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India’s Tryst with the RSS

The following article is a review and comparison of two books: The RSS: A Menace to India by A.G. Noorani (LeftWord Books, March 2019), and Messengers of Hindu Nationalism: How the RSS Reshaped India by Walter Anderson & Shridhar D. Damle (Hurst & Company, 2019). A shorter version of it first appeared in the London Review of Books (‘Strictly Technical’. vol. 42, no. 6, 19 March 2020). Ψ Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the subject of the two books at hand, is arguably the oldes[...]

The Story of a Translation

LeftWord's July release, Decoding the RSS: Its Tradition and Politics, is the translation into English of Raosaheb Kasbe's classic Marathi book, Zot. In this post, translator Deepak Borgave outlines the process of transmitting into English the polemical text, which draws from a range of historical references to present an incisive critique of RSS ideologue M.S. Golwalkar's Bunch of Thoughts. * * * Why translate, and for whom? Does translation matter? Who is the reader? Is translation necessa[...]

Remember, Remember, the 6th of December

Remember, Remember, the 6th of December, the axes, the hammers, that would dismember a mosque and a nation that has since then - only walked on embers. - Akhil Katyal Indian democracy has seen multiple black dots in its 70 years of history. From emergency declared by Indira Gandhi to 2002 Gujarat riots, one event that stands out in this period is the demolition of Babri Masjid. On 6th December 1992, thousands of Kar Sevaks mobilized by Hindu outfits like Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Rashtriya S[...]

Activist Arrests in India Are Part of a Dangerous Global Trend to Stifle Dissent

On Tuesday morning, the police from the Indian city of Pune (in the state of Maharashtra) raided the homes of lawyers and social activists across India and arrested five of them. Many of them are not household names around the world, since they are people who work silently on behalf of the poor and oppressed in a country where half the population does not eat sufficiently. Their names are Gautam Navlakha, Sudha Bharadwaj, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira and Varavara Rao. What unites these peop[...]

LeftWord Books in 2018

2018 has been an eventful year for us at LeftWord Books. We've published 7 books till now and there are 8 more titles in our schedule for this year. This blog is a brief review of our books this year and also includes the reviews that our books received, their excerpts from various publications, interviews of our authors and events around our books. *********************************** Selected Writings of Lenin 'Struggling uncompromisingly with the reformists and all kinds of distortionists[...]