2019

by S. Gopal
The following contribution from Nehru’s biographer and eminent historian, Dr S. Gopal, was published in Mainstream (November 12, 1988). It was based on the Ansari Memorial Lecture which he delivered at the Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi on February 22, 1988. It is being reproduced here because of its relevance in the present scenario.
When Jawaharlal Nehru came to active politics in the early twenties, he had not yet moved to the personal position of religious agnosticism which (…)

The Muslims who live in India, belong here. We cannot talk of a Hindu State in India because that would mean that the people of other religions who live here do not belong here; which is wrong. Everyone who lives in India irrespective of his religion and caste, belongs here with equal rights. That is what is known as nationalism.
Our neighbours in Pakistan follow a different principle. . . . But we have been opposed to this principle from the beginning because, if we were to adopt it, (…)

by Archishman Raju
Recent moves from the American establishment have a sinister character. They have steadily been putting pressure on Iran in seeming preparation for an attempted “regime change” war. The Trump Administration withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a deal between the US and Iran, and put renewed sanctions on Iran in May last year. These renewed sanctions have had a significant effect on Iran’s economy with the Iranian President recently comparing the misery (…)

Sanctions imposed by the USA on oil exports from Iran and Venezuela have implications far beyond the more obvious and immediate ones.
One short-term and obvious implication is that economic problems of Iran and Venezuela will increase. This can also have political implications within these countries, particularly in Venezuela where people are suffering from very severe economic problems and there is a huge political crisis as well, including the US-backed efforts to overthrow the existing (…)

MUSINGS
Filing the column at a rather stressful juncture —declaration of the election results are just a couple of days away but already exit-poll results are causing not just dismay but carrying forewarnings of very eerie build-ups. Doing the rounds the theory that the exit-poll results swinging in favour of the BJP is actually one of those ploys to ready the masses for the well-planned results! So that there’s no real shocker for the masses if the BJP does ‘win’ even in the States where (…)

When fools in high places make smart decisions, Shaming those in the know, Then clouds shed their toxic load, And don a nationalist glow.
Not all fools are one and the same— Some are fools indeed; Others are touched by divine mystique, And do not any sanity need.
The people must with trust elect The latter kind of fool To lead them through rain and shine From a gut-level knowledge pool.
Governments are thus bypassed, And experts made redundant; Moneys saved from a fool’s say-so Can go (…)

The eminent historian, Ranajit Guha, summed up the precarious state of Indian democracy during the Emergency, beginning since the early hours of June 26, 1975, in his text published with the above title. He wrote: “...it will be fair to conclude that democracy in India has long been dead, if it was ever alive at all...The corpse, however, might revive, rise from its grave and walk our parched plains and dusty streets yet again.”
In his deliberation on May 13, 2019, in a convention on (…)

EDITORIAL
As we enter the last phase of the seven-phase polls to elect the 17th Lok Sabha this year, an uncertain future stares us in the face. What happened in the streets of Kolkata in the wake of the roadshow of BJP President Amit Shah on May 14 has forced every conscientious Bengali to hang her/his head in shame. There were pitched battles in College Street when non-Bengali outsiders who accompanied Amit Shah to infiltrate into the city clashed with students owing allegiance to the (…)

Prime Minister Modi’s electoral campaign “expose” of misuse of naval assets by the late ex-PM, Rajiv Gandhi, his wife Sonia Gandhi and a host of others with them in 1987 during a visit to Lakshwadeep Islands aboard INS Viraat, has naval circles buzzing.
This is not in defence of what the then PM Rajiv Gandhi did or did not do, but to rue the continuing politicisation of our military, with the Indian Navy also now dragged into the on-going electoral political slugfest. It is also to put a (…)

She had in her hut only one blanket donated by a NGO last year. She wrapped her two children with it to keep them warm in the bone-chilling wintry night. For her she had bare cotton cloth to ward off the cold freezing around her frail body. A mismatch: she was found dead in the wee hours of the morning.
Late in the day the civic body met in the city municipal hall; agenda: shelter for the homeless living on the streets! Proceedings had hardly begun, pandemonium broke loose; pretext: the (…)