Narendra Modi’s Paradoxical Claim on the Legacy of Gandhi India has established a committee to commemorate next year’s 150th anniversary of the birth of the “father of the nation”, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the members include politicians across party lines as well as some foreign representatives, among them the Nobel…
Linking Aadhaar to Bank Accounts will Destroy the Banking System An excerpt from Gandhi’s prayer discourse of July 25, 1947, from the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Volume 88, as published online by the Gandhi Heritage Portal. Translated from Hindi. Rajendra Babu tells me that he has received some 50,000 postcards, between 25,000 and…
A Practical Program to Give a New Lease of Life to Land Reforms At last some voices are rising to strongly assert the need for better implementation of land reforms. On October 2, Gandhi Jayanti day, nearly 25,000 landless workers and adivasi peasants gathered at Mela Maidan, Gwalior to raise a strong voice in favour…
Babasaheb Ambedkar and Neoliberal Economic Reforms: Part II Ambedkar and Globalisation At the outset, to speak about Ambedkar in relation to globalisation, which represents a paradigmatic transformation of global capitalism into its extremist version, is fundamentally speculative. But there are enough fools who rush in where angels fear to tread . Since they cannot rationally…
New Jobs Not for Workers The never-ending growth stories still hang on the impact demonetisation and GST have had on the economy. Not only the political opposition, the economists in general are also questioning the rising figures of gross domestic product (GDP), while the central government continues to maintain that there was no adverse effect…
Instead of Defending India, the Raksha Mantri is Instigating Violence Within I have been thinking about the statement defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman made this week lamenting the presence of “anti-national elements” within the student community of her alma mater, Jawaharlal Nehru University. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced her…
Venezuelan Commune Activists Vow to ‘Take the Offensive’ Representatives of 74 communes—institutions of popular power elected from grassroots communal councils—from across Venezuela gathered in Lara state towards the end of August to participate in the inaugural National Assembly of Communes. The meeting of more than 300 commune activists was held to try to strengthen…
Freedom Movement, Savarkar and RSS The rise to dominance of the RSS in the political sphere has been accompanied by its claim of being most patriotic organisation and that it has contributed to nation building and to the freedom movement. It has also been trying to act as an aggressive judge, classifying people as patriots…
The Prophet Betrayed: Gandhi and Partition How is one to understand the attitude of Gandhi to the partition of India in 1947? Much like other facets of Gandhi’s politics, this too is nothing short of an enigma. Gandhi was the first to concede the idea of Pakistan in principle, soon after the demand was made…
It is heartening to note from recent media reports that the Indian government is unlikely to give approval to the highly hazardous technology of genetically modified mosquitoes or genetic control of mosquitoes. A recent front-page report in the Business Line (August 20, 2018) titled “Govt. may swat GM Mosquitoes” written by Rahul Wadke said, “The…
दिल्लीत सुरु असलेल्या शेतकरी आंदोलनाच्या पार्श्वभूमीवर या लहान पुस्तिकेचे प्रकाशन लोकायत मार्फत करण्यात आले आहे. शेतकरी आंदोलन आणि त्यातल्या मागण्या या केवळ शेतकऱ्यांपुरत्याच नसून विविध अंगांनी सर्व सामान्य जनतेच्या हिताच्या आहेत, याबाबत मांडणी करणारी ही पुस्तिका!