2016

In my article “Videshi and Swadeshi Fascism” published in Mainstream of August 7, 2004, I had delineated in some detail incidents of a fascist mode occurring in our country. Even after more than eleven-and-a-half years the scourge of fascism stares us in the face. Before updating this gruesome phenomenon, it may be useful to recapitulate some of the more important points made in that piece. These are as follows:
1. The European fascism and its Indian version came into being around the same (…)

Two Poems of Badri Raina
The Horror, the Horror
Did he just have another Unauthorised thought? To the House of Correction, Then, where all thought But the authorised one Is quickly forgot. After all, If the nation is to gallop apace, Ideological democrats must Be shown their place. How are we to scale glory Number one, if we forever Carp knowledgeably at our own story?
Speaking of number one, When thoughts proliferate They convey a clear and present Danger to the nationalist state. And (…)

by Nagender Rao
Prime Minister Modi’s administration brought pseudo-nationalism as its core agenda after failing to keep its election promises. The current chief of the RSS established its command and control office in the HRD Ministry to supervise the educational institutions in the country. The Hindutva elements are firing shots against the students of Dalits, OBCs, and minorities under the cover of nationalism. In Kanhaiya’s arrest, these forces made many mistakes and exposed themselves (…)

by M.C. Pindwal
The world cultural event on the Yamuna river-bed took place from March 11 to 13, 2016. This happened at the cost of the poor living and surviving on the riverbed; it is they who have been badly affected by this so-called rich and mega cultural event, their jhuggies have been destroyed alongwith their crops in totality and they have been permanently displaced from their own land as the entire riverbed has been flattened and its fertility lost.
These farmers and labourers (…)

POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
Until recently, the BJP was eyeing Assam as the only winnable State among the five States that are going to the polls this summer. But the situation has changed in the last few weeks. Its exercise at striking an alliance with the Asom Gana Parishad has resulted in a vertical split in the regional party. The break-away faction, which calls itself the AGP (Anchalik), has announced that the new party will contest 45 of the 126 Assembly seats.
The grass-root level workers (…)

Hardly two months back nobody would have thought that PM Narendra Modi’s authority would be questioned by ordinary university students on campuses. The campaign which brought Modi to power in Delhi was so high profile that in the initial period of his prime ministership an atmosphere was created in which, what to talk of the common people, even his own party members, elected represen-tatives and Ministers couldn’t question him. He was like a headmaster who believed only in one-way (…)

by Ram Puniyani
Following the death of Rohith Vemula in the Hyderabad Central University (HCU), one of the most prestigious universities of the country, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), has been targeted by the ruling Modi Sarkar. The frightening things which happened in the HCU were just the beginning of the attack on the autonomy of universities, on free thinking in a democracy. Rohith was forced to kill himself by the machinations of the ABVP, which had brought pressure through a BJP (…)

The following is the author’s inaugural address at the National Seminar on ‘Dynamics of Rural Labour Relations/Markets in India: Issues, Dimensions and Processes’, S.R. Sankaran Chair (Rural Labour), National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Hyderabad, March 10-12, 2016.
As pointed out in the background note for this seminar by the S.R. Sankaran Chair at the NIRD&PR, the ongoing structural changes in the Indian economy are leading to significant changes in the rural (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
There is much to learn for ourselves from the stormy experiences of the World Cup cricket that we all have been watching excitedly in the last two weeks, particularly from what happened at Bangalore on March 9 and what followed four days later in Calcutta on March 13. It is not just the question of having gone through a hideous ordeal at Calcutta after the rout that the Indian team had to face at the hands of the young Sri Lankan team, who definitely outclassed (…)

by Vivek Kumar Srivastava
There is onslaught from the cultural nationalists on the history books which are being taught in post-independent India. A demand for history rewriting will emerge again with more intensity in the post-JNU incident. The general thinking among several politicians is that most of these historians are inclined towards the communist ideology. They are anti-Hindu and mainly belong to JNU. Although these historians have emerged as a distinct school of history, and can (…)