Ghadar: The First Novel on the Rebellion of 1857
The rebellion of 1857 had spread over a vast area of the Indian subcontinent but its main focus was the Hindi heartland. The effect of the rebellion on Hindi literature,…
Dr Prem Singh
‘Upvaas’ of Dallewal: Imparting credibility, dignity and strength
On 5 March 2025 one hundred days have passed since Jagjit Singh Dallewal's protest fast. Discussions will continue on issues like minimum support price (MSP) for crops, other demands put…
Counter-revolution: An overview
(The two comments given below were first published in February and May 2015 respectively. By then, the country had witnessed both the faces of counter-revolution – ‘Kejriwal-kranti’ and ‘Modi-kranti’. The…
Indian Politics: Towards communal consensus?
While outrightly opposing the hard-line Hindutva of the RSS/BJP, scholars of the secular camp refer to the soft Hindutva of secular parties, as if the use of soft Hindutva to…
Delhi Assembly Elections: Change or status quo?
The search for any ideological content in the Delhi Assembly elections scheduled to be held on 5 February 2025 would be like shuffling in a haystack for a needle. But…
Fifty days of Dallewal’s fast: The mode of resistance must change
It is a good development that the Samyuykt Kisan Morcha (SKM) has indicated a supportive attitude towards the farmers' resistance movement being carried out under the joint aegis of the…
The Claimants of Sheila Dikshit’s Delhi!
(This comment was written about 6 years ago in March 2019. In a recently held conversation about the assembly elections to be held in Delhi on 5 February 2025, learned…
Three and a half decades of victory of neo-liberals
1 If we look at the journey of neoliberalism/privatisation in India for the last three and a half decades, we find that the game has been completely in the hands…
The Quit India Movement in Literary Imagination
A major event in a society and civilization has an impact on literature and other art forms. The 1857 revolt against colonial subjugation, which is called India's first freedom struggle,…
Quit India Movement: The violence-non-violence question
The Quit India Movement, also known as the August Kranti (Revolution), was a pivotal chapter in India’s freedom struggle. This movement was country-wide in which the people of India participated…
Chandra Shekhar’s unforgettable resistance to globalisation
I wrote this Tribute to Chandra Shekhar on his demise on 8 July 2007. It was published in the Mainstream Weekly, and further compiled in the book published by the…
Lok Sabha Election Results: Some immediate, some far-reaching messages
After the first phase of the 18th Lok Sabha elections, which were conducted in seven phases, it was already indicated that a large part of the country's population had decided…
Weak but sensible voices should be listened to in the path of democracy
I have been living in Shimla, the capital of Himachal Pradesh, for the past one month. In my general conversations with many people living in Shimla from different parts of…
Communalism Overtakes Constitution
(This long article of 2013 was published in the form of a booklet in 2014. While the country's Prime Minister is going to extremes in the election campaign and spewing…
1857: The idea of nationality in the ‘Flag Salute Song’
British rulers, historians, scholars, writers, folklorists have referred to the Rebellion of 1857 that started from Meerut on 10 May 1857 by different names. This diversity of nomenclature reflects people's…
National Resources and Muslims: In the Mirror of Sachar Committee Report
During the election season, there is a debate going on between the BJP and the Congress as to who has the first right on the country's resources. However, it’s an…
Trading poverty in the market of Bhogvad
(1) There is contraction of meaning in the phrase capitalist consumerism. The correct expression for the view of life (Jivan-drishti) underlying the modern industrial capitalist civilization would be the phrase…
‘Ae Watan Mere Watan’ nuances the cinematic message of a historical event
We, a few comrades of Delhi, used to organize an annual program in the memory of Allah Baksh under the auspices of Samajwadi Manch. On the suggestion of Anil Nauria,…
Farmers’ Movement: Bar Association president’s letter denotes the fall of civil society
Have we ceased to be a wakeful and sensitive civil society and instead have become the horns of parties, leaders and governments? Whatever profession we are in, have we lost…
Failure of the Opposition is not Failure of the Alternative
About 15 days ago, I told a senior journalist friend that there are not even 2 months left for the Lok Sabha elections, Rahul Gandhi is roaming around on a…
