Founding Editor: Daya Varma (1929-2015)
Editors: Vinod Mubayi (New York) and Raza Mir (New Jersey).
Editorial Board: Ram Puniyani and Irfan Engineer (Mumbai); Pervez Hoodbhoy (Islamabad); Dolores Chew (Montreal); Vamsi Vakulabharanam (Amherst); Ajay Bhardwaj (Vancouver).
Circulation/website: Feroz Mehdi (On behalf of Alternatives, Montreal).
MODI IS ALREADY IN, WHAT IS TO FOLLOW?
Editors
Modi and BJP won big, being the first party to gain an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha since 1984, when Congress swept the polls after Mrs. Gandhi’s assassination. While many commentators opposed to BJP and Modi, including INSAF Bulletin, have indicated that massive victory of BJP in terms of seats was based on only 31% of the national vote, this fact is characteristic of Indian elections that are based on the first-past-the-post system. Read more…
CERAS FORUM ON ELECTIONS IN INDIA
Dolores Chew
On Sunday 25th May, CERAS, the Montreal-based forum on South Asia, held a very well-attended discussion forum “India Has Voted” on the recent elections in India. The participants were of different ages and from a variety of backgrounds, including veterans of diasporic support work for several decades, and those who have worked in solidarity with CERAS over many years. Some participants attended a CERAS event for the first time. Everyone it seemed came because of concern, curiosity and a greatly-felt need to discuss and understand the recent elections. Read more…
CHANGE AND CONTINUITY
Akeel Bilgrami
What Narendra Modi proposes as change and novelty is entirely continuous with policies that Manmohan Singh’s government have put into place. Read more…
MODI’S 30% MINISTERS HAVE CRIMINAL RECORDS
IndiaTimes <http://www.indiatimes.com/source/IndiaTimes> May 28, 2014New Delhi:
Thirty percent of ministers in the Narendra Modi government have declared criminal cases against themselves and 18 percent have declared “serious criminal cases”, according to an analysis of their election affidavits. Read more…
BJP BEGINS UNMASKING ITS REAL FACE BY INITIATING “SAFFRONISATION” OF TEXT BOOKS
By Muslim Mirror Special Correspondent,
New Delhi: As expected, the new BJP government at the Center has started unmasking its real face by initiating “Saffronisation” programme of text books in the garb of protecting the ancient heritage. Read more…
PAKISTAN INDIA PEOPLES’ FORUM FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY (PIPFPD), INDIA
Press Release May 25, 2014
Pakistan India Peoples’ Forum for Peace & Democracy (PIPFPD) welcomes the decision of the Indian and Pakistani governments that Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan Prime Minister, will attend the swearing in ceremony of Narendra Modi, Indian Prime Minister designate, on May 26, 2014. Read more…
CONTOURS OF SECULARISM
Irfan Engineer
Triumphant and victorious in the 16th general elections for the Lok Sabha, the Hindu nationalists are attributing their victory as rejection of secularism by the Indian electorate. Modi in one of his election campaign speeches came up with a new definition of secularism – “India First”. Read more…
MANY WAVES AND A MEDIA TSUNAMI
P. Sainath
There was a wave. More than one. A wave of revulsion against the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre. A wave of anger too, against the highest sustained price rise over a five-year period in decades. A wave of despair over swiftly eroding livelihoods. A wave the Modi-led BJP was best placed to surf on, and did, pulling off a very big win. Read more…
STEERING A SINKING SHIP FURTHER SOUTH: A FAILED LEFT LEADERSHIP
Prasenjit Bose (May 23, 2014)
The debacle faced by the CPI(M)-led Left Front in the 2014 general elections, especially in its erstwhile stronghold of West Bengal, has stunned supporters and opponents alike, and caused stirrings within the ranks of the Left activists. Out of the 98 seats it contested this time, the CPI(M) has won only 9 seats and secured a meager 3.2% of the national vote – lowest since the formation of the party in 1964. Read more…
AN OPEN LETTER TO COMRADE GANAPATHI, GENERAL SECRETARY, CPI(MAOIST)
Sumanta Banerjee
Let me begin by reminding you of a resolution which your party – CPI(Maoist) – adopted at your 9th Congress in March, 2007. Entitled `Resolution Against Hindu Fascism,’ it said: “The CPI(Maoist) pledges to fight resolutely against each and every instance of the trampling on the democratic rights of the oppressed minorities and others by the Hindu fascists. It pledges to do its best to defend the sections of the population targeted by the Hindu fascists. Our party is willing to unite in a broad front with all the genuine democratic forces which would be willing to fight back the Hindu fascist offensive.” Read more…
IS PAST A FOREIGN COUNTRY?: THINKING ABOUT ADAM AJMERIS IN SAFFRON TIMES
Subhash Gatade
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” – L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between
Sixteen year old Shahwan, from Ahmedabad, who is still waiting for his Class X results, was extremely happy that day, when India’s electorate gave its verdict. He hugged his Ammi and went out in his Mohalla along-with his brother Almas, yelling ‘we have won’, ‘we have won’. And not only Shahwan and his family members but one could witness similar joy in the houses of Mohammad Salim Hanif Sheikh, Abdul Qayyum Mansuri alias Mufti Baba and several others.
