Mainstream Weekly

About Mainstream Weekly

Mainstream Weekly is one of India's oldest independent journals of political commentary, a left-leaning weekly founded on September 1, 1962, by the legendary journalist Nikhil Chakravartty. Now published online only at mainstreamweekly.net, it has chronicled more than six decades of Indian public life, from the Nehruvian era through the Emergency to the present day. After its print edition ceased in March 2020, a remodelled electronic edition has carried the tradition forward under the editorship of H. Kapoor. Describing itself as pro-democracy, pro-reason, pro-science, pro-labour, pro-women's rights, and pro-environment, the weekly offers commentary and analysis on domestic politics, foreign affairs, the economy, science and technology, culture, ecology, and the various strands of left politics, while remaining editorially independent and free of commercial influence.

Founding: September 1, 1962

Mainstream first appeared on September 1, 1962. It owed its name to Masses and Mainstream, a well-known progressive American journal published in New York from 1948 to 1963 that had been the voice of "the other America" and that implied the masses would ultimately become the mainstream, a belief the Indian journal shared. Several personalities played major roles in its emergence, prominent among them Mohan Kumaramangalam, who later became Union Minister for Coal and Mines, and Sachin Chaudhuri, the founder-editor of the Economic and Political Weekly, who encouraged Nikhil Chakravartty to launch the journal out of a desire to see more publications like the EPW proliferate.

The first editor was C. N. Chitta Ranjan, whose editor's letter in the inaugural issue spelt out the journal's credo: that Mainstream owed allegiance to no political party or group, that its loyalty was wholly to India and socialism, and that it would endeavour relentlessly to demolish the wall of misunderstanding, mutual suspicion, and personal pique dividing progressive sections of the country. Nikhil Chakravartty himself served as editor from 1967 to 1992, and subsequently as Editorial Adviser.

Nikhil Chakravartty: the founder

Nikhil Chakravartty, born November 3, 1913, in Silchar, in what is now Assam, was one of the stalwarts of Indian journalism. Educated at Hindu School and Presidency College in Calcutta, where he graduated with History Honours in 1933 and stood first class first in his MA in 1935, he went on to study at Merton College, Oxford, completing the Honours School in Modern History in 1939. Returning to India, he taught modern history at Calcutta University before plunging into activist journalism as a special correspondent with the Communist Party organs People's War (1944-46) and People's Age (1946-48).

After a stint underground as a communist functionary from 1948, he worked with Crossroads (1952-55) and New Age (1955-57), then set up the India Press Agency (IPA), a feature and commentary service for medium and smaller newspapers. In 1959 he shot into national prominence with an IPA report on the activities of M. O. Mathai, then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's personal assistant, that rocked Parliament and forced Mathai's resignation. In 1962 he founded Mainstream and ran it for most of the rest of his life, until a few years before his death on June 27, 1998. Along the way he served as a member of the Press Commission (1978-80), chairman of the NAMEDIA conference of non-aligned news agencies in December 1983, and president of the Editors Guild of India (1990-92).

The Emergency years: defending press freedom

Mainstream and Nikhil Chakravartty reached the height of their visibility during Indira Gandhi's Emergency of 1975-77, when the journal played a vital role in the defence of press freedom. In the days before the Emergency was imposed, Chakravartty's editorial following the Allahabad High Court judgment against Indira Gandhi advised the Congress Party to strengthen itself by building its base rather than adulating its leader. Once the Emergency was declared and censorship imposed, the journal responded with quiet defiance: in place of an editorial, one issue quoted Rabindranath Tagore's poem beginning "Freedom from fear is the freedom I claim for you, my Motherland."

The censor passed the poem, but Information Minister V. C. Shukla ordered Mainstream not to quote from Tagore, or even from Nehru or Gandhi. The episode became emblematic of the pettiness of the Emergency's press controls and of the journal's refusal to be cowed. Through those years Mainstream remained, in the words of a later Business Standard appreciation, one of the few genuine platforms for voices of dissent, especially left-wing voices, engaged in the discussion of the issues of the moment.

