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December 20, 2008 - Annual Number 2008
Mainstream, VOL XLVII No 1, New Delhi, December 20, 2008
This is how my sorrow became visible:
in dust, piling up for years in my heart,
finally reached my eyes,
the bitterness now so clear that
I had to listen when my friends
told me to wash my eyes with blood
Everything at once was tangled in blood---
each face, each idol, red everywhere.
Blood swept over the sun, washing away its gold.
The moon erupted with blood, its silver extinguished.
The sky promised a morning of blood,
and the night wept only blood....
Let it flow. Should it be dammed up,
there will only be hatred cloaked in colours of death.
Don’t let this happen, my friends,
bring all my tears back instead,
a flood to purify my dust-filled eyes,
to wash this blood forever from my eyes.
— Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Annual 2008
Contents
8 Editorial: Our Task Today
S.C.
9 Embrace Fidel Castro: Historic Opportunity for Obama
L.C. Jain
Ten Poems on Bhagat Singh
Nine Proscribed Poems
10 Insaaf ka Khoon (Murder of Justice)
11 Bhagat Singh
11 The Duty of the True in India
11 Piyara Bhagat Singh
12 Bhagat Singh
12 Lutfi-Shahadat ya Teen Shaheed
12 Dialogue between Bhagat Singh and Dutt
13 Qaumi Shahid
13 Dialogue between Mother India and Bhagat Singh
14 Bhagat Singh ki Murat (Statue of Bhagat Singh)
Fahmida Riyaz
15 Why V.P. Singh Must Be Defended
Ajit Bhattacharjea
17 Some Aspects of Self-Sufficiency in Energy
Chaturanan Mishra
From N.C.’s Writings
19 For a New Crusade
21 COMMUNICATION: On Nexus between CIA and Mossad
22 Lexicon of Insolence!
D. Bandyopadhyay
25 Myth and Reality of Capitalism: Neo-Liberalism and Globalisation
P.R. Dubhashi
41 On Re-Hyphenating India and Pakistan
Ninan Koshy
43 Making Pakistan Pay the Price
S.G. Vombatkere
45 Mumbai Terror Attack: Some Reflections
Nandita Haksar
49 Dealing with Terrorism: Alternatives for India
Muchkund Dubey
55 Behind the CIA-run Prison in Thailand
Mansoor Ali
57 Abolition of Child Labour and Right to Education
Lakshmidhar Mishra
65 COMMUNICATION: Failure of Loan Waiver to Help Most Farmers
67 Defending Democracy and Peace Process against Terrorism
Manoranjan Mohanty
70 Book Review: Unique Chronicle of a ‘Barefoot’ Engineer’s Experiences of Floods in North Bihar
Subrata Sinha
71 From Ayodhya to Mumbai: Communal Frenzy stands Demolished by Indian Secularism
Nilofar Suhrawardy
73 Dismal Scene in 2008
Amitava Mukherjee
75 Assembly Election Verdict
Shree Shankar Sharan
77 A Long Winter of Political Discontent?
Sandeep Shastri
78 ‘Maya’ in Indian Politics
Ajay K. Mehra
79 Piracy and Terrorism at Sea
Latika Nath
83 Status of Urdu in India: Based on Analysis of Language Census 2001
Syed Shahabuddin
88 Lasting Way to Fight Recession: Revamp NREGA
Kamal Nayan Kabra
93 Terrorism: Threat to India’s Unity
Anil Rajimwale
97 China, India and Tibet—Strategies and Responses
Madhuri Santanam Sondhi
101 Medvedev Visit to India: A Significant Indo-Russian Summit
Arun Mohanty
104 Recasting Tradition: Dress, Difference and Dissent in Darjeeling Hills
Swatahsiddha Sarkar
107 ’Destruction of Evildoers’ as ’Spiritual Pratice’!: Why ’Sanatan Sanstha’ and ’Hindu Janajagruti Samity’ should be Banned
Subhash Gatade
114 India 60: Multiple Readings
Arup Kumar Sen
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Our Task Today
21 December 2008, by SCAs Mainstream stands on the threshold of the fortyseventh year of its existence, the national scene resembles the one that prevailed at the time this journal was founded. Shortly after Mainstream made its appearance in 1962 came the perfidious (...) -
Embrace Fidel Castro: Historic Opportunity for Obama
21 December 2008, by L C JainThe fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban Revolution falls on January 1, 2009. Against that backdrop the following article acquires added significance. —Editor
Imagine Barack Obama inviting Fidel Castro, the Cuban leader, to his inauguration (...) -
Ten Poems on Bhagat Singh
21 December 2008[(These poems have been sent to us, for publication in Mainstream Annual 2008, by Professor Chaman Lal, Chairperson, Centre of Indian Languages, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, with the following note: “While searching for writings on (...) -
Bhagat Singh ki Murat (Statue of Bhagat Singh)
21 December 2008, by Fahmida RiyazThere is news from Delhi
alas! Alas!!
What a mess they have made
Of Bhagat Singh
In the Parliament Complex!
For sixty years they petitioned
The British rejected him
But YOU! Our own government.
Erect his statue
in the Parliament Complex
At last (...) -
Why V.P. Singh Must Be Defended
21 December 2008, by Ajit Bhattacharjea[(Former PM V.P. Singh passed away in New Delhi on November 27, 2008. He had been at the centre of controversy for having implemented the recommendations of the Mandal Commission Report thereby introducing reservation for OBCs. In that context (...) -
Some Aspects of Self-Sufficiency in Energy
21 December 2008, by Chaturanan MishraIt is well known to the government that coal will continue to be the main energy source of our country for the coming several decades unless some huge deposit of gas and oil is found or some new invention takes place. Hence after independence in (...) -
For a New Crusade
21 December 2008, by Nikhil ChakravarttyThe fortitude with which the people of India have been putting up with the bankruptcy of the country’s political leadership has few parallels in history.
Particularly for the last three years, politics has been vitiated by such extraordinary (...) -
On Nexus between CIA and Mossad
21 December 2008, by Syed ShahabuddinCOMMUNICATION
The article “Terrorism Inc.—Nexus between CIA and Mossad†by Shyam Chand (Mainstream, November 15, 2008) suffers from one inaccuracy. India recognised Israel in 1949 but never established diplomatic relations with it. So the (...) -
Lexicon of Insolence!
21 December 2008, by D. BandyopadhyayPolitics of language and language of politics are two fascinating cousin disciplines in the larger sorority of political theory and practice, human behaviour and social anthropology.
A language carries with it the basics of sometimes conscious (...) -
Myth and Reality of Capitalism: Neo-Liberalism and Globalisation
21 December 2008, by P R DubhashiProf Galbraith of Harvard University had been, through his copious and widely read books, a sustained critic of unbridled capitalism and its adverse consequences on the living of the common people. Thus in his celebrated book, The Affluent (...)
