2019

The BJP leaders, from the Prime Minister downward, are showing signs of desperation. Their campaign speeches are not only becoming more raucous but also ribald. Truth to say, facing such attacks constantly, some Opposition leaders have also been provoked into replying in kind. The result is that the level of public discourse is touching a new low, while the central issues in the election like development, poverty elimination, farmers’ distress, employ-ment generation, etc. are not coming (…)

by Samit Kar
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and several of its frontal organisations like the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM), RSS, Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) have always tried to play the Hindu card while projecting the age-old slogan of ‘Garb se kaho ham Hindu hain’. By the word ‘Hindu’, the BJP and its allies have projected them as true patriots unlike other political parties whom they describe as ‘traitors’. Without discussing the role of other political parties, the (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
One of my earliest reporting experiences was the great Calcutta killing of 1946. Fierce communal passions were unleashed and thousands were done to death on both sides in the course of a couple of days. But behind that gory carnage was the fight for the city of Calcutta: who should get it? Pakistan or India? Religious beliefs are made use of to rouse mass anger among innocent people, but those who whip up such passions do so only for political gains.
In our immediate (…)

by Mustafa Khan
It was a colossal risk when the two Malegaon terror attacks took place. Israel had asked the Abhinav Bharat of Lt Col Purohit of the Indian Army to provide two such attacks to prove the bona fide of seeking help from Israel for the Hindu Rashtra. India would have ceased to be a secular democratic government. What is more, Israel would have come to acquire control over the new government that was envisaged by the conspirators. The conspirators would have established the (…)

IMPRESSIONS
The wonder that is Indian elections is losing some of its wonderness. Statistically of course it remains a marvel—880 million voters (total US population is 328 million), 11 million election workers, two million voting machines, 2300 registered parties. But the pride we had in the honourableness of the process has taken some knocks. The trust level has dipped. A feeling has come up—unthinkable before—that trans-gressions can happen.
Never before have there been so many (…)

by Mahendra Ved
Nehru is the BJP’s principal target because he not only ‘discovered’ India but also piloted what free India became for 16 long years
A cartoon doing media rounds amidst the Election 2019 campaign shows India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, a mischievous smile on his face, decamping with all ‘achievements’ of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Arguably, this responds to Nehru’s sustained denigration by the Modi Government, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its (…)

by Prem Singh
Today (April 20, 2019) is the first death anniversary of Justice Rajindar Sachar—a socialist visionary, a judge par excellence, a true secular democrat, an unrelenting human rights and civil liberties champion and a wonderful person having complete faith in human goodness. While paying her tribute to him on his demise, Seema Mustafa rightly said: ‘Our finest has gone.’ I personally feel a great sense of loss without him, particularly in my political activities. He was so very (…)

MUSINGS
Don’t know your reactions when you saw Dharmendra going about in Uttar Pradesh, campaigning for his wife, Hema Malini. A rather hopeless sight, to see this ageing actor fly down from Mumbai for a day or two, just to tell the potential voters that they ought to vote for his wife! And worse it was to see him getting somewhat curt and rude, telling one of the onlookers to move away and not come too close! Perhaps, he forgot that he’s the one pleading for their votes and with that (…)

by R. Khosla
On independence we gave ourselves a Constitution. The Constitution was to provide us the framework of governance. It created the judiciary and everything else that is required for the governance of the country in the interests of the “sovereign” people of India. Not that the “judiciary and everything else” did not exist before. It existed to further the interests of an alien race. Seventyone years on the situation has come full circle. The alien race has once again come to (…)

by L.K. Sharma
The expanding virtual universe of the 21st century began by featuring intimate personal relations among human beings, replacing face-to-face contact with Facebook messages. In this world, the women and men could safely say the unsayable things.
The virtual world now dominates national and international affairs and lets its citizens say the unsayable things. It lets political rivals trade false allegations and distort history. It incites violent groups to commit violence. (…)