NB: For my dear departed comrades and loved ones. You are always present in my life. Dilip To Leave Something Behind Sunset at Candolim, October 2026 I cannot say that I know you wellBut you can’t lie to me with all these books that you sellI’m not trying to follow you to the end of… Read More To Leave Something Behind
“Profit is the life blood of capitalism” by Nikolaos Chatzarakis …quando coeli movendi sunt et terra On Tuesday 6th of October, one of the greatest political economists of our time passed away. Anwar Shaikh indeed “moved heavens and earth” by offering an entirely new, highly sophisticated and deeply impacting (both scientifically and politically) vision in… Read More Obituary for Anwar Shaikh (1945-2026)
++++++++++++++++++++ The Oceanic Circle: Talk on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi’s 155th birthday ગાંધીજીનું સમુદ્રી વર્તુળ गांधी का समुद्री वर्तुल Domination and Chaos: India’s radical conservatism Treason of the Intellectuals So history didn’t end after all Julien Benda: Our age is the age of the intellectual organization of political hatreds Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann – Repetition and rupture: Reinhart Koselleck, theorist of history… Read More Gandhi Jayanti Keynote Address 2026: GenZ’s Gandhi, by Ashutosh Ranka
Mariella Mehr Source: EQUATOR Ethnic Minorities in Europe; the Yenish (Yeniche) People. Introduction by Caroline Froh In November 1998, Mariella Mehr received an honorary doctorate from the University of Basel. She opened her acceptance speech by quoting from her personal file at Hilfswerk für die Kinder der Landstrasse (“Charity for Children of the Country Road”),… Read More Stolen Children: Switzerland’s hidden persecution of the Yenish people
NB: Sumit Sarkar was one of the most remarkable and inspiring teachers I had in my university days. He was always developing his craft, exploring fresh approaches, and encouraged his students to do the same. All that a good teacher should be, he will be remembered not only for his intellectual brilliance, but also for… Read More History as craft
J. M. Coetzee, F. M. Siccardi This diptych of memoirs, set respectively in South Africa and Argentina, frontally address a subject that most in the west would prefer to forget – the legacy of colonial genocide. The novelists J.M. Coetzee and F.M. Siccardi, both products of settler societies, recount uncannily similar memories of childhood visits… Read More Dusklands: Growing up in the shadow of genocide
Sumit Sarkar, one of India’s most reputed historians of modern times, talks of breaking the mould NB: Sumit Sarkar was a stalwart of historical scholarship and a great teacher. Hundreds of students have sat in his classes and learned at his feet. I am grateful to have been one of them, in my MA days… Read More Sumit Sarkar (1939-2026): A historian muses on forty years of scholarship
We have just learned of the passing on August 9th of Mariéme Helie-Lucas, an Algerian sociologist and feminist activist committed to secularism for decades. Mariéme was certainly better known in the English-speaking world than in the French-speaking world. As a tribute, we are reproducing the post written by her friend Harsh Kapoor. My former partner,… Read More Marième / Marie-Aimée Helie-Lucas (1939-2026)
The life of the hugely influential ‘people’s historian’ is explored in a wide-ranging new book that brings in everything from wars to civil rights to Matt Damon When times got tough for Zinn: “… he was able to live through these times when he was also able to lecture in the classroom, about all sorts… Read More The incredible life of historian Howard Zinn (1922-2010)
As the far right fulminates about who ‘belongs’ in Britain, let’s remember Fritz Lustig, who arrived here in 1939, just months before war broke out. Initially jailed as an ‘enemy alien’, he played a vital role in a top-secret military intelligence unit Robin Lustig When the Nazis came to power in Germany in January 1933, Fritz Lustig,… Read More My father, the German refugee who fought the Nazis as a ‘secret listener’
