Empire and the Overpass

Today’s extract, from Will the Flower Slip Through the Asphalt: Writers Respond to Capitalist Climate Change (LeftWord, 2017), takes a look at how the imperatives of capital and empire can ruin ecosystems. Rafia Zakaria, author and columnist for Dawn (Pakistan), talks about the case of Karachi. The sea has been on the move in Karachi. Over the decades, as the city has burst its seams, it has moved farther and farther away into the distance. If you arrive very early in the morning at the bea[...]

75 Years of the Historic Warli Revolt

[From Ashok Dhawale’s Facebook wall] Exactly 75 years ago, on May 23, 1945, a large convention was held by the Communist Party and the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) at Zari village in the then Umbargaon (now Talasari) tehsil of Thane district in Maharashtra. Over 5,000 Adivasi women and men from Talasari and Dahanu tehsils gathered there. They were addressed by AIKS leaders Shamrao Parulekar and Godavari Parulekar, who gave a clarion call to overthrow the hated feudal system of bonded labour a[...]

The Arab Spring in Yemen

This day in the year 1990, North and South Yemen combined to form the Republic of Yemen. It is commemorated by its citizens as Unity Day. Yesterday, on May 21, the Saudi King Salman sent a cable of congratulations for Unity Day to Yemeni President Hadi, considered one of “Saleh’s Orphans”—Saleh being the de facto autarch that the Arab Spring helped oust. The cable, wishing the President good health and the people security and stability, is a complete travesty considering that the Saudi r[...]

Maoism in India

In this extract from Prasenjit Bose’s Introduction to Maoism: A Crituque from the Left (LeftWord, 2010), the author traces the emergence of Maoism in India and its eventual ‘degeneration that inevitably follows from dogmatism’. A must-read primer on left adventurism in India. The Communist movement in India was initiated in the backdrop of the freedom struggle in the 1920s. While the Communists did not succeed in acquiring the leadership of the national liberation movement against Briti[...]

The Last Testament of Ho Chi Minh

Having led the Vietnamese people to freedom and successfully through a devastating war with the French, not to mention the one with the United States which was to end several years after his death, Ho Chi Minh made this heartfelt statement to his compatriots shortly before it—filled with pride for their past and hope for their future. This text originally appeared in The Antioch Review (vol. 29, no. 4 [Winter, 1969–1970], pp. 497–99), and is going to be part of a forthcoming LeftWord title[...]