among smaller Left parties and groups and other socialist and progressive forces which (…)

impressions
The winners of this election are anybody’s guess. But the losers are known: The Communists. That is a pity because space is lying wide open for an alternative to the conservative Congress of vested interests and the ultra-conservative BJP of militant Hindutva. The Left was best suited to fill that void, but lack of vision and inability to change with the times have made it impossible. Indians, eager to escape from the devil of the Congress and the deep sea of the BJP, clutch at (…)

The following is the Peoples’ Agenda 2014 prepared by a group of academics on behalf of the Indian Political Economy Association (IPEA). This document is a necessary intervention at a crucial time when people are going to make a choice in the forthcoming elections for the future of our country. This is expected to generate a healthy discussion on issues related to people’s needs keeping in view the fact that most policical parties are presently avoiding serious debates on major social, (…)

The following is a message sent by the Mainstream editor to a seminar on Left unity organised by the Communist Party of Bharat in Kolkata on April 6, 2014.
I wholeheatedly welcome the initiative you have taken to approach all Left parties, formations, non-party Left individuals without any exception to forge the broadest possible Left unity in order to break the bipolar political arrangement at the national level.
However, the national situation is grave. There is imminent danger of a (…)

EDITORIAL
More than a month ago it was written in these columns in the March 1, 2014 issue of this journal on the occasion of the twelfth anniversary of the 2002 Gujarat pogrom.
For all secular democrats.... the main objective of the coming elections should be to resist Modi from leading the BJP to victory at the hustings because that would herald the end of the idea of India—a pluralist, multi-religious, multi-ethnic country that can never become a Hindu-Pakistan. But the major pillars (…)