2015

I am no Christian, dear departed Mother of millions whose persuasions Mattered as little to you as seasons Of the year, or the political weather Of the day, and who worried little That you had a religion which was Not their own, finding healing and calm Past religions and denominations Beneath touch of your loving palm, And in the fathomless suffering In your eyes; I am no Christian, but Now that a well-fed man in khaki Shorts who marches to Mussolini-military Drum, pretending priest of (…)

EDITORIAL
The Delhi Assembly election results last week continue to impact on both the party and the Union Government. Had the BJP leadership not been shamed by the all-pervasive rout of the RSS’ principal political outfit in those elections which found the minorities (Muslims, Christians et al.) voting en masse with secular democrats of all hues against the BJP to deliver a massive blow to the latter’s ego, US President Barack Obama’s public warning in New Delhi on January 27 (that (…)

Around noon on Thursday, February 19, Supreme Court Justices Dipak Misra and Adarsh Kumar Goel extended the stay on the arrest of human rights activist and editor Teesta Setalvad and her husband, Javed Anand, in a case of alleged embezzlement of funds for a “Museum of Resistance” at the Gulbarg Society in Ahmedabad, where over 60 people were killed during the 2002 anti-Muslim riots that devastated several towns and villages in Gujarat.
This pauses for some time a convoluted case that has (…)

On February 16, motorcycle-borne assailants pumped four bullets on veteran Communist leader Govind Pansare (82) and his wife, Uma (72), when they were returning home from their morning walk in Kolhapur (Maharashta).
An upright, outspoken and ardent advocate of rationalism, Pansare, the Secretary of the CPI’s State unit, was closely associated with anti-superstition activist, Narendra Dabholkar, who was shot dead while on his morning walk in Pune in August 2013. The attacks on both (…)

We are shocked to learn of the rejection of the Anticipatory bail applications of Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand by the Gujarat High Court. Media stories suggest that the bail applications have been turned down because Setalavad and Anand were “not cooperating with the investigations” and that prima facie “funds were used for private purpose”. It is a matter of record that they have submitted their original bank statements, balance-sheets and audited accounts that completely disprove the (…)

MUSINGS
The AAP is here. Wah, what a victory! What a win! What a splendid show of strength! The AAP has managed to crush the BJP and with that trampled upon the Right-wing’s politics of spreading hate, of communal divides, of killings and rioting... In fact, in these elections it was more than writ large that the BJP will be defeated as never before. Minorities were angry and all out to defeat the BJP. This anger had been building up right from the summer of 2014. A whole long list of (…)

by Suresh Jnaneswaran
The triumph of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Delhi elections augers well for a besieged country where minorities are running for cover and the Dalits visibly agitated. There was nothing new in the BJP programme and agenda—internal policy or foreign policy—that could be considered promising or something more than mere rhetoric and stage-management. Since the eight-month-plus of the BJP rule, practically nothing has been implemented in terms of promises or glamorous (…)

The AAP says it is only against ‘crony capitalism’ and not against capitalism as such. The following article attempts to clarify the term ‘crony capitalism’.
In Western Uttar Pradesh, the then SP-led State Government had allotted agricultural land, acquired from peasants on very low rates, to industrialist Anil Ambani for building power plants and setting up a special economic zone some time ago. This led to great discontent among local peasantry. Till then, the State Government never (…)

The following pieces, written by N.C. in December 1970 and September 1994, are being reproduced here against the backdrop of the Aam Aadmi Party’s resounding victory in the Delhi Assembly elections.

by Saumitra Mohan
With the mainstream national political parties losing to a greenhorn Aam Admi Party (AAP), a political coup d’état has been witnessed in the just-concluded Delhi Assembly elections. The AAP has actually overshot its own expectations by bagging as many as 67 seats in a 70-member Legislative Assembly. Many established, mainstream political parties were decimated in the process. It was a fictional David versus Goliath battle where the former always wins the day owing to the (…)