April 2009

Review Article
The following review article has been sent to the Mainstream editor on April 6 with a note from the reviewer that reads:
“I am submitting a review of Gargi Chakravartty’s P.C. Joshi: A Biography for favour of publication in Mainstream weekly. Not living in India, I was able to get the book only a while ago. Nevertheless I feel reviews of this important book reflecting different experiences and perspectives do not get dated. I hope Mainstream will be generous enough to (…)

COMMUNICATION
With the glorious Gandhi surname Varun Gandhi’s highly inflammatory vitriolic anti-Muslim speech is both obnoxious and unpardonable. It has added fuel to the raging fire of communalism. His venomous communalism is decidedly quite contradictory to his illustrious great grandfather’s vision, that reflected the broad outlook of independent India’s founder-leader, of a liberal and secular India and a shame to the glorious Nehruvian ethics and legacy. His diatribe against the (…)

As the country approaches the 15th general elections next week, trivial issues are dominating the scene making the poll exercise the most bizarre in post-independence India.
Five years ago, in 2004, there was one issue before the secular forces everywhere: to somehow defeat the BJP-dominated NDA so as to dislodge it from power; they were spurred by the urgency to act decisively, given the enormity of the danger springing from the growing communalisation of the polity as manifest in (…)

The following is a message from Mahasweta Devi, veteran novelist and one of the foremost intellectuals of West Bengal today, to a Press Meet organised by the friends of Kabir Suman, a noted progressive singer, contesting from the Jadavpur constituency of Kolkata for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. The Press Meet took place at the Kolkata Press Club on April 2, 2009. The message speaks volumes of Mahasweta Devi’s passionate advocacy of the cause of democracy in the present scenario of (…)

Whether as a philosopher, economist, and anthropologist, the author of ‘Capital’ and the persistent relevance of his analyses are justified by the major crisis which now defies the premises of global capitalism.
“If Marx imposes himself as one of the ‘unsurpassable’ thinkers of our time, the reason is also, and mostly, that he was the first to detect the dynamics intrinsic to capitalism.” These are not the words of some obscure, antediluvian follower of Marx, but the pronouncement of (…)

Whether the decisions of the recently held London Summit of the G-20 will provide a way out of the present worldwide depression is not certain, but one thing is crystal clear: the Thatcher-Reagan approach based on the Mises-Hayek-Friedman thinking has been buried fathoms deep. Obviously, the much trumpeted ultimate wisdom, the Washington Consensus that has formed the basis of the ongoing globalisation, has vanished into thin air. In our country where a band of economists with their received (…)

Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab must be given a fair trial. Protection of all his rights under the international human rights law is not to protect one individual but to uphold the basic norms of rule of law and human rights. The question is not whether he deserves our sympathy or not, the question is whether we love our Constitution and cherish the principles enshrined in it.
I believe that those who support the right to fair trial for Kasab are really the true patriots while those who (…)

Communication
Every Indian is convinced that Kasab (Moha-mmad Ajmal Amir Iman) was one among the terrorists from Pakistan in the Mumbai 26/11 attack and was, fortunately for India but unfortunately for him, the only one captured alive. However, howsoever firm individual beliefs may be in this case, India as a civilised society cannot afford to have him sentenced without due process of law according to Article 21 of the Constitution concerning depriving any person of life or personal (…)

We are living in difficult times and in a dangerous neighbourhood. The spectre of terrorism has acquired alarming proportions. The story of terrorism from 9/11 of New York to 26/11 of Mumbai to 3/3 of Lahore is not a closed chapter. New areas are coming in its fold with a bearing on our lives and democratic governance.
Setting and Argument
The story of terrorism is not new. In contemporary history New York became a major victim of terrorism on one September morning in 1920. A car bomb (…)

The Assembly Elections of 2008 in J&K were one of the most intensely contested elections in the State in terms of multi-cornered contests, number of rallies and the voter turnout. They were so even when compared with the 1977 elections, known to be the first fair and compe-titive elections in the State since independence. The levels of political mobilisation became significantly evident when within a month of the announcement of poll schedule on October 19, a total of 862 political (…)