2020

by Ram Puniyani
They say ‘history repeats itself first as a tragedy and then as a farce’. In the case of India, communal violence not only keeps repeating itself, the pattern of the tragedy keeps changing every next time. Some features of the violence are constant, but they are mostly under the wraps. The same can be said about the Delhi violence (February 2020). The interpretations, the causative factors are very discernible, but those who are generally the perpetrators have a knack of (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
We as a nation are proud of the fact that we are a secular democracy. The test of our secularism does not consist in our protestations, however loud these may be, but in the manner we conduct ourselves towards the minorities who live and toil in this far-flung Republic of ours. Not only have we as a nation to ensure security to the minorities but should be able to instil into them a sense of security through our conduct. It is this challenge the nation faces today. (…)

We must concede that the honourable Home Minister of India has an impeccable sense of priorities.
While bodies were still being gathered and counted in northeast Delhi, he was promptly off in Kolkata to ensure that the abject defeat of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Delhi Assembly elections was not repeated in the municipalities of West Bengal.
And if that required zestful supporters there as well to be shouting the “shoot the traitors” slogan, so be it. Shah made no complaint.
It (…)

by Mustafa Khan
It was a coup. And the unravelling of events now in 2020 Delhi and in the Gujarat genocide of 2002 has striking resemblances. The inductive and deductive process of reasoning shows who the real terrorists are. Three neighbours who lived together cheek by jowl went to lodge a complaint with the police in Delhi in the aftermath of Trump’s departure. Rahis Ahmed, Harish Garg and Shakir. On reaching there Rahis and Shakir were detained as rioters and the third was allowed to go (…)

by Sardar Amjad Ali
A political system is not a gift of nature. It is essentially man-made. The architects of the system build it up according to their faith, belief and object to cater to the services of those who are its ultimate beneficiaries.
But who are those architects? The answer to the question can not be conclusive. Political history had left before us diverse and varied nomenclature of the architects of those system, such as monarchs, fascists, socialists, democrats etc. (…)

by Arun Srivastava
Some liberal and anti-Sangh activists have been feeling delighted at Narendra Modi deputing the NSA chief Ajit Doval to the riot-hit areas of Delhi. In a normal course it was the duty and responsibility of the Home Minister, Amit Shah, to visit the area and assuage the feelings of the riot victims. But the task of applying balm to the injured was done by Doval at the initiative of Modi.
This move of Modi is being interpreted as Amit Shah falling out of favour with (…)

Though census across the globe is a tool for data collection to facilitate demographic study and application of the economic and social development aimed at overall national growth and prosperity, instances of exceptional abuses may not be unknown. India has had the opportunity and prolonged experience of census operations, beginning with 1872, about a century-and-half ago. With every decade thereafter during the colonial rule till 1941 and since Indian independence, the headcount of our (…)

There is increasing concern regarding the actual availability of adequate funds for several important welfare schemes which impact the lives of tens of millions of people in the country. There are several reasons for this.
Firstly, in recent times the Revised Estimates for several important schemes have been diverging too much from the Budget Estimates, more than in normal times. To give just one example, the Budget Estimate for the government’s top priority programme—the urban component (…)

When the King comes visiting, ten million Shall line the spruced highways; They will be gathered from the slums Shut off to the royal gaze.
Not many boons may accrue From the Kingly visit; Never wise to know what a King may do, Or choose not to do, is it?
Enough that two kindred souls shall meet To a thunderous audience— A monarch and a resident satrap, In colonial remembrance.
The fanfare shall be recorded By minions and by clerks Whose glory is in a servitude Refused by mavericks (…)

I read with interest veteran journalist Barun Das Gupta’s article “BJP Is Not India” in your esteemed weekly Mainstream (December 7, 2019). I agree with the writer that “BJP is not India” in the same manner as Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were not.
But I wonder how Gupta’s sweeping statement “As the BJP has nothing positive to show in its five year rule” escaped your discerning editorial eye. I don’t think it necessary to comment on it. You yourself (…)