Mainstream Weekly

The People are Not Always Right

Lalit Uniyal — 2012-01-31T11:37:19Z

The people are not always right, even though they usually are.
i. Socrates was sentenced to death in a direct democracy by popular vote in a popular jury. He was the greatest man Athens ever produced and was unquestionably one of the noblest men of all time.
ii. Similarly, the Treaty of Versailles was a link in the chain of events that led to the decline of the great civilisation of Europe, indeed its near-destruction. Yet that insane Treaty was made under pressure of public opinion in (…)

- 2012

Remembering Miss C.B. Muthamma

Lalit Uniyal — 2010-04-10T05:05:00Z

[TRIBUTE
Outstanding diplomat C.B. Muthamma who, as a distinguished member of the Foreign Service, headed Indian missions in several countries, passed away in Bangalore on October 15, 2009. She was a person endowed with a vision and sense of purpose—an extraordinary thinker having the interest of the nation at heart. In a few days times it will be six months since her departure from our midst. We belatedly offer our sincere tribute to her abiding memory with the following piece written (…)

- 2010

A Tribute to Dr K.N. Raj

Lalit Uniyal — 2010-03-19T08:09:45Z

I was never a student of Dr K.N. Raj; yet he was my teacher.
This curious circumstance came about in the following manner. Driven by an irresistible urge to work for the poor, I resigned my job with the eventual aim of working in a village. But I felt an overwhelming need for deeper social understanding, and as one influenced by Marxism, economics was an indispensable tool for this purpose. But I had never studied economics at any stage. I was in the South (to avoid my unhappy (…)

- 2010

Remembering Nikhilda

Lalit Uniyal — 2007-07-02T21:07:17Z

I first met Nikhilda around the time when I was leaving for my chosen work in the village. I had only just returned to the North from K.N. Raj's Centre for Development Studies in Trivandrum (now Thiruvananthapuram). There was an unpublished piece with me that I had written on economic development, and somebody advised me to contact Nikhilda, which I did. He asked me to come over to his Kaka Nagar residence. He sat in his special great chair and heard me very attentively. He was interested in (…)

- June 30, 2007