December 1, 2007

As the CPM continues its repressive acts of vegeance over the hapless people of Nandigram backed as the State Government is by a benign Centre beholden to the Marxists over their decision to let the UPA Government hold talks with the IAEA in Vienna on the India-specific safeguards agreement—and thereby permitting Dr Manmohan Singh continue in office (for he had threatened to resign from the PM’s post if the talks were disallowed)—the UPA-CPM ‘deal’ over the N-deal worked out by Pranab (…)

The share market has been giving the investors the jitters. Few know which way it would go next. Recently, after touching a peak of 19,198.66, the BSE index came down to 17,559.98 and more such fluctuations are in store. This was not unexpected given the rapid rise of the index in the preceding two months and especially in the preceding two weeks. Investors were getting used to hearing that the index had climbed by 1000 points in six or four trading sessions. It was a bullish market which (…)

It was a well-planned and equally well-executed bloody operation conducted by the armed marauders of the Communist Party of India- Marxist which started on and around November 5 and is still continuing with lesser intensity. The objective was simple and straightforward. It was to reoccupy several villages whose inhabitants were originally party loyalists who turned hostile to the party after the Haldia Development Authority published the notice regarding acquisition of land in 34 villages in (…)

Those who expressed their concern at and denounced the post-Godhra carnage in Gujarat will fail in their duty if they do not show their concern at the turn of events taking place in Nandigram in West Bengal. Although the magnitude of the Gujarat communal riots, which took a toll of more than 2000 lives, displaced thousands of families and forced them to live in terror during the last five years, was bigger than the killings and resultant desertion of their homes by hundreds of (…)

Nandigram is no longer just an area in East Midnapore district of West Bengal. Nor another name for a struggle against the acquisition of land to create an SEZ, which has the potential to trigger off similar protests around the country.
Like Bofors entered the Indian political lexicon as the equivalent of corruption and people would openly ask in 1987, ”Is maen kitna Bofors hai?”, so also Nandigram has become synonymous with the blatant support of the state apparatus for a policy of an (…)

There is no controversy as to the necessity for the summary power given to the High Courts and the Supreme Court of India to punish civil contempt, that is, deliberate disobedience of the order or deliberate obstruction to the proceedings of the courts. It is the power to punish summarily for criminal contempt of scandalising of courts or judges, that has given rise to controversy. Should it be allowed to continue at all or should it be statutorily defined and restricted so that freedom of (…)

[(November 23, 2007 marked Prof Hirendranath Mukerjee’s birth centenary. The veteran parliamentarian, CPI leader, distinguished scholar-historian and eminent Marxist intellectual passed away in Kolkata on July 30, 2004 at the age of 97. Remembering him on this occasion we are reproducing an article he wrote in Mainstream (April 26, 1975) following the death of Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan. We are also reproducing two pieces written by distinguished parliamentarians Prof Madu Dandavate and (…)

How do I remember Hiren Mukerjee after his recent death? I took out a book from the shelf with the caption Gandhiji—A Study written by him and published in 1958.
In the ‘Last Phase’, in the concluding chapter of this book, Hiren Mukerjee wrote:
When at last, by devious pathways, freedom came to a partitioned India, Gandhi did not have long to live, and he was too anguished even to wish to live much longer. He had often before expressed the desire to live to be a hundred and twentyfive (…)

I had the good fortune of knowing Hiren Babu intimately when I was elected to the Fourth Lok Sabha in 1967. I had also the unique privilege to come in close contact with a distinguished galaxy of veteran parliamentarians like Dr Rammanohar Lohia, S.A. Dange, Acharya J.B. Kriplani, H.V. Kamath, Nath Pai, Madhu Limaye, Morarji Desai, Dr Karan Singh, Surendra Dwivedi, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Justice M.C. Chagla, Dr Ram Subhag Singh, Ram Sevek Yadav, Hem Barua, R. Umanath, Smt Tarakeshwari Sinha, (…)

I began a letter sent to Professor Hiren Mukerjee in December 1998 with the traditional ‘Pujya Hirenbabu’. I was not sure whether the veteran Marxist leader would like that worshipful form of address. Came the reply written in his distinctive hand: “You were right in guessing that I do not take kindly to being addressed as ‘Pujya’, but of course I am grateful for the generosity behind it.”
There was no generosity operating there. I had just then read the remarkable text of his speech on (…)