Mainstream Weekly

A Modern Indian Erotic Tale | Sumanta Banerjee

Sumanta Banerjee — 2024-05-11T02:41:38Z

Despite all its fulminations against Muslims and the Moghul rule, the Modi government has adopted one ancient royal Moghul institution - the harem, where the nawabs and aristocrats used to maintain their numerous begums and mistresses. In the Modi government's harem, among the variety of lovers, the present nawab's most favourites are the, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Election Commission (EC). They are good in bed, (…)

- 2024

China and India - as 'merchants of death' | Sumanta Banerjee

Sumanta Banerjee — 2023-01-14T03:40:49Z

China and India, while fighting with each other over their borders, have however recently become partners as ‘merchants of death' in the global arena. While China has been accused of giving birth to a chemical that caused Covid-19 and exporting it all over the world, India on a minor scale has been found to be exporting pharmaceuticals that have led to the death of children in Gambia and Uzbekistan.
The term 'merchants of death' was originally used to describe the bankers and arms (…)

- 2023

Assessing General Bipin Rawat - a modern re-incarnation of Bheema ? | Sumanta Banerjee

Sumanta Banerjee — 2021-12-28T19:07:58Z

I have been reading the obituaries on, and reminiscences about, India's first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Bipin Rawat (who along with his wife and several military personnel, was killed in a helicopter crash on December 7). His life and tragic end remind me of the fate of the Indian mythical hero Bheema, the second of the Pandava brothers, whose exploits are described in the epic Mahabharata.
Bheema is described as 'kanchan-barna, brishash-skandha, unnata-baksha' (…)

- 2022

Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 - and a hidden episode of the Indian government's role | Sumanta Banerjee

Sumanta Banerjee — 2021-11-19T12:31:52Z

Both Bangladesh and India are celebrating the year 1971, on the occasion of the liberation of a territory known as East Pakistan then, which came to be recognized as Bangladesh at the end of that year. The transformation was brought about through a combination of two main factors among others. First was the valiant resistance put up by Bangladeshi freedom fighters against the Pakistan army within their country, and the next was the external aid that they received from India. The latter aid (…)

- 2021

Recalling a Forgotten Episode from Lakhimpur Kheri's Past History of Protest | Sumanta Banerjee

Sumanta Banerjee — 2021-11-12T23:20:17Z

Lakhimpur Kheri, situated in the northern Terai region of Uttar Pradesh and bordering Nepal, has all of a sudden caught the attention of national political parties and media due to the violent clashes there on October 3 during the demonstration of farmers agitating against three unpopular farm laws of the Modi government. The clashes resulted in the killing of eight people, including four farmers, a journalist, and three others, who are being claimed by the BJP as their follower. (…)

- 2021

Recalling a brief acquaintanceship with Pranab Mukherjee | Sumanta Banerjee

Sumanta Banerjee — 2020-09-11T20:03:06Z

As I read the obituaries which are pouring in to pay tributes to Pranab Mukherjee, I find a missing link - the years during 1950-60 which were first spent by him as a post-graduate student in Calcutta, followed by a stint as a college lecturer, and then his entry into politics as an activist in West Bengal that was to lead to his eventual arrival in Delhi as an MP in 1969. Since I knew him during those years , I may (…)

- 2020

Modi-bin-Tughluq - Narendra Damodardas's second term as the Sultan

Sumanta Banerjee — 2020-06-20T18:39:50Z

Attempts to draw historical parallels from the past do not always work accurately for understanding present situations that may resemble old events. But the record of six years of rule by Narendra Modi (covering his first term from 2014-19, and the present year) recalls an unsavoury phase of our past history, in a rather peculiar way. Narendra Modi seems to be repeating (and compressing within a brief spell of time), the eccentric policies and inhuman brutalities that marked the regime of a (…)

- 2020

A Fresh Look at an Off-beat Genre-docu-feature Film

Sumanta Banerjee — 2019-10-20T08:53:31Z

BOOK REVIEW
Nibandha Chalachchitra by Iqbal Karim Hasnu; published by Aninda Rahman on behalf of Curious Dhaka, Dhaka; 2018; pp. 152; 300 Taka.
This slender book entitled Nibandha Chalach-chitra (Essays on Films) is a collection of Bengali essays on cinema by Iqbal Karim Hasnu, a Canada-based Bangladeshi writer who had been bringing out a bilingual magazine called Bangla Journal from Toronto for the last several years, with the aim of bringing together members of both the Bengali (…)

- 2019

BJP's Appropriation of the Telangana Liberation Struggle (1946-48)

Sumanta Banerjee — 2019-09-28T19:18:18Z

The following article came out in Countercurrents on January 27, 2018. In view of its importance today it is being reproduced here for the benefit of our readers.
The BJP last year observed September 17 as the ‘Liberation of Hyderabad Day', celebrating the Indian Government's ‘police action' (a euphemism for what was actually a military invasion) in 1948, which led to the integration of the Nizam's princely state into the Indian Union. It claims that its political ancestors (members of the (…)

- 2019

Recalling Gandhi in Narendra Modi's India

Sumanta Banerjee — 2016-03-28T07:17:43Z

“People must everywhere learn to defend themselves against misbehaving individuals, no matter who they are. The question of non-violence and violence does not arise. No doubt the non-violent is always the best, but where that does not come naturally, the violent way is both necessary and honourable. Inaction here is rank cowardice and unmanly. It must be shunned at all cost.” —M.K. Gandhi's statement in Sevagram, June 22, 1942; published in Harijan, 28/6/1942; Collected Works, Vol. 1, LXXVI (…)

- 2016