Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Lest We Forget

  17 June 2019

  In the last few days we have lost from our midst two outstanding creative personalities—Ruma Guha Thakurta, 84, who has been aptly described as a “cultural icon who straddled multiple disciplines with ease”, and Girish Karnad, 81, a Rhodes Scholar in Oxford where he studied Mathematics besides seamlessly moving across responsibilities and roles—from being the President of the Oxford Union (1962-63) to taking over as the Director of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) (1974-75) (…)

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  Scale of NDA Victory: Doubts turn to Disbelief

  9 June 2019, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  Two weeks have passed since the results of the 17th Lok Sabha polls were announced on May 23, 2019. However, even now the scale of the NDA’s, and in effect the Modi-Shah-led BJP’s, victory is still being debated in various fora and the sense of disbelief at the magnitude of the ruling party’s and/or coalition’s success has yet to be dispelled.
  Let us delve into the issue of the reasons behind the astounding BJP victory. Several people have ascribed the BJP’s success to the (…)

• Phantom of the Vedic Opera Returns in India

  9 June 2019

  by Satya Sagar
  In an era where national elections have become a strange cross between an episode of Big Boss and twenty-twenty cricket, it has become quite difficult to take the end results very seriously. This is even more so when there is widespread suspicion of the poll itself being rigged through massive deletion of names from voter lists and possible tampering with the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) used.1
  Yet, what does one really do when a man you think is a hate-mongering (…)

• India’s Hardest Fall

  9 June 2019

  by I.A. Rehman
  The following piece appeared in the Pakistani publication, Dawn, on May 30, 2019.
  By giving Modi’s BJP a landslide victory, the Indian electorate has dealt its country a blow that might take a long time to recover from. The outcome of the polls has virtually buried India’s ideal of secularism and tightened the hold of crooks and the vulgar rich over the House of the People.
  The main plank of the BJP’s election strategy was a pledge to complete India’s transformation into (…)

• Amit Shah, India’s invisible Prime Minister, gets more Powerful — and Dangerous

  9 June 2019

  by Rana Ayyub
  On May 17, just before the end of the election season, Indian journalists were abuzz with news that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would give his first-ever press conference. Modi has been the only Prime Minister in the history of independent India not to take questions from the press. But instead of a news conference, Modi delivered a monologue. When asked to take questions, he looked to his left, to Amit Shah, then the President of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Shah (…)

• Populism Plus

  9 June 2019

  by Partha Chatterjee
  The Narendra Modi triumph has been built on two projects: one, the representation of Modi as the unquestioned populist leader who could be trusted to defend the nation’s security, and two, the long-term project of a nationalism defined by the Hindu majority.
  Although it is not incorrect to explain the stunning electoral victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as the success of populist politics, this overlooks the fact that the result was actually a combination (…)

• Modi 2.0 — Pluralism is Out, Majoritarianism is In

  9 June 2019

  by Mahendra Ved
  Given majority in both Houses of Parliament, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s second term in office may see a renewed push in the majoritarian agenda.
  This must begin with an apology for failing to discern the Tsunami that has brought Prime Minister Narendra Modi to a landslide victory in India’s Elections 2019.
  Churlish though it sounds, the fact is that none noticed it. A very toxic and polarising campaign that raised the decibels of rival claims high even as it brought (…)

• Can Indian Democracy Survive another Five Years of Modi Rule?

  9 June 2019

  by Ram Puniyani
  The results of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls are out and the ruling BJP-led NDA has come back to power, with the BJP increasing its percentage of votes and the number of seats. This came as per the prediction of the BJP leaders, particularly Amit Shah who stated before the results that the BJP will cross the three hundred mark. While the BJP was overjoyed and its supporters hysterical with joy, many of those in Opposition and also those struggling for upholding of democratic (…)

• Thirtieth Anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre

  9 June 2019

  Marking the thirtieth anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, which took place in China on June 4, 1989, we are reproducing the following article by N.C. (comprising two of his despatches from Hong Kong) that appeared in Mainstream (June 10, 1989). We are also reproducing the “Political Notebook” that appeared in the same issue by S.C. who was then the Associate Editor of Mainstream.
  From N.C.’s Writings
  End of Maoist Monolith
  Anarchy has gripped China. The massacre of unarmed people (…)

• Universal Basic Income: A Debate or Conundrum?

  9 June 2019

  by Atanu Sengupta, Sanjoy De, Sayantan Mukherjee
  Introduction
  In recent times, there has been quite a hue and cry about the implementation of the universal basic income (UBI). In short, it has meant an unilateral transfer of an ‘equal’ amount of income to each and every citizen of India. The idea has become a major poll issue this year with each party trying to vie with each other in taking the credit of promulgating this scheme to its catchment area. In the debates, of course, the UBI (…)