Interestingly Shahwan’s tremendous joy with tears flowing down the eyes of his Ammi Naseem (40) had nothing to do with the fact that Mr Narendra Damodardas Modi, had delivered a ‘historic victory’ to the BJP. Read more…
THE MODI GENERATION: A (RARE) DISCORDANT VOICE IN THE MEDIA
Mihir S Sharma
There are moments in a country’s history, not many, when it pivots. On May 16, 2014, India moved rightward with far greater force and momentum than pretty much anyone had expected. By any standards, at any time, this would have been a spectacular victory. Not since 1984 has a party claimed a majority of seats in the Lok Sabha. But it is doubly spectacular, and doubly important: because of the nature of the contest, and because of the man who won. Read more…
INDIA RIGHT-WING TELL BANGLADESHIS TO HAVE ‘BAGS PACKED’
Siddharth Varadarajan
Singling out Hindu observances as one of the markers for deciding who can be an Indian is surely a red line Modi should not have crossed. Read more…
BHATTACHARYA OF CPI(ML) ON SUPPORTING AAP IN VARANASI
Azaz Ashraf
In an interview, the CPI(ML) general secretary admits that the Left movement is passing through a challenging phase of transition.
Rarely does one party support another in an electoral contest when they are to each other what chalk is to cheese. Yet, this is precisely what the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, or CPI(ML), has done, asking its cadre to work openly for Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaderArvind Kejriwal in Varanasi, where he is locked in an epic battle with Narendra Modi, the prime ministerial candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Read more…
LETTER: INDIAN LEFT OBLIVIOUS TO THE DANGER OF FASCISM
Thanks for posting INSAF bulletin to our mail. I read some of the responses of some of our friends. It appears to us from our experience that Indian “left” and “democratic” organizations and parties are not serious about the danger of fascist rule coming at the center in India. Read more…
CHINA 2013
Samir Amin
The debates concerning the present and future of China—an “emerging” power—always leave me unconvinced. Some argue that China has chosen, once and for all, the “capitalist road” and intends even to accelerate its integration into contemporary capitalist globalization. They are quite pleased with this and hope only that this “return to normality” (capitalism being the “end of history”) is accompanied by development towards Western- style democracy (multiple parties, elections, human rights). They believe—or need to believe—in the possibility that China shall by this means “catch up” in terms of per capita income to the opulent societies of the West, even if gradually, which I do not believe is possible. The Chinese right shares this point of view. Others deplore this in the name of the values of a “betrayed socialism.” Some associate themselves with the dominant expressions of the practice of China bashing1 in the West. Still others—those in power in Beijing—describe the chosen path as “Chinese-style socialism,” without being more precise. However, one can discern its characteristics by reading official texts closely, particularly the Five-Year Plans, which are precise and taken quite seriously. Read more…
OBITUARY: NIRMAL CHANDRA (1936-2014)
Sushil Khanna and Mritiunjoy Mohanty
Nirmal Kumar Chandra, former professor of economics at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM Calcutta) passed away on 19 March 2014 after a brief illness. A heterodox economist and socialist thinker, he was first and foremost a legendary teacher who inspired his students to take the “road less well travelled”. A prolific contributor to the pages of the EPW he also belonged to a generation of heterodox scholars who encouraged students and researchers to publish in Indian journals rather than those in the west which were hegemonised by liberal and then neo-liberal academia. Read more…
OBITUARY: DR. MUKUL SINHA (1951-2014)
(Trade Union Centre of India [TUCI] Statement)
It is with a heavy heart that I have to inform you of the sad death of Com. Mulul Sinha this evening at around 5 pm due to complications arising out of lung cancer from which he had been suffering since the past few months. Read more…
OBITUARY: VETERAN COMMUNIST LEADER SUNITI KUMAR GHOSH (1920-2014)
Satyam, Arvind Institute of Marxist Studies, Lucknow
Veteran Communist Revolutionary Leader, Theoretician and Historian Comrade Suniti Kumar Ghosh died night in Kolkata. He was 94. Read more…
OBITUARY: THOMAS KOCHERRY (1940-2014): A Powerful Voice for Fishworkers
Aparna Sundar
A priest whose commitment to justice was a way of living his faith and working hard for the betterment of fi shworkers, Thomas Kocherry was a fi rebrand among social workers on Kerala’s coast for over three decades. His talent lay in translating ideas into a language that could inspire and mobilise, and move people to action. Rightly known for his courage and compassion, Tom, as he was popularly known, left behind a void that is not easy to fill. Read more…
OBITUARY: PAUL ROBESON JR. (1928-2014)
Emma G. Fitzsimmons
Paul Robeson Jr., who worked to preserve the legacy of his father, the (LEGENDRY) actor, singer and civil rights advocate, since his death almost four decades ago, died on Saturday in Jersey City. He was 86. Read more…
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