Bharat Ratna to Karpoori Thakur: Appropriating icons for political end
On the occasion of the birth centenary of Karpoori Thakur (24 January 1924–17 February 1988), several programs have been organized in different parts of the country from January 2023 till…
Republic Day, Sovereignty and the Youth
(The narrative of Republic Day and Sovereignty, which started changing with the implementation of New Economic Policies in 1991 and the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, has reached…
Lok Sabha Elections 2024: A Perspective for Opposition Unity
1 This article is the sequel to my three previous articles on this subject namely – ‘Relevance of the Third Front’ (May 2014), Lok Sabha Elections 2019: A Perspective for…
Palestine–Israel conflict: The path to a Gandhian solution
1 A lot of advocacy and analysis work has been done in the last 75 years regarding the nearly century-old Palestine-Israel conflict. Now its permanent solution is a need of…
Killings of children: A tussle between cruelty and compassion
The ongoing scene of the Palestine-Israel conflict seems like Brecht's epic theatre, where the tussle between human cruelty and human compassion is being staged at different locations across the world.…
Israel’s scathing attack on the UN is not appropriate
Israel's Permanent Representative/Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Menashe Erdan termed as "shameful" the statement made by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the meeting of Foreign Ministers held by the United…
Palestine-Israel: Myth and Reality
It would be right to say that Hamas is responsible for the genocide of Palestinians being carried out by Israel in the Gaza Strip for the last two weeks. Hamas,…
Implications of Dr. Manmohan Singh’s interview
An interview of former finance minister and former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has been published in the English daily ‘The Indian Express’ (8 September 2023). Information about the journalist/journalists…
Why is the reality of Prime Minister’s political capital veiled!
The editorial titled ' Draw the Line' in 'Indian Express' (August 2, 2023), the first one to be written in the context of communal violence in Haryana's Nuh town and…
Wrestlers’ struggle for justice : Will it endure?
Published as the front page story in 'The Indian Express' on May 23, 2023, Vinesh Phogat in her write up titled 'Like many girls, I had to suffer silently all…
Who is attacking civility?
M Rajivlochan's article 'An attack on civility' (IE 30 March 2023) has been published in response to the newspaper's lead editorial of 25 March 2023 titled 'Disqualified'. The editorial…
Remembering Karpoori Thakur : His relevance in the present times
For the last two years, various programs are being organized to commemorate the birth centenary of socialist leader Madhu Limaye (1 May 1922-8 January 1995). January also marks the birth…
Private Universities: Where Do India’s Intellectuals Stand?
1 Ravela Somaiya, a senior socialist friend living in Hyderabad, had sent a video to me about two months back. I opened the video and found Ramchandra Guha's speech in…
Jagdish Tirodkar: The departure of a gentle socialist
As a consequence of my fledgling activism in my student life to my dedicated commitment towards socialism till now, I found umpteen occasions to meet and interact with many people…
Savarkar-Controversy: So that Neo-Colonial Slavery Perpetuates!
(Everything in this article is just repetition. I have been saying all this since 1991-92. It is obvious that the Congress and the RSS/BJP do not like my ideas. But…
Himachal Pradesh elections: Will the rhythm of democracy survive?
Shimla has been my second home after Delhi since 1991, the year I joined the Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS) as Fellow. During this long period of my association…
Team-India dedicated to Corporate-India alias Hindu-Rashtra!
(I have used an exclamation mark in the title of the article. But I have not used this punctuation sign anywhere thereafter. For the last three decades, the mainstream political…
Russo-Ukraine War: How Gandhi can show the way!
“…The greatest revolution of our time is, therefore, a procedural revolution, removal of injustice through a mode of action characterized by justice. The question here is not so much the…
Implications of Netaji’s statue at India Gate
In a TV channel debate, BJP spokesperson and anchor shared and served a lie that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's daughter in her letter to the Prime Minister has alleged that…
Kartavya Path: Another leap towards neo-colonialism!
