Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Unmasking Hindutva, Modi and Majoritarian Offensive

  19 October 2015

  BOOK REVIEW
  by Reena Cherian
  India Since 2002 by Mukul Dube (Foreword by Professor D.N. Jha); AlterNotes Press, New Delhi; 2015; pages: xii + 198; Price: Rs 380.
  India Since 2002 is a collection of articles published by Mukul Dube in the weekly Mainstream. The earliest were written in the aftermath of the Gujarat pogrom of 2002. The fiftythree articles are reflective of developments since then in the socio-political climate of the country. Some capture the emergence, origin and (…)

• The who, what and where of Dadri

  19 October 2015

  by Chapal Mehra
  On September 28, a murderous mob got together to kill a man ostensibly for having kept some beef in his refrigerator. They seriously injured his young son and misbehaved with the women in his family. All of this over beef, a meat Indians have consumed for centuries.
  Who were these people? Why did they kill a man over an item of food? What did they achieve out of it? All of us in India have for a fortnight been besieged by these questions.
  Let’s start with the facts. It (…)

• CPI Congratulates New Nepal PM

  19 October 2015

  The Central Secretariat of the Communist Party of India issued the following statement to the press on October 12, 2015 congratulating the new Nepal Prime Minister, Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli:
  “The Central Secretariat of the Communist Party of India congratulates the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) leader, Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli, on his election as the new Prime Minister of Nepal.
  “The CPI hopes that under his leadership the relations between Nepal and India (…)

• Assault on Secularism

  10 October 2015

  POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
  Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh has said, in the wake of the lynching of Mohammmed Akhlaq at Bisada village of Dadri in UP for allegedly storing and eating beef, that he supports banning beef. “Out of 29 States, cow slaughter is banned in 24 States and this was done during the Congress rule,” he has asserted. He added in the same breath that even during the Mughal rule, cow slaughter was banned. Singh’s comments will undoubtedly (…)

• A Note on Dadri

  10 October 2015, by Mukul Dube

  When I read of the killing, in Bisada village of Dadri, of a Muslim man by Hindus who suspected him of keeping beef in his house, I was taken back to the Gujarat massacre of 2002. That wound is fresh: the passing of a dozen years has done nothing to lessen the pain and the anger. Indeed, many more wounds have been added after Modi’s election victory, which has enabled the underlying evil to spread its tentacles and grow more vicious. It is not surprising that people are reacting to Dadri (…)

• Air warriors and Dadri - Bisada

  10 October 2015, by Suhas Borker

  The lynching at Dadri-Bisada pushes the scorched earth
  into the throes of communal conflagration.
  Farmer Mohammad Akhlaq is dead
  and son Danish is battling for life.
  But the perpetrators’ diabolical machinations
  are thrown asunder
  as the air warriors gently descend
  from the azure sky
  and uplift and relocate you in the
  national mindscape of secular India.
  Jai Hai My India! Jai Hai!
  —Suhas Borker
  October 5, 2015
  Suhas Borker is an independent documentary film-maker and Editor, (…)

• The Lynchings

  10 October 2015, by Badri Raina

  A quickly assembled loud speaker atop a make-shift temple first blared the rumour that, allegedly, a cow had been slaughtered in the village and that Hindus must gather apace. Simultaneously, that wonder from Silicon Valley called Whatsapp helped spread the good word within minutes, enabling a large mob to collect in front of the only two Muslim families in the village of Bisada in Dadri, Western Uttar Pradesh.
  And, lo and behold, “beef” was discovered in the refrigerator at one of the (…)

• Today‘s Imperative / Moradabad: What Really Happened

  10 October 2015, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  In the wake of the horrendous incident in Bisada village at Dadri, we reproduce here N.C.’s editorial in Mainstream Annual 1980 highlighting the happenings in Moradabad in August 1980. It is followed by the reproduction of a first-hand report by a Special Correspondent on the Moradabad riots that was published in this journal’s August 23, 1980 issue.
  Today‘s Imperative
  The time has come when we can no longer afford to indulge in mutual recrimination. The time has (…)

• Utkalmani Gopabandhu Das: A Compassionate Rebel and a Modern Man

  10 October 2015

  by S.N. Sahu
  Utkalmani Gopabandhu Das was one of the extraordinary personalities of modern India. He was born in Odisha on October 9, 1877 seven years after the birth of Mahatma Gandhi and breathed his last in 1928, twenty years before the assassination of the Father of our Nation. He lived only for fiftyone years. But his inspiring legacy of service and sacrifice and modern approach to social change and nation-building endures. What he did in the context of India in general, and Odisha in (…)

• Forgotten Heroes

  10 October 2015, by Kuldip Nayar

  I have not been able to understand why Pakistan is reluctant to recognise heroes who went to the gallows during the national struggle for independence. Bhagat Singh is one of them. Eightyfour years ago he was sentenced to death by the special court at Lahore and was hanged in the city jail. Pakistan should lead the celebrations.
  In the thickening Islamic atmosphere, Bhagat Singh is a kafir. Bhagat Singh’s life should be taught in Pakistan’s schools as it is done in India. There is nothing (…)