Fighting the Anti-Defamation Bill

The Emergency was not the journal's only confrontation with state power. In the 1980s, Chakravartty joined other senior journalists in fighting doggedly against the Anti-Defamation Bill sought to be introduced in Parliament by the Union Government, a measure widely seen as a threat to press freedom. Their campaign compelled the government to withdraw the legislation, adding another chapter to Mainstream's record as a defender of free expression. The journal's history is studded with such interventions, reflecting its founder's conviction that journalism's first duty is to hold power to account.

The Sumit Chakravartty years

After Nikhil Chakravartty's death in 1998, the weekly was carried forward by his son, Sumit Chakravartty, who served as editor until mid-March 2020, later holding the title of Editor-emeritus. Operating from a modest office in Shahpur Jat, the urban village in South Delhi, Sumit maintained the journal's tradition of left-leaning, independent commentary through the tumultuous decades of economic liberalisation, coalition governments, and the rise of new political forces. Under his editorship Mainstream continued to provide a platform for progressive intellectuals, publishing essays, documents from political parties and social-justice movements, and viewpoints on global and regional affairs.

A 2012 Business Standard profile, published to mark the weekly's fiftieth anniversary, captured the atmosphere of the Shahpur Jat office and the journal's self-effacing seriousness, noting how deeply engaged and yet unassuming its founders and its present pilot remained. The piece observed that nobody thoughtful would call Mainstream a mere "outlet": it was a platform in the fullest sense.

Transition to online-only publication

In March 2020, the print edition of Mainstream ceased to exist, a casualty of the same economic pressures that have shuttered small magazines across the world. But the journal did not die. A new, remodelled Mainstream Weekly began publishing in electronic form only, carrying the tradition into the digital age. The online edition bears the ISSN 2582-7316, while the print legacy is recorded in its ISSN P 0542-1462 and RNI registration number 7064/62.

The remodelled weekly is edited by H. Kapoor. Its about page restates the journal's enduring credo: focused on current affairs, carrying commentary and analyses of contemporary developments in India and elsewhere, offering a space for the interaction of ideas covering divergent viewpoints, and publishing across domestic politics, foreign affairs, the economy, science, technology and industrial policy, culture, health, ecology, development, history, and the strands of left politics. It declares itself left-leaning but editorially independent and free of commercial influence and algorithms, and notes that the views published do not necessarily reflect the editorial standpoint of the magazine.

Editorial character and contents

The weekly's contents reflect its six-decade-old mission. Each issue carries political commentary, analytical essays, and documents from political parties and social-justice movements, alongside viewpoints relevant to global and regional affairs. Its declared values, pro-democracy, pro-reason, pro-science, pro-labour, pro-women's rights, pro-environment, give it a distinctive profile in an Indian media landscape increasingly dominated by corporate ownership and partisan broadcasting.

Over the years its pages have hosted debates on economic policy, communalism, foreign policy, federalism, and the state of the left, as well as historical reflections and cultural criticism. The journal's willingness to publish divergent viewpoints within a broadly progressive framework has made it a forum where disagreements on the left are aired openly rather than suppressed.

Legacy and standing

Few Indian publications can claim the continuity of Mainstream: founded in the year of the India-China war, tempered in the Emergency, and still publishing in the digital age more than sixty years later. Its founder's 1959 Mathai scoop, his defiance of the Emergency censor, and his leadership of the Editors Guild are part of Indian journalism's institutional memory, and the journal he founded remains a living link to that tradition. For readers seeking serious, independent, left-of-centre commentary on Indian affairs, free from commercial pressure, Mainstream Weekly at mainstreamweekly.net continues the work begun on September 1, 1962: a platform for dissent, debate, and the democratic imagination.