2016

COMMUNICATION
Sumanta Banerjee’s piece, “Recalling Gandhi in Narendra Modi’s India”(Mainstream, March 25, 2016), underlines the fact that the dead old man has not, after all, outlived his utility. Even Left-of-the-Left intellectuals find what Gandhi said about violence useful in combating the rising tide of Hindu communal fascism.
Gandhi had repeatedly said that his non-violence was the non-violence of the brave and not of the coward. He made his position clear that he preferred violence (…)

COMMUNICATION
At a time when the government is increa-singly marginalising the most important develop-ment issue of land reforms, people’s movements and all pro-poor forces and scholars should come together to reassert the continuing importance of land reforms. At one time the importance of land reforms and in particular the importance of providing at least some land for cultivation to the landless rural poor was widely recognised even at the government level. This need has not changed, (…)

EDITORIAL
As the campaign for the elections to the State Assemblies of Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry hots up with the BJP making a desperate bid for power in Assam banking on the anti-incumbency factor since the incumbent Tarun Gogoi Government there has completed three terms at a stretch, the Narendra Modi dispensation at the Centre—under the supervision of the RSS—has launched a concerted drive against all secular democrats concentrating on a symbolic (…)

by N.V.K. Murthy
The following was written by the author sometime ago but could not be used earlier due to space constraints. It is now being published as its contents have not been fully overtaken by the latest events.
The Government of India in recent days has been making an excellent showing at inter-national meetings. The country’s leaders have been making right statements, winning appro-bations all around. These statements talk about adherence to secular ideals, democratic (…)

Something extraordinary and adorable happened to the Hindus, who number 80 per cent in India. Breaking the 400-year-old tradition, widows at Vrindavan, about 110 kilometres from Delhi, celebrated the festival of Holi and danced while throwing colours at one another. Surprisingly, the national media has not considered it newsworthy.
Widows have no status in the Hindu religion. The society looks down upon them if they wear coloured clothes and sport bindis. Although the Rig Veda, older than (…)

by Sandeep Pandey and Rahul Pandey
As we know, the great revolutionary Bhagat Singh was an atheist. He wrote a famous article ‘Why I am an Atheist?’ Even after he knew that he was going to be hanged by the British Government, his commitment to his principles was not shaken. Neither did he regret his action of exploding the harmless bomb in the Central Assembly at Delhi nor did he seek any apology from the British. He was hanged when he was merely 23 years of age and hence did not get a (…)

by Vikas Bajpai
The Struggle
When we at JNU embarked on our struggle against the slanderous and repressive onslaught that has been unleashed on the Jawaharlal Nehru University, we did so with our backs to the wall. Three weeks later we have managed to push back this campaign to finish off JNU, for what it stands, to an extent that now the polity, the media and the common people are divided into two clear folds—one, that buys into the Sangh Parivar’s version, and the other that opposes (…)

To,
Mr Prasanna Raghav, AVP Strategy & Execution, Zee Media Corporation Ltd. Essel Studio, FC-19, Sector 16-A, Noida - 201301, India.
Complaint against telecast by Zee News channel of programme titled “Afzal Premi Gang ka Mushaira” from 9-3-2016 onwards
Dear Sir,
We, the undersigned, hold a place of eminence in different fields of art and culture in the country. We are writing to lodge our complaint regarding an intentional, grave and repeated breach of the News Broadcasters (…)

The following is the latest article written by Kobad Ghandy, the noted Marxist-Masist thinker, now lodged in Tihar Jail 3. He sent it to Mainstream for publication. We are accordingly doing so for the benefit of our readers.
For all the hype of 7.5 per cent growth in this year’s Economic Review (2015-16), the real situation of the economy is precarious. The rural economy is in dire straits, manufacturing is in the doldrums, banks are heading towards bankruptcy, the rupee is crashing, (…)

While reporting on the lack of proper implemen-tation of important government schemes and programmes for weaker sections, it is not always possible to find out whether this is due to administrative problems or corruption or overall shortage of Budget funds. However, whatever may be the role of the first two factors at various places, at least this much is clear that as long as adequate funds have not been provided for meeting basic needs and the related livelihood support, the weaker (…)