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Progress Publishers: A Short History

Progress Publishers lived up to its name. It’s hard to look at one’s bookshelf and not find a title brought out by them. But the reason for its existence was greater than what one would refer to as soft power. Vijay Prashad writes in his introduction to The East Was Read: Socialist Culture in the Third World, ‘It was because, as Lenin noted, cultural absorption was a good in itself, and that it would help expand the imagination and create a richer, better world. More learning about differe[...]

What has the October Revolution Done for Women in the West?

Alexandra Kollontai (1872-1952) was among the leading figures of the Russian Revolution. However, as Parvathi Menon observes, her ‘revolutionary legacy slipped into relative obscurity in the decades following her death’. This is surprising given the fact that not only did she live an extraordinary life, both personal and political, she left behind voluminous writings; some of which you can read in our 2017 volume of her selected essays, The Soviet Woman, edited by Parvathi Menon. We share wi[...]

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 [...]