Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Pandit Birju Maharaj Was Indeed The Maharaja of Kathak! | Humra Quraishi

  21 January 2022, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  19 January 2022
  Earlier this week, Delhi-based Khudai Khidmatgars concluded their five days fast against the ongoing climate of hate and violence. Activists detailed that Mahatma Gandhi’s granddaughter, 87 year old Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee, carried with her home-cooked khichdi and kheer and also offered them fruit juice to end their fast. “She’d emotionally recalled Mahatma Gandhi last fast and said every day she used to reach Birla Bhavan directly from school...she said that (…)

• Tagore’s Version of Atmanirvar and Atmashakti | Sreedeep

  21 January 2022

  by Sreedeep *
  “Nationalism is a great menace...It is my conviction that my countrymen will truly gain their India by fighting against the education which teaches them that a country is greater than the ideals of humanity.”
  Tagore’s unrepentant disregard for nationalism was apparent, unambiguous, and against the grain of nineteenth-century nationalist thought. Tagore was not only dismissive of nationalism, but he also advocated a humanitarian cause. The rationale that drove his swadeshi (…)

• Revolution, Law and Self-Determination | Shubham Sharma

  21 January 2022

  In the first instance, the dyad of revolution and law appears to be like oil and water, un-mixable, unpalatable, and unhistorical. Revolution by its very definition means annihilation of the existing order of things. This includes archaic social institutions and the political structure buttressed by the existing laws. And the law, on the other hand, is nothing but a set of codified strictures that sanctions legitimacy to any social property relations in place. After all, all the revolutions (…)

• How Dalits Were Separated from Shudras? | Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

  21 January 2022, by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

  Dalits are historical Shudras. They were part of the Harappans who built the pre-Aryan agrarian and urban civilization by 3000 BCE. But now in our times despite the fact that we all live in modern constitutional democracy, not only the Dwijas, but Shudras also treat them as untouchable. There is no social cohesion among Indians in spite of the fact that this great democratic constitution was given to us by Dr.B.R Ambedkar who was born as an untouchable. But later he liberated himself and (…)

• Patriarchal capitalism and marriage in 21st century | Bhabani Shankar Nayak

  21 January 2022

  by Bhabani Shankar Nayak *
  In the Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare defines relationships as marriage of true minds, where sovereign individuals love each other to overcome all impediments in life with the tempest of unchanging will. These voluntary, organic and humane ideals are institutionalised and domesticated to comply with the requirements of patriarchal, religious and capitalist cultures in different continents. The moral philosophers have also engaged with the idea of marriage and (…)

• Making Sense of Time | Arup Kumar Sen

  21 January 2022, by Arup Kumar Sen

  In his book, Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century 1914 -1991 (Abacus, London, 1995), the eminent Marxist historian, Eric Hobsbawm, drew our attention to the assessments made of the 20th century by some eminent intellectuals. William Golding (Nobel Laureate, Writer) observed: “I can’t help thinking that this has been the most violent century in human history”. Similarly, the eminent philosopher, Isaiah Berlin, made a negative assessment of the century: “I have lived through most of (…)

• Rising Hate: Polarization and Defense of Indian Constitution | Ram Puniyani

  21 January 2022

  by Ram Puniyani
  As we have entered; 2022 we are witnessing hate speech taking dangerous forms and many in saffron robes calling for genocide. There are apps like Tech Fog being used to vitiate social atmosphere. There are Trad groups; who are openly promoting caste system and ancient scriptures apart from calling from demonization of minorities in the worst possible way. We have seen the issues like Ram Temple creating massive violence followed by strengthening of communal forces in the (…)

• RSS is in a bind over the reasons for Dalits shiting loyalty | Arun Srivastava

  21 January 2022

  by Arun Srivastava
  In the seventies when the Aya ram and Gaya ram syndrome emerged in a volatile manner, apprehensions were expressed that it would ruin the political character of the country and would severely damage the political culture and institution.
  Even before it could inflict major damage the syndrome was checked but its immoral impact on the body political and the polity of the country suffered a severe denigration with the politicians no longer willing to abide by and adhere (…)

• Reckless pursuit of linking rivers can result in ecological havoc | Bharat Dogra

  21 January 2022, by Bharat Dogra

  For a long time, a gigantic and recklessly ambitious project proposed in India for linking about 37 rivers at 30 or more places had been largely dormant. Things started moving in its favor after the 2014 elections and the installation of the NDA government. Within about two years this project had been pushed ahead quite a bit. Now with the Cabinet approval being granted to the first sub-project of the wider national project called Ken-Betwa Link Project (KBLP) in Central India on December (…)

• Significance of a Human Security Approach for Global Peace and Development | Manoj Kumar Mishra

  21 January 2022

  by Manoj Kumar Mishra *
  The concept of human security was articulated by Pakistani scholar Mahbub ul Haq in 1994 when he drew attention to the concept in the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Human Development Report. Henceforth, human security became a part of academic discourse and the concept required a shift of focus from the physical security of a state to socio-economic security and development of its citizens along with their personal, civil and physical security.
  This (…)