Dr. Tariq Rahman reviews Dr. Ali Raza's Revolutionary Pasts: Communist Internationalism in Colonial India, and finds a lively, brilliantly told history of Indian leftists aspiring for a just world under colonial rule
From the late 19th century, humanity began to move faster than it ever had before in history towards specialisation in various disciplines of knowledge. At the same time, we witnessed the divide between academic parlance and the common reader widening. Today, leave alone mathematical philosophy or theoretical physics, the knowledge offered by texts of literary criticism and applied sociology is becoming inaccessible to those untrained in these subjects.
The specificity of language and style in each discipline that evolved over time was perhaps necessitated by the need for seeking depth and rigorous investigation within each subject. However, that specialisation has also contributed to a compartmentalisation between branches of knowledge even at the rudimentary level.
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A SCREEN grab of the event. White Star
KARACHI: Colonial forces in India equated the communist struggle with anti-culture, anti-religion and anti-civilisation movements which harmed communist and progressive movements in the subcontinent. This was argued by Dr Ali Raza in his talk at a webinar titled ‘The Unsung Heroes: Genealogies of Progressive and Leftist Struggle against British Colonialism’ organised by the Irtiqa Institute of Social Sciences as part of its Hamza Wahid Memorial Lecture series on Monday evening.
Dr Raza, who is a historian and associate professor at LUMS, based his arguments on his book Revolutionary Pasts: Communist Internationalism in Colonial India.