May 12, 2007

At two ends of our far-flung country, one witnesses today visible stirrings for a democratic order. In the east, Bangladesh is in the throes of a general election promising to end eleven long years of virtual army rule. In the west, Pakistan is going through the excitement of Benazir Bhutto’s tumultuous return, rousing democratic forces to a pitch which the Marital Law regime had not seen since her father’s overthrow in 1977.
Significantly, at the helm of these democratic upsurges, (…)

COMMUNICATION
Even nearly two decades back Nikhil Chakravartty correctly diagnosed the political ailments of the CPI-M when he wrote in his column in the Mainstream (August 25, 1990):
Nobody denies that the Congress-I is a discredited outfit in West Bengal. But this by no means indicates a growing swing to the Left. Rather there is not only disenchantment but ramblings of discontent at the ground level. In this context, a ruling party can gain if it displays humility and an eagerness to (…)

Dear Justice Rajindar Sachar,
I have seen your article on the OBC question in The Times of India and subsequently in Mainstream and other papers.
Because of its wide circulation, I beg your leave to point out a basic flaw in your argument. In case of SCs/STs which are constitutionally recognised Backward Classes, their reservation quota no doubt matches their population, State or national. But, the OBCs, which is only a legal construct, do not fall in the same category. This is the (…)

A strong people’s resistance has been going on in parts of Jagatsinghpur district of Orissa against a steel plant and captive port proposed in the area, since July 2005, a month after the Memorandum of Understanding regarding the project was signed between the Government of Orissa and Pohang Steel Company Limited (POSCO). Things seemed to have come to heat when several platoons of Orissa Military Police were deployed in the area on April 9, six days before the mandatory environmental (…)

There are now uncomfortable signals from the eastern border of our country. The caretaker government of Bangladesh, which had started well by apprehending a large number of criminals, many of them being political bigwigs, suddenly seems to have lost direction. Its diktat to the former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to go to exile and asking Hasina Wajed not to return to Bangladesh are ill-conceived moves, certain to raise eyebrows about the actual character of the government. Ultimately the (…)

Marx’s comments on the Revolt of 1857 constitute an original contribution to the study of contemporary Indian history. They are in sharp opposition to the established orthodox theory of regarding the rising as essentially a military mutiny, disfigured by ‘native’ atrocities, put down by British valour. It is interesting to reflect that modern research is at long last veering round to the viewpoint of Marx.
Marx dealt in the main with the general character of the revolt, the question of (…)

[(The one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Great Indian Revolt of 1857 is being observed this month. Though the spark for the Revolt was lit by Mangal Pandey at Barrackpore earlier the same year, the Revolt actually began in May at Meerut: on May 6, 85 sepoys of the 3rd Bengal Cavalry at Meerut refused to use the cartridge, the cause of the rebellion—all of them were placed under arrest; on May 9 these sepoys were brought to a general punishment parade at the Meerut Parade Ground, (…)

As we observe the 150th anniversary of the Great Indian Revolt of 1857 this week, it is necessary to recount the positive features of that First Indian War of Independence which shook the edifice of the colonial empire. First of all, there was remarkable unity among all those who engineered the upsurge or else it could not have sustained for a considerable length of time while injecting fear into the minds of the alien rulers.
Secondly, Hindus and Muslims fought side by side against the (…)