June 22, 2007

Thirty years ago, on this day, that is, June 21, the Left Front Government came to power in West Bengal led by the organisationally well-knit cadre-based CPI-M and headed by one of the most outstanding personalities in State and national politics, Jyoti Basu.
Following the LF’s resounding victory at the hustings, it was written in these columns by the founder of this journal while recalling the emergence of the first Communist Government in Kerala in 1957:
After twenty long years, a (…)

The following is the statement to the Convention from Ramsey Clark, the former US Attorney-General, whose outspoken indictment of the lawless US bombing of Iraq during Gulf War I in 1991, embodied in his report to the than UN Secretary-General, has now become a legend.
I wish I was able to join with all of you on June 19th in New Delhi, India, at your important meeting to address the needs and grievances of the farmers and rural poor whose lives have been made miserable by the greed of (…)

Remembering Emergency June 26, 1975
“Never trust your sons, nor treat them during your lifetime in an intimate manner; because, if the Emperor Shah Jehan had not treated Dara Shikoh in this manner, his affairs would not have come to such a sorry pass. Ever keep in view the saying, ‘The Word of a King is Barren’.”
Aurangzeb’s alleged will, given in Ankam i-Alamgiri (ascribed to Hamid-ud-Din Khan Bahadur, quoted in Sircar’s Short History of Aurangzeb, p. 390) The din and noise of the (…)

Remembering Emergency June 26, 1975
The nineteen-month nightmare is over. Emergency India with its strangulated press, its overcrowded jails, its emasculated courts, its stifling climate of fear, of suspicion, of helpless drifting towards even greater restrictions on human rights largely because of lack of resistance, may soon seem to be just a bad dream for most of us. That is human nature.
Before this happens, should we not look back in truth at what happened in June twentytwo months (…)

We, the undersigned, are dismayed at the continued detention of Dr Binayak Sen, General Secretary of the Chhattisgarh People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), since May 14. Dr Binayak Sen is also the National Vice-President of the PUCL, one of the oldest civil liberties organisations in India.
Dr Sen epitomises a dwindling tradition in India of public health professionals taking health care to the poorest sections and most underdeveloped regions of this country. For the past 30 years, (…)

The article “Let Us be Sincere about PCJ’s Centenary” by Com Diwan Singh Bajeli (Mainstream, April 14, 2007) criticising my article “CPI-M and P.C. Joshi: A Rejoinder” (Mainstream, September 23, 2006) was seen and read by me only on April 23, 2007 as I received the issue by post only on that day and noticed the article late in the evening. Unfortunately I cannot find the issue dated September 23, 2006 and the copy of my handwritten article will take long to trace. I, therefore, have to send (…)

I am greatly relieved that the Asiad Games bid by the Government of India has failed. I know, I am inviting the charge of being anti-patriotic and sports-spoiler but I feel so strongly about it that I am prepared to take the risk of being so charged, which in fact is not true.
Let me at once disabuse anyone of my being anti-sports. In my college days in 1945, I was Triple holder of Punjab Tennis Championship. So at best my bonafides should not be suspicious.
My opposition arises from (…)

The doyen of sociologists, M.N. Srinivas, wrote toward the fag end of his sociological engagement, distilling his understanding on the inevitable connection between caste and politics in India, that Indians are ‘living in a revolution’. (1986) The revolution was quintessential of a democracy such as India and the moorings of this revolution were the constitutional elements of adult franchise, protective discrimination and land reforms. He foresaw a violent turn in the revolution pitched in (…)

For several years now Pakistan and its dictatorial regimes have questioned the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India by stating and restating it again and again that the State of Jammu and Kashmir is a disputed territory. By applying the same logic the identity of Pakistan and its existence as a sovereign political state can be questioned by India and the Indian Government by taking the logic from International Law itself.
As per the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties (…)