Some have offered us advice and articles. Some have ordered multiple copies and have even taken the responsibility of distributing it in their regions and collecting monetary contributions to keep it going. A few young college-going friends in Mumbai have written to us that they have been selling the magazine in hundreds in colleges and in various political meetings in Mumbai! What more can an editorial team ask for? All power to them! Similar feedback has come from a few other places.
In the interim, more people have thrown their hat in the ring as editorial advisors. We heartily welcome Dr B P Agrawal, Dr Raj Misra, Rajeev Lochan Sah, Prof Shekhar Pathak, Dr Arif Ali Syed, Dr Pyara Singh and Iqbal Singh to the family. We look forward to them enriching the magazine.
It is appropriate that we question the assertions made by representatives of the government in the context of the 60th anniversary of our Independence that the aims of 1857 were achieved in 1947 or in 2007. Prakash Rao discusses the issue in the cover story.
Kamala Sankaran has written on how gradually and systematically the British transplanted a Westminster style political system in India and how the elite were co-opted into it. Naresh Kumar has addressed himself to the question ‘what kind of education system existed in pre-British India’. Malem has written about ‘Nu pilan’- an anti-colonial struggle led by the women of Manipur, which holds a special place in the hearts of Manipuri people.
We have chatted with Amaresh Misra, in ‘Peepul ke Neeche’. He has researched extensively the Ghadar of 1857, about which he is writing a new book, “War of Civilisations: 1857 AD”. Prof K Raghavendra Rao has written about problems in historiography, taking two specific examples that have created a ively controversy in Karnataka.
Shivanand Kanavi has reviewed an old book, in fact a century old one, by Vinayak Savarkar on 1857. Savarakar’s incandescent story telling still arouses people. Then we have a brief round up of various happenings around the country regarding 1857.
Raghavan has come up with two poignant vignettes of the unfulfilled thirst for freedom in a short story. Renowned artist Panju Ganguli has enriched the issue with his cartoons.
Our editorial ‘Call of the Times’ in the last issue had put forward the case for such a magazine and the policy we are going to follow in it. However, at the request of some of our readers and contributors, we once again present the same to you.
Ghadar Jari Hai is dedicated to being a platform for discussing Indian solutions to problems facing India. At the same time it is not another generally progressive magazine. It is focused on Indian history, philosophy, economy and politics without the jaundiced eye of Eurocentrism. All serious views, of whatever hue, are welcome as long as the author backs up his or her argument and does not indulge in labeling, name calling and ridicule. We are particularly interested in unraveling pre-British India and the changes brought out through British rule that forms our colonial legacy, since they bear a lot of significance to present developments. We believe that no shade of opinion has a monopoly over truth and that if we all collaborate in this endeavour, we are quite capable of arriving at insights and solutions to our problems, much as our ancestors did. We want to publish well researched articles in various fields, which at the same time are communicative and do not indulge in excessive technical jargon.
With this brief statement of ‘editorial policy’ we present the second issue to you and look forward to your contributions and comments.