Before he was M. N. Roy

The climate of war in 1914 activated the revolutionary underground in Kolkata. Securing funds and ammunitions became a priority, in the backdrop of a wider plan to overthrow British rule. A synchronised insurrection was envisaged with the aid of German armaments, from Lahore to Singapore, in consultation with Ghadar, pan-Islamist, bhadralok and other revolutionary groups within India and abroad. The Jugantar revolutionary cells carried out several robberies to acquire arms and ammunitions. In Oc[...]

Sudhanva Deshpande on ‘The How of Publishing’

Sudhanva Deshpande, managing editor of Leftword Books, spoke to Bridget Impey of Jacana Media, Johannesburg, on the 8th of December. He talked about our publishing model which projects the interests of the working people and movements for social transformation, and how we link the sales model with innovative ways to sell directly to those markets. See the interview below to learn more about the formation of LeftWord, the starting of our e-commerce website—possibly the first of its kind in Indi[...]

Aijaz Ahmad on Gramsci and Hindutva

For those that brought down the Babri Masjid, it was a symbol of a culture of cruelty, that of the invading Muslims against the Hindus. In its demolition, on the other hand, it has come to represent the exact opposite. In the following extract from an interview of Aijaz Ahmad (AA) by LeftWord’s Chief Editor Vijay Prashad (VP) for our title Nothing Human is Alien to Me, he talks about why European fascism is an inadequate category for understanding the rise of Hindutva, and that to counter this[...]

The Spy and the Kingdom

More often than not the more well-known spies are the ones notorious for having betrayed the country they ostensibly serve, i.e. double agents, primarily those that betrayed the countries of the ‘free’ world, like Great Britain. While few stones are left unturned to expose these traitors so long after the fact, the counterspies of the Crown lay respectably buried in the historical record. This short note by historian Suchetana Chattopadhyay is about one such anti-Soviet British spy of the in[...]

Will the pandemic enable us to imagine our cities with more bookstores?

How many bookstores does Delhi have? Sadly, no one knows, and it is hard to even hazard a guess. In any case, it would again depend on definition. For example, do you include all the shops that sell school textbooks, or other specialised books such as law books? That number would run into hundreds, if not thousands. Do you include the pavement sellers who spread out their wares in major markets? Again, the number would be in the hundreds or thousands. Do you include shops that sell books by the [...]