R.B. More makes his first address to a Bombay audience

Ramchandra Babaji More was one of the leaders of the Mahad Satyagraha in 1927. A great admirer and follower of B.R. Ambedkar, he later joined the Communist Party of India (and the CPI[M] in 1964); though that didn’t sour his relationship with Ambedkar who remained his friend. Today we’re sharing an extract from our book Memoirs of a Dalit Communist: The Many Worlds of R.B. More by his son Satyendra More. Translated from the Marathi by Wandana Sonalkar and edited by Anupama Rao, it also cont[...]

Kuldip Kaur: A Sketch by Manto

Here’s an extract from our edition of sketches by Saadat Hasan Manto, The Armchair Revolutionary and Other Sketches. About the translation, as noted in the book, Kalid Hasan, who translated it from Urdu, takes significant liberties with the original. He often loosely paraphrases Manto, leaves out entire portions of the sketches, and even adds the occasional sentence of his own. In many cases, the titles of the sketches are not Manto’s own. We chose not to alter or edit Hasan’s translatio[...]

Guru and Shishya: Habib Tanvir does a play with Janam

On World Theatre Day, we decided to share an extract from Sudhanva Deshpande’s Halla Bol: The Death and Life of Safdar Hashmi. In it Sudhanva narrates how they made the play Moteram ka Satyagraha, a play about a gluttonous man chosen by the British to go on a hunger strike against the nationalist strike called by the Congress. In May 1988, a beaming Safdar walked in during a rehearsal to inform his Jana Natya Manch friends that Habib Tanvir had agreed to do a play with them. They decided to [...]

श्रम पर हिंदुत्व का हमला

हो सकता है हिंदुत्व का झंडा लहराने वाले ज़्यादातर लोग देश की उन्नति ही चाहते हों। शायद उन्हें लगता है कि हिंदुत्व से जन्मे समाज में गौरव और स्वाभिमान के भाव हमें उस उन्नति की ओर ले जाएंगे जो दश[...]

To See the Dawn: Women and Communism

The protests at Shaheen Bagh (stalled for now, to help contain the spread of COVID-19), were essentially led by women. They were there to challenge not just an illegal legislation, but a world that all but literally keeps them shackled, that tells them their place at home and outside – if allowed to venture there. If you think that you’ve broken free from such a mindset – especially if you aren’t a woman – by virtue of being ‘liberal’, ‘progressive’, or even ‘socialist’, th[...]