Let it be clear at the outset that when the road from Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate was named Rajpath, it was not a literal translation of the King's Way.…
Duties of the Independence Day
(This is the English translation of my Hindi article titled ‘Swatantrta Diwas Ke Kartavya’ published in 'Yuva Samvad' and 'Hastakshep.com’ on the occasion of 66th Independence Day in 2013.…
Congress’s Bharat Jodo Yatra: Which is the best way out?
Bharat Jodo Yatra of the Congress Party has become a topic of much discussion in the media. The Congress has announced that it will organise a padyatra (foot march) which…
Communalism Overtakes Constitution
(This long article of 2013 was published in the form of a booklet in 2014. The same is reissued here for the benefit of new readers. Even those who have…
Battle for possession of the Tricolour
(This is the English translation of the Hindi article titled ‘Tirange Par Kabze Ki Ladai’ which had been published in 'Yuva Samvad' and Hastakshep.com in 2011. Since then, the business…
August Revolution and India’s ruling class
(This is the English translation of my article in Hindi written in 2012 to mark the 70th anniversary of Quit India Movement or August Revolution. The article was published in…
Gandhi will live with truth non-violence and love
Some Gandhians are feeling indignant about the special issue of 'Antim Jan' on Sarvakar. It is a monthly magazine published by a government organization, 'Gandhi Darshan and Smriti'. Some journalists,…
AAP: A New Specimen of Corporate Politics
(This article was written in November 2013 and had been published in the Mainstream Weekly, VOL LI, No 47, November 9, 2013. The article was highly criticized by certain progressive/secular…
And now ‘contractual’ scheme in the armed forces
It is true that the Agnipath recruitment scheme is a contractual-soldier scheme. That is, a youth of 17 to 21 years of age will be recruited in the three armed…
The communal flooding: A grave threat to Indian Constitution and Nation
India had remained an amphitheater of communalism for the last three-four decades. During this time the value of constitutional secularism was doomed to stumble here and there in the corridors…
In favor of non-violent human civilization
Splintered lies the ethics, In varying degrees Which both have bent The Pandavas less, the Kauravas more Oh, when will this bloodletting end …? ('Andha Yug', Dharamveer Bharati) 1 The…
Bring back the mortal remains of Bahadur Shah Zafar
(The following Memorandum had been submitted to the then President of India Shri Pranab Mukherjee Ji in May 2013, and again to the present President Shri Ramnath Kovind JI in…
How did the alienation of Muslims stop? Justice Sachar’s way
(This tribute to Justice Rajinder Sachar had been written on his second death anniversary, 20 April 2020, and was published in several magazines/portals. The same has been reissued on the…
Last salute to the memory of Frontier Gandhi!
It has been more than a year since Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar 'desired' to rename the Badshah Khan Hospital after Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Faridabad. As per the…
Chandigarh-dispute: Please handle with care
This comment is not about the history and politics related to the Chandigarh- dispute between the states of Punjab and Haryana that began in 1966. There was a statement by…
Congress: Internal discord, outside expectations
(1) Internal discord in the party has intensified after Congress's dismal performance in the five assembly elections held in February-March 2022. Political pundits, leaders of other parties and politically aware…
Assembly Elections: Missing New Education Policy in the Debate
The assembly elections of five, which lasted for about a month, are going to end. Only last phase of the elections is left in Uttar Pradesh to be held on…
Russia-Ukraine War: Why Civil Resistance Doesn’t Work?
With Russia's attack on Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the activities of the governments of various countries, all global institutions including the United Nations, embassies, media, subject experts etc. is…
Assembly Elections: Scenario and Consequences
The assembly elections in five states, being held from February 10 to March 7, 2022, are bound to have an impact on both: the politics of power and the politics…
Politics of the farmers movement!
I have written five-six articles on the unprecedented farmers movement organised under the aegis of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) against the three agricultural laws. Therefore, to avoid repetition, this…
Communalism has overtaken the Constitution!
Most spheres of Indian politics have been tainted by communalism. Looking at the current political scene of the country, it seems that just as there is a consensus on neoliberalism…
Annual Subscription
Join Countercurrents Annual Fund Raising Campaign and help us