Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• India without Nehru

  30 May 2015, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  The following piece, which appeared in the ‘New Delhi Skyline’ of Mainstream, was written two days after Jawaharlal Nehru’s demise on May 27, 1964. It was published on May 30, 1964.
  As the golden flame licked up the funeral pyre, an unforgettable scene ended near the banks of the Jumna and under the shadow of the Red Fort.
  It was an emotional experience without precedence, to watch this mightiest demonstration of love and respect that this great country has paid to (…)

• Nehru for Today

  30 May 2015

  May 27 this year marks Jawaharlal Nehru’s fiftyfirst death anniversary. On this occasion we remember him by reproducing the following excerpts from his speeches and writings. We are also reproducing several articles on Nehru by noted personalities as well as excerpts from a paper presented by the present editor of Mainstream at a Nehru seminar in Kolkata this year.
  Hinduism has ever prided itself on its toleration. But today it stands in need of a reminder. ‘All sects deserve reverence for (…)

• Reflections on Nehru

  30 May 2015, by Sajjad Zaheer

  I loved and respected him, worked with him and even followed him in many ways, and yet I was among his severest critics, and perhaps no one was a greater disappointment to me and to my group than Jawaharlal Nehru.
  Our two families were known to each other, from Lucknow and Allahabad, so it was not difficult for me when I came back from England in 1935, an Oxonian and a barrister-at-law, to be taken under the protective wing of Nehru. He knew, of course, that I was a red-hot Communist, but (…)

• Nehru’s Scientific Attitude

  30 May 2015, by Anees Chishti

  Science has brought all these mighty changes and not all of them have been for the good of humanity. But the most vital and hopeful of the changes that it has brought about has been the development of the scientific outlook in man. —Jawaharlal Nehru
  Nehru’s understanding of science in relation to the country’s development was penetrating. He, unlike some of his senior contemporaries, viewed science with an unbiased and realistic attitude. His belief in the scientific method was unshakable. (…)

• Nehru’s Chairmanship of Allahabad’s Municipality, 1925-1927 its relevance for Delhi’s governance

  30 May 2015

  by Urvashi Dhamija
  While the cityscape of Allahabad may be quite unremarkable today, the management of its municipality under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru from 1925 till 1927 is generally regarded as a bright patch in the city’s history. It is also a phase in India’s past which Delhi’s governing elite could consider reflecting upon because like Nehru in the early 1920s they face a double challenge of undertaking measures to improve the quality of life of ordinary citizens in the (…)

• Nehru’s Struggle for Secularism

  30 May 2015, by Sumit Chakravartty

  The French writer, André Malraux, had once asked Jawaharlal Nehru what had been his “greatest difficulty since independence”. Nehru’s instant reply was: “Creating a just state by just means.” Soon he added as an afterthought: “Perhaps, too, creating a secular state in a religious country.” [André Malraux, Antimemoirs, translated by Terence Kilmartin (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1968), p. 145; the conversation took place sometime in 1958—cited in Ramachandra Guha, India After Gandhi: The History (…)

• Revisiting P.C. Joshi in Today’s Context

  30 May 2015, by Sobhanlal Datta Gupta

  BOOK REVIEW
  People’s ‘Warrior’: Words and Worlds of P.C. Joshi by Gargi Chakravartty (ed.); Tulika Books, New Delhi; 2014; 474 + xxii pages; Rs 995.
  It is an irony of history that P.C. Joshi, the architect of united front politics in pre-independence India, is a much-maligned, almost forgotten, figure in today’s Left circles, although it is precisely his idea of forging unity with the secular, nationalist forces under the slogan “Left-democratic unity” that is the key issue which now (…)

• Unmasking Modi Government’s Real Intentions

  22 May 2015, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  PM Narendra Modi has returned from his sojourn to China, Mongolia and South Korea, and is now busy preparing himself to celebrate the first anniversary of his advent to power at the Centre. Laudatory articles are being published in leading newspapers, mouthpieces of the corporate-driven media, in the run-up to the anniversary next week. These speak of the achievements of the Modi Government in the past one year both at home and abroad while mildly criticising the BJP-led NDA (…)

• An Indefensible Decision

  22 May 2015

  by Kaleeswaram Raj
  Chief Justice H.L Dattu has refused to participate in the National Judicial Appointment Commission (NJAC) which practically “stalled any immediate chances of constituting the new judicial appointments body”. (Krishnadas Rajagopal, The Hindu, April 28, 2015) Thus, even without a judicial interdiction against the NJAC, an impediment has been created by the Chief Justice by his personal decision to stay away from the Commission.
  The vacuum due to non-constitution of the (…)

• Modi’s Trips to China, Mongolia, South Korea: Treading Carefully

  22 May 2015, by Uttam Sen

  The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi’s China visit must be intriguing experts and amateurs alike. There was a huge line-up list to be addressed. But the impression, that it was being negotiated withal through the symbolic representation of culture, realpolitik, trade and finance, was thought-provoking. Modi’s reception in Xi Jinping’s hometown of Xian corresponded with Xi’s scheduling of Ahmedabad as his first stop in September last year. Modi’s visit to the Giant Golden Goose Pagoda, which had (…)