Mainstream Weekly

Narmada Appeals to You, Sardar!

Medha Patkar — 2018-11-12T17:52:56Z

This letter was written and published on October 30, 2018.
Respected Sardar Patelji,
Namaskar!
Whereever you may be, as our leader of the Freedom Movement, your soul, I know, rests here on the motherland whose beloved son you have always been. Your act of freeing India from the shackles of the royal states and estates and of freeing the farmers from the oppressive tax laws of the British regime is unprecedented even to this day. As the first Home Minister of the first government of (…)

- 2018

Can we be Proud of such Independence?

Medha Patkar — 2017-09-02T08:55:29Z

When millions are evicted in the name of nation's development Can we be proud of such independence?
When the forests, the life and culture, Nurtured for centuries are destroyed forcibly Can we be proud of such independence?
The nature suffering silently, reminds Wake up the consumerist, or else we perish. Can we be proud of such independence?
The dreams of ‘foreign' land, remain chained in foreign hands Without shame, they mortgage the country, To bring suffering to all. Can we be (…)

- 2017

Why We Salute Mainstream in its Golden Jubilee

Medha Patkar — 2013-01-03T18:41:23Z

The Indian discourse on development has no doubt taken a new turn since the initiation of the globalisation-liberalisation paradigm and the free flow of the global capital as well as capitalist forces into our country. It is invariably realised that the inflow of not just the ‘capital' but its interventionist influence has resulted in a tremendous change in the country's landscape as well as the land use. The opening up of the land has made all our natural resources accessible and available (…)

- 2012

The Chief Minister is Lying

Medha Patkar — 2008-09-10T11:23:23Z

It is now clear that the Left Front Government of West Bengal has come forward in support of the Tata project in Singur by sacrificing the interests of the peasants, bargardars (sharecroppers) and agricultural labourers. As a consequence of forcibly taking away their land the life and livelihood of these peasants, bargadars (sharecroppers) and agricultural labourers have been endangered. Cutting across all views people are saying this about the ‘transport policy' of the government: in West (…)

- September 6, 2008