Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Nehru and the Peasantry

  1 June 2014, by Dipak Malik

  When I met the Panchayat Pradhan of the village, a sprightly young man in his thirties on a dusty bazaar site about 40 km away from Banaras, I could see his self-confidence. He came from a Dalit background. Yet, when we decided to have a lunch meeting under the shadow of the neem tree, the Rajputs, the former principal of a reputed nearby college and other powerful village personalities showed a bonhomie unimaginable 50 years back in that feudal bastion of the green expanse of Eastern UP. (…)

• Nehru’s Vision, its Development and Dismantling

  1 June 2014

  by Nirupam Sen
  This subject can be adequately addressed only in a full book. In a short article I can only highlight some features of relevance to our times. Shortly after Jawaharlal Nehru’s birth anniversary in 2013, the President of the Indian National Congress condemned Nehru’s “character assassination”. This became possible because her Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, had first assassinated Nehru’s vision and legacy.
  Nehru’s vision of India’s development and the policies he adopted (…)

• Jawaharlal Nehru as a Kashmiri

  1 June 2014

  by Mohd Yousuf Dar
  Jawaharlal Nehru is widely acclaimed as the architect of modern India. He played an important role in the long struggle for national freedom, and later as the greatest political leader of free India. Jawaharlal Nehru was born at 11:30 pm on November 14, 1889 at Allahabad. Nehru was the eldest child and the only son of a very prosperous lawyer-politician, Motilal Nehru, who practised law at the High Court of Allahabad. His mother’s name was Swarup Rani Kaul. The young (…)

• Gilbert Etienne

  1 June 2014

  TRIBUTE
  by Jayshree Sengupta
  Gilbert Etienne, 86, Professor Emeritus of Development Economics, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, who used to write regularly in this journal [his last article—“India: Growing Importance of Fruits and Vegetables”—appeared in Mainstream (April 5, 2014)], passed away on May 21. While mourning his demise we are carrying the following tribute by a close friend of the scholar. —Editor
  India has lost a great friend and a (…)

• People Will Hold Them Accountable

  1 June 2014, by S G Vombatkere

  COMMUNICATION
  Though the BJP has romped to a Lok Sabha majority albeit with “only” 31 per cent vote-share, the huge victory of the BJP is uncontestable within the parameters of the existing electoral system. The people of India have clearly chosen the BJP as the ruling party, and the BJP in turn has chosen Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister of India. Thus, whether or not a citizen has voted for the BJP, Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister for every Indian irrespective of his/her sex, (…)

• 52 per cent Seats with 31 per cent Vote-share

  1 June 2014, by Bharat Dogra

  COMMUNICATION
  The fact that the BJP has been able to get an absolute majority with just 31 per cent of the total vote-share in the recent Lok Sabha elections has generated a lot of interest. It has been pointed out that never before has any party attained a complete majority with such a low vote-share, the previous low being the 40.8 per cent vote-share obtained by the Congress in 1967 which enabled it to get almost the same number of seats (283) which the BJP has got in 2014 (282) with 10 (…)

• Behind Modi-led BJP’s Spectacular Performance

  23 May 2014, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  Almost a week has passed since the results of the 16th Lok Sabha elections came out causing a veritable political earthquake in secular democratic India. It was a massive anti-Congress wave, an inevitable fallout of outgoing PM Manmohan Singh’s disastrous economic policies, that was capitalised to the hilt by the principal Opposition party in Parliament, the BJP, or rather by its prime ministerial aspirant, Narendra Modi, who must be credited with having consequently (…)

• BJP: The People’s Choice, but . . .

  23 May 2014, by S G Vombatkere

  Some writers had predicted decimation of INC, with the BJP becoming the single largest party in the 16th Parliament, but doubted whether it would go past the magic figure of 272 on its own. Indeed, Modi contesting from two places indicated that he was not very sure of winning in Varanasi. However, this writer had predicted that the 16th Parliament would not last very long, and that the BJP would come in with a thumping majority in the 17th Parlia-ment. But “India has chosen the BJP” right (…)

• Mukul Sinha

  23 May 2014, by Bharat Dogra

  COMMUNICATION
  On May 12 Mukul Sinha, a tireless crusader for justice and just causes, breathed his last in Ahmedabad. Mukul was a scientist and a scientist-activist who in mid-life took up a new roles as a public interest lawyer and labour activist to fight long legal battles for many just causes, particularly for victims of communal violence, encounter killings and unjust labour practices in Gujarat.
  After obtaining a Master’s degree from the the IIT Kanpur, Mukul Sinha joined the (…)

• The Idea of India

  23 May 2014, by Kuldip Nayar

  I did not want Narendra Modi to be India’s Prime Minister for ideological reasons. His effort to polarise the country is not in the nation’s interest. But the voters’ choice is different. Modi has earned the right to rule having won through fair and open elections. And he is entitled to pursue his agenda which offers, to use his words, the ‘politics of development and not revenge’. Modi should, however, keep in mind the larger picture, the idea of India.
  The idea of India is neither (…)