Many have compared and contrasted Marx and Gandhi, in terms of their ideas and worldviews about the ways and means of overcoming the present made disenchanting by capitalism, colonialism and imperialism, as well as the future made bleamy by the…
I live outside Kerala and I maintain my connection with the home state through a couple of trips every year. While in Kerala, the most pleasant expe- rience I used to look forward to was to meet Ravindran. For the…
This is a poem dedicated to Ravindran, Chinta Ravi to those who knew him, first read on the occasion of his first death anniversary at Kozhikode, Kerala. Ravi was broadly Leftist in his political views, but also had a great…
Sunil Janah was a man who was always more than his profession, while showing great commitment to his role within it. Having lived through some tumultuous times in the development of India’s polity and the state of its fledgling nationhood,…
Revolutionary, a true daughter of India Born on 24 October 1914, Comrade Lakshmi Sahgal died on the 23 July 2012, living through the most tumultuous years of modern India. These years witnessed the national movement against colonialism, the end of…
I have had a frustrating time coming to grips with this article by two well- regarded economists.* The authors take a long time to not get to the point.They infer a problem that may be present but provide only anecdotal…
Sanjukta Das Gupta, Adivasis and the Raj: Socio-economic Transition of the Hos, 1820–1932, Orient BlackSwan, New Delhi, 2011; HB, 367 pages, Rs. 695. Hitendra Patel, Communalism and the Intelligentsia in Bihar, 1870–1930: Shaping Community and Nationhood, Orient BlackSwan, New Delhi,…
Several stalwarts of the progressive movement of the country have passed away in the last few weeks. Two outstanding women, Kitty Menon and Captain Lakshmi Sehgal, both from affluent backgrounds who declassed themselves and joined the struggle of the toiling…
This narrative goes back to almost sixty-five years in the past. I had just crossed into my twenties and prided myself as a student activist at the University of Dacca. Dacca, which is now Dhaka, was the administrative headquarters of…
Kitty Menon’s maiden name was Ketayun Boomla. She was named after a princess called Ketayun (abbreviated to ‘Kitty’). And the prosperous, highlyAnglicised, Parsi family in which she was brought up, together with her stunning good looks, made this naming after…