2017

February 21 is the International Mother Tongue Day as declared by the United Nations in recognition of the martyrs of the language movement who fell to the Pakistani police’s bullets on that day in 1952 in Dhaka while demanding that their mother tongue, Bangla, be made the official language of East Pakistan. Remembering the February 21 martyrs on the sixtyfifth anniversary of the language movement, we are publishing the following poem by a distinguished Bangladeshi poet. This was translated (…)

by Sanjay Kumar
The Dalit movement has had a radical legacy of anti-caste resistance against Hindutva and brahminical hegemony in colonial and post-colonial India. Dalit resistance emerged during the struggles in the colonial period based on the strong modern universal values of liberty, equality and fraternity; these were led by radical Dalit-Bahujan intellectuals like Jyotirao Phule, Ambedkar, Periyar. In short, after the long struggle for resistance of the anti-caste move-ment it has (…)

It’s sheer racialism. Four British nationals of Pakistani origin committed a crime of sexual exploitation and were sentenced to imprison-ment. But the judge McClosky, in his own wisdom, said that after serving the sentence they should be sent back to the country of their origin.
I wonder if this would have happened to a White man, especially to Europeans. The judge without demur said in his verdict that the convicts’ nationality should be stripped. The ruling by an immigration tribunal (…)

by Ajayakumar Kodoth
“I wish to see India exist as a nation-state, a strong nation-state. But the rise of certain social and political forces with narrow policies is a threat to our national integrity. Take communal powers, for instance. There is no doubt that as a political party, the BJP stands for national unity. But theirs is a brand of extreme nationalism. Their communal policies will weaken India. I fear that if the BJP happens to remain in power for ten years, India will get (…)

MUSINGS
Countdown for the International Women’s Day has begun. Nah, no lessening of rapes and molestations and trafficking! It’s just that the political speeches are more than laced with concern for women’s ‘safety’ and, of course, gaudy receptions planned for the Day—March 8th.
Reserving a ‘day’ for women seems rather absurd and more along the synthetic strain. Why just one day...why not all days of the year or years! And why only for women ...why not for men!
The stark truth is that (…)

A Two-part Article on Demonetisation-II
The following is the concluding part of a two-part article on demonetisation written by the prominent Marxist-Maoist thinker, Kobad Ghandy, and sent to us for publication in this journal from the Cherlapalli Central Jail, Medchal district, Hyderabad where the author is currently detained. The first part, which explained that fighting black money was not really the main goal of the government, appeared in Mainstream (February 18, 2017). This second (…)

by S. Sudhakar Reddy
We have been celebrating January 26 as the Republic Day. The Constitution of India, which came into existence on January 26, 1950, abolished the Dominion Status of India, rejected the British Crown and declared India as a full-fledged Democratic Republic.
The Indian Constitution is one of the biggest Constitutions of the world and is the most valuable gift from Dr B.R. Ambedkar to the nation and its people. It was necessary to overcome the painful colonial past. The (…)

We—my husband, Bogyi, our Burmese friend, and I—stood on top of Mandalay Hill with the Irrawaddy River at a distance and watched the sun go down for the last time in 2016.
According to legend, the Buddha himself along with his disciple, Anand, had climbed this hill and prophesied that a great city would be founded below the hill. And the Buddha’s prophecy came true when King Mindon laid the foundation of the new capital on Febrauray 13, 1857. The royal city was officially named Yadanaba, a (…)

IMPRESSIONS
There is a tragic inevitability about the doom of the Congress party. It’s a Greek tragedy where the hero’s powerful wish to achieve a goal is defeated by a flaw in his character complicated by fate and the will of the gods. Why the will of the gods should go against the Congress, we do not know. For past sins, perhaps. For present sins, the BJP may face similar wrath of the gods in due course. But that can be no consolation for the Congress now.
Rahul Gandhi, as the (…)

by R.G. Gidadhubli and Rama Sampathkumar
The well-known international media organisation Forbes ranked the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, as the world’s most powerful man from 2013 to 2016—four times in a row. Prior to that Times magazine named Putin as the ‘Person of the Year in 2007’. In fact Putin has dominated the political scene both at home and abroad for more than one-and-a-half decade. Hence it may be worthwhile to examine and analyse as to how and why Putin has earned this (…)