2015

by Ram Puniyani
Laws of nature cannot be applied to human society so directly. Still sometimes these have been used to explain/justify social catastrophes, ‘When a big tree falls, the earth shakes’ (in the aftermath of the anti-Sikh massacre of 1984), ‘every action has equal and opposite reaction’ (during the Gujarat carnage of 2002) are too well known. I have been very puzzled from last month or so since the scholars-writers, who have returned their honours and are being questioned as to (…)

When distinguished writers and artists return to the Akademis the awards which had been conferred on them, the question to ask is not why they did not do it earlier, say, at the worst times like the Emergency. Writers and artists are a sensitive lot. They react when they feel and how they feel.
It is, in fact, the duty of the government to find out why they have felt that the situation has come to such a pass that they have no alternative except to return their awards. Nayantara Sehgal, (…)

by Kavaljit Singh
India and the EU would soon resume negotiations on the stalled India-EU free trade agreement. In a joint statement issued by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in New Delhi on October 5, both leaders expressed their “strong commitment to the EU-India Broad Based Trade and Investment Agreement and committed to bring about a resumption of the negotiations as soon as possible”. With the political leadership now backing the proposed agreement, (…)

by Arun Srivastava
In a sudden tactical shift the BJP, instead of attacking Nitish and his claim of developing Bihar, has been seeking a clarification from him whether he would be able to keep his promises of reaching development to the door-step of the poor people, rural and urban alike, with RJD chief Laloo Yadav there on board to prioritise the mode of development and decide the agenda.
The change of tactics owes its origin primarily to the ambivalence haunting the people on the issue (…)

by Sanjay Mishra
Dubbed as “the mother of all elections”, the five-phase election for the 243 seats of the Bihar Assembly has justifiably evoked a lot of media attention and buzz among political parties, psephologists and commentators. Bihar has not only been the epicentre of the earliest empire in India presided over by an emperor who later converted to Buddhism and non-violence and gave to the world some of the earliest principles of governance and secularism, but it has also been the (…)

The Communist Party of India (CPI) was born in the aftermath of the ferment generated by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 on the one hand and the non-co-operation movement led by Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress in the 1920s on the other. Nikhil Chakravartty inherited this twin legacy. He recalled in “A Personal Testament”, written on Karl Marx’s death centenary, that he had started out as “god-fearing nationalist putting on khadi-kurta”.1 It was this combined legacy that was (…)

In the current wave of litterateurs and poets returning their well-deserved national honours to protest the hate-murders of three fellow writers, one was struck by the fact that there was just one professional journalist in that distinguished list, a poet-editor once with a Hindi newspaper.
There are dozens of journalists who have been awarded the Padma awards, some for their long years at work, some perhaps for their proximity to the governments of the day, and several for the hard work (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
CPI leader Bhupesh Gupta’s 101st birth anniversary fell on October 20 this year. While remembering him we reproduce the following piece that N.C. wrote after his death in Moscow on August 6, 1981. it was published in Mainstream (August 22, 1981).
To write about somebody whom one has known for more than four decades—sometimes very closely—is not easy after his or her passing away. For me, Bhupesh Gupta was one whom I have known from the early beginnings of my active (…)

Indira Gandhi’s 31st death anniversary falls on October 31 this year. On this occasion we are reproducing the following ‘Editor’s Notebook’ that N.C. wrote after her death.
Twenty years after her great father’s passing away, Indira Gandhi fell, her frail body riddled with the assassin’s bullets, in the winter morning of October 31, 1984.
She died as she lived—taking danger as her constant companion. And she left behind a nation not only benumbed with searing sorrow but engulfed in (…)

The following article appeared in Mainstream to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Chinese aggression (that began on October 20, 1962).
India-China: Reflections on 1962
This week, thirty years ago, the Chinese Army had mounted a full-scale military attack along the entire length of our northern border. For three years previous to that there were occasional clashes, accompanied by angry polemics and tension over border claims.
What happened on October 20 was entirely different in (…)