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The Journey of ‘Halla Bol: The Death and Life of Safdar Hashmi’, Part 1

It was towards the end of July that the author, serial hashtagger and indulgent ‘Boss’, Sudhanva Deshpande, began sharing updates on the book’s progress on Facebook. Occupied with all kinds of tasks at LeftWord, Vaam Prakashan, and Studio Safdar – over and above the writing of the book – he could hardly be expected to sit down and talk to us about it. These updates were all we had as we grew more and more impatient. Read on. There’s a lot here that didn’t make it into the final te[...]

A letter to intellectuals who deride revolutions in the name of purity

Revolutions do not happen suddenly, nor do they immediately transform a society. A revolution is a process, which moves at different speeds whose tempo can change rapidly if the motor of history is accelerated by intensified class conflict. But, most of the time, the building of the revolutionary momentum is glacial, and the attempt to transform a state and society can be even more slow. Leon Trotsky, sitting in his Turkish exile in 1930, wrote the most remarkable study of the Russian Revolutio[...]

The Revolution of 1917 Revisited

November 7 was the anniversary of the Russian Revolution of 1917. In February of that year, the working class and peasantry – along with the soldiers – overthrew the Tsar’s regime. That October (November in our calendar), led by the Bolshevik party, the workers and peasants completed their social revolution by overthrowing the conciliatory government of the bourgeoisie led by Alexander Kerensky. Lenin, who had returned to Russia from exile, saw that behind Kerensky’s government was ‘me[...]

‘Bharatratna’ Savarkar!

Though delayed, justice has finally been done to the man. After years of prevarication, the Bhartiya Janta Party has at last publicly and explicitly owned up Vinayak Damodar Savarkar as its cult figure. The BJP seeks to displace Gandhi from his position as the pre-eminent symbol of Indian nationalism and project, in his stead, Savarkar as a national hero. This is an enterprise, however, that is fraught with risk. The risk of the truth coming out in the open. In his book, Savarkar and Hindutva:[...]

बुद्धि और भावनाओं का मेल – पब्लिशिंग नेक्स्ट 2019

मैं पहली बार गोवा गई और मौक़ा था – पब्लिशिंग नेक्स्ट 2019 का। किताबों की दुनिया से वाक़िफ़ तो थी पर किताब बनाने वालों, उन्हें गढ़ने वालों को एक साथ और इतने करीब से देखने का ये पहला मौक़ा था। अलग-अलग सेश�[...]