Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Minority Group’s Second-Class Positioning

  9 November 2014, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  There has been no recent history of any major communal violence in and around Delhi. Yes, with just about one exception—during the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition, several Muslim dominated areas such as Seelampuri and adjoining areas were affected with a large number of Muslim youth rounded up by the police. I was there that particular afternoon in Seelampuri to write/report on the situation and saw for myself dozens of Muslims arrested. Why? Because they were protesting (…)

• Trilokpuri Riots: Police have Targeted Muslims | INTERVIEW WITH SHABNAM HASHMI

  9 November 2014

  The following is an interview with social activist Shabnam Hashmi. Shabnam Hashmi is one of the most known social and political activists fighting against communalism in the country. Her major contribution lies in the efforts she has undertaken for the relief and rehabilitation for the victims and survivors of communal violence, particularly those of the 2002 anti-Muslim Gujarat carnage. In the wake of large scale bloodshed in Gujarat, she felt an urgent need to fight the ideology of (…)

• Princess Fragrant: Will it Bridge the Gap?

  9 November 2014

  by Teshu Singh
  In a recent endeavour to restore the cultural difference between the Uyghurs and Han Chinese, the Chinese Government has come up with an innovative ides of a cartoon television serial by the end of 2015 on one of the fabled Princesses from Kashgar. The lead character Iparhan is portrayed as a Disney character “Princess Fragrant” (Uyghur Princess- Abakh Kohja in Uyghur, Xiangfei in Mandrin). The story was popular during the Qing dynasty.
  The lead character, Iparhan, was (…)

• Meerut: The Danger Signal

  9 November 2014

  November 7 this year marks the birth centenary of Prof Santimay Roy, distinguished freedom fighter (he served a total of 12 years imprisonment and internship in British India), Communist and former member of the National Integration Council (1968-79) who played a prominent role in dousing the flames of communal fratericide in different parts of the country in the post-independence period.
  Born on November 7, 1914 in Mymensingh district (now in Bangladesh), Prof Roy tirelessly helped the (…)

• Santida: The Less Travelled Road

  9 November 2014, by P.C. Joshi

  Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
  I took the on less travelled by,
  And that has made all the difference.
  —Robert Frost, Selected Poems
  My introduction to Santida had come about in an unforgettable way. It was a gift from Puranda (my namesake and Communist leader and very soon my brother-in-law) to Number 2 as he affectionately called me then. In May 1955 I was proceeding to join the Indian Statistical Institute at Calcutta as a Research Technician in its newly started Planning (…)

• Academics Must Question More: Romila

  9 November 2014

  On October 26 this year Prof Romila Thapar, the distinguished historian and Professor Emeritus, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, delivered the Third Nikhil Chakravartty Memorial Lecture, organised by the Book Review Literary Trust, at the Capital’s India International Centre. (The first lecture was delivered by Prof Amartya Sen in 1999 and the second by Prof Eric Hobsbawm in 2005.) A report on the lecture was carried in The Hindu the following day and on October 29, 2014 appeared in (…)

• A Question for Intellectuals

  9 November 2014

  by Jawed Naqvi
  Increasingly of late, Prof Romila Thapar is required to assume the nearly impossible role of Emperor Akbar who, according to the official plaque at his tomb near Agra, had “created a nation out of a mob”. To her credit (and sorrow), the ageless historian stands firm among a handful of public intellectuals left in India who have refused to be pulverised by the rise of Right-wing Hindutva mobs.
  Indeed, the more the lumpen hordes seek to turn what remains of Nehruvian India (…)

• Historic Significance of October Revolution

  9 November 2014, by Randhir Singh

  On November 7 this year falls the ninetyseventh anniversary of the historic October Revolution that changed the face of Russia and led to the birth of the USSR three years later. Remembering that Revolution we are reproducing excerpts from the chapter “Crisis of Socialism” in Prof Randhir Singh’s Five Lectures in Marxist Mode (published in 1993). These excerpts appeared fifteen years ago in Mainstream (November 9, 1996). Prof Randhir Singh is a distinguished teacher and a renowned Marxist (…)

• Lenin: Theoretician of United Front

  9 November 2014, by Anil Rajimwale

  It was Lenin who really conceptualised the idea of united front. Though it is found in Marx-Engels, united front as a concept emerged in full form in the imperialist era. Lenin was the founder of the concept of imperialism, and therefore naturally of united front.
  Lenin defined the Russian revolution as the first major revolutionary product of the imperialist age. In his extraordinary theoretical breakthrough, he discovered imperialism as a higher stage of capitalism. His theoretical (…)

• In lieu of An editorial

  2 November 2014, by SC

  October 31 this year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the assassination of Indira Gandhi. The situation today is markedly different from the one that prevailed in 2004. Yet what appeared as an editorial in Mainstream (October 30, 2004) remains as relevant as when it was written ten years ago. Hence we are reproducing excerpts from it in lieu of an editorial this week when the BJP Government under Narendra Modi, blinded by hatred and prejudice, has decided against observing the anniversary. (…)