By Dilip Simeon NB: This is an extended reminiscence of a conversation about Ranajit Guha and the Naxalite movement. The conversation was arranged at the request of the Bangla journal Anustup; and took place between me and a History honours student at the University of Delhi. (I am obliged to Anustup for having prompted this… Read More A Political Man: Memories of Ranajit Guha
First posted August 11, 2012 Closing the Circle I look at the world and I notice it’s turningWhile my guitar gently weepsWith every mistake we must surely be learningStill my guitar gently weeps George Harrison and Ravi Shankar at the Concert for Bangladesh; August 1, 1971 Introduction I look at the world and I notice it’s… Read More Closing the Circle (Frontier, August 2012)
First posted August 14, 2017 NB: Outlook asked me to write an article on ‘the decline of idealism’, with a focus on the Left. Here is what I wrote – it has appeared under the title The Idea and its Mutant – DS Before discussing the idealism of the Left, it would be a good idea to think… Read More The decline of idealism
First posted June 27, 2012 A Hard Rain Falling by Dilip Simeon He went to bed, turned on the BBC World News and switched it off again. Half-truths. Quarter-truths. What the world really knows about itself, it doesn’t dare say: John le Carre, in Our Kind of Traitor A baleful feature of contemporary Indian politics is the subjugation… Read More A Hard Rain Falling: on the death of T. P. Chandrasekharan (EPW, June 2012)
First posted December 15, 2011 This article appeared in the India International Centre Quarterly special issue titled India and China: Neighbours, Strangers, edited by Ira Pande; 2010. Glory Daysby Dilip Simeon Many years ago, when some of us argued about the ills of the present and, more to the point, the ills of contemporary India, we… Read More Glory Days, or remembering how Indians love(d) China
First posted Tuesday, April 09, 2013 Letter from Members of the CPI (ML) See the facsimile of the original here: http://www.sacw.net/article4164.html Explanatory Note 1./ This is an open letter I wrote in December 1971, as a Naxalite cadre (among many) who experienced the political crisis accompanying the disintegration of Pakistan in 1970-71. It was anonymous, and I was the… Read More An Open Letter to the world on the Bangladesh crisis of 1971
Recollections that well up the eyes NB: This little remembrance was part of my presentation to a conference held between December 15 and 16 in Presidency University, Kolkata, to celebrate Professor Ranajit Guha’s attainment of the status of a centurion. I take no credit for it beyond that of asking my old friend and comrade… Read More Achintya Barua remembers Ranajit Guha
First posted January 19, 2019 Rabindra Ray, who taught sociology at the Delhi School of Economics till his retirement a few years ago, died on January 15, 2019. For 52 years I called him Lalloo (with two l’s). His death has led to an outpouring of memories from his friends and students. This is one… Read More Remembering Rabindra
First posted November 22, 2015 On November 6, 2015, I visited Naxalbari along with my old comrades, Rabindra Ray (Lalloo), who retired from the Delhi School of Sociology in 2013; and Achintya Barua, (Monju), proprietor of Wild Grass, a tourist resort at the wild life sanctuary in Kaziranga, Assam. Rabindra’s book, The Naxalites and their… Read More In Naxalbari, forty-eight years later
First posted May 26, 2013 By Dilip Simeon; published in Hindustan Times, 28 April 2008 The Supreme Court’s observations (March 31) regarding the armed group named ‘Salwa Judum’ affect not only the state of Chhatisgarh, where this group operates, but pose questions to major actors across the political spectrum. Admitting two public interest petitions on… Read More On the Salwa Judum (2008)
After the truth-shower 