2019

COMMUNICATION
Bhupendranath Datta is not a well-known thinker in Indian political thought. He was the younger brother of Swami Vivekananda, whose name is often invoked by the proponents of Hindu nationalism in contemporary India.
Just after India’s independence, Bhupendranath Datta wrote an article in Bengali, which was published in October, 1947, with the title Dharma O Rashtra. In the article, Bhupendranath explored what should be the nature of the state in new India.
Bhupendranath (…)

by Shamsher Alam
A Muslim man, Shamsh Tabrez, was caught by a mob in the month of June 2019 at Saraikela Kharsawan in Jharkhand, tied to a pole and beaten for several hours. Later on, he was handed over to the police and eventually he succumbed to the injuries and died. He was not only beaten but also was forced to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Jai Hanuman’. He was caught on the suspicion of a motorcycle theft. This kind of mob violence against Muslims is not the first time in New India. This (…)

The following is the text of All-India Trinamul Congress MP Mahua Moitra’s speech in the Lok Sabha on June 25, 2019 on the motion of the President of India’s address to the joint session of both Houses of Parliament.
Honourable Speaker, Sir, I rise to oppose the Motion and to speak in support of the amendments made by our party. First of all, let me begin by humbly accepting the resounding mandate that this government has got. But, it is the very nature of the overwhelmingness of this (…)

by Suranjita Ray
Ever since ‘GaribiHatao’ (poverty eradication) became the most popular slogan which appealed to the large majority of poor people across the country that brought the Congress Party to power in the 1970s, the poll manifestoes of leading political parties have focused on several poverty alleviation programmes and schemes. Despite various interpretations of understanding poverty and its causes that has made it difficult to arrive at a consensus on the poverty alleviation (…)

by Ranbir Samaddar
Political observers loosely speak of authoritarianism, populism, etc., as if these are ideologies and not concrete political practices, ideologically opposed to democracy. This commentary reflecting on the recently concluded Indian general elections, particularly in West Bengal, throws light on some of these concrete political situations and practices through which a particular form of power emerges and resistance too takes shape. In the process the commentary also tells (…)

What’s your true identity? Is it a momentary flavour wafting from a cup of tea or a timeless wonder frozen with ivory-white marble?
A quixotic battle rages on to baptize you with a name, suggesting a blot, a pride or amidst its regal grandeur nothing more than a graveyard!
But deep in the recesses of millions of yearning hearts you are engraved as a symbol of everlasting eternal love on the surface of the earth.
A.K. Das

Sanjay Tula and his wife, Tula Sanjay, are products of Jayaprakash Narayan’s total revolution movement in the 1970s. They live in Mehsana, Gujarat and run a small organisation called Vishwagram which hosts less than 20 children picked up from railway platforms. However, Sanjay is leading a silent peace initiative in Jammu and Kashmir which may never produce any macro level impact but is the healing touch required where the government has totally mishandled the situation and alienated the (…)

The Lok Sabha elections are over but violence continues unabated in West Bengal. Almost every day some activist of this party or that is murdered. And whether the victim belonged to the Trinamul Congress or the BJP, the party accused of the crime would blame it on the “factional fights” in its opponent. Violence spreads across the State while the two parties are engaged in endless mutual recriminations, with little thought to the common people of the disturbed areas who spend their days and (…)

This is the dairy of a case I filed in October 1987 and which was disposed of after 28 years by an order of the Manipur High Court in June 2019. The disposal exposes the bankruptcy of the Indian judicial system in reaching justice to victims of large-scale human rights violations.
On October 5, 1987
I filed a case in the Gauhati High Court. It was concerned with the torture and murder of people and large-scale destruction of property during the course of a three-month counter-insurgency (…)

When it comes to Iran policies, the Trump Administration cannot be faulted for incoherence, although POTUS keeps bouncing off the walls in different directions. Indeed, on the one hand, President Trump looks and acts tough toward Iran—and even threatened that country in a fit of choler last week with ‘obliteration’—but on the other, he keeps reassuring that he doesn’t want a war—while lately adding the caveat that if there is a war, it will be a ‘short’ one.
Again, he says he seeks (…)