On the evening of 20th July, Shahidul Alam communicated a dispatch from Dhaka via WhatsApp to SAAG and other media organizations, briefly getting through the internet shutdown to request that the scale of the brutal violence against student protests in Bangladesh be widely shared. Accompanying this piece was the clipped message: “Hundreds killed. It’s a massacre.” THE VERTICAL Urgent Dispatch from Dhaka I On the evening of 20th July, Shahidul Alam communicated a dispatch from Dhaka via WhatsApp to SAAG and other media organizations, briefly getting through the internet shutdown to request that the scale of the brutal violence against student protests in Bangladesh be widely shared. Accompanying this piece was the clipped message: “Hundreds killed. It’s a massacre.” VOL. 2 DISPATCH AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR In the Land of Golden Hay (paint and digital work on canvas, 2020), Dhruba Chandra Roy. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 In the Land of Golden Hay (paint and digital work on canvas, 2020), Dhruba Chandra Roy. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Dispatch Dhaka 20th Jul 2024 Dispatch Dhaka Quota Movement Fascism Student Protests Bangladesh Awami League Sheikh Hasina Police Action Police Brutality Economic Crisis 1971 Liberation of Bangladesh BTV Zonayed Saki Internet Crackdowns Internet Blackouts BSF Abu Sayeed Begum Rokeya University Abrar Fahad BUET Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology Mass Protests Mass Killings Torture Enforced Disappearances Extrajudicial Killings Chhatra League Bangladesh Courts Judiciary Clientelism Bengali Nationalism Dissent Student Movements National Curfew State Repression Surveillance Regimes Repression in Universities July Revolution Student-People's Uprising Authoritarianism Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is a dispatch from Dhaka by the renowned Bangladeshi photojournalist, educator, and civil-rights activist Shahidul Alam, sent to SAAG and other media organizations via WhatsApp on July 20th, as he briefly managed to get past the internet blackout. “Massacre going on. 100s killed. Please get the story out," Alam said tersely. Bangladesh is witnessing its largest political protests—and the deadliest state repression against political dissent—in its recent history. Since early July 2024, university students across the country have organized in opposition to a Supreme Court verdict that overturned an earlier ban on the deeply divisive policy of reservations in public-sector jobs and higher education. With the decision, Bangladesh was poised to return to a system of quotas that reserved 30 percent or more of government jobs and university admissions for descendants of the 180,000 officially registered freedom fighters, a secure constituency of the ruling Awami League, which led Bangladesh’s 1971 liberation. In response, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government has unleashed a systematic campaign of police violence against student activists, imposed a nationwide curfew, deployed the military, and initiated a near-total internet shutdown. The number of those killed and injured has escalated; at least 67 protesters were killed on July 19 alone. Alam’s note paints a picture of shocking violence over the last few days but also of a larger social crisis brewing in Sheikh Hasina’s Bangladesh. This is a world of routine torture, extrajudicial killings, social-media surveillance, gangsterization of student politics, and large-scale political corruption, all of it in rude contrast to headlines of soaring macroeconomic growth. Arrested and imprisoned for criticizing the prime minister, Alam is familiar with the state’s capacity for arbitrary violence. To preserve the urgency of his tone, the piece has been only lightly edited. —Shubhanga Pandey It would be a mistake to see this as simply a demand for more jobs. The quota movement, justified as it is, is simply the tip of the iceberg. A rampant government running roughshod over its people for so very long has led to extreme discontent. The quota issue has merely lit the fuse to this tinderbox. As citizens counted the dead and the injured, the prime minister fiddled, advising attendees at an aquaculture and seafood conference on tourism prospects in Cox’s Bazaar. The original quota had been designed shortly after independence in 1972 to be an interim arrangement to acknowledge the contribution of freedom fighters who constituted less than 0.25 percent of the population. Since a government known to be incredibly corrupt is responsible for creating the list of freedom fighters, over 50 years later, the 120-fold allocation through a 30 percent quota has become an easy backdoor for party cadres to much sought-after government employment. Confirmation came through of senior Awami Leaguers saying: “Just get through the initial screening, and we’ll get you through in the viva,” and simultaneously, that the “government jobs will only go to party people.” The resentment had resulted in protests in 2008 and 2013, but it was in 2018 that it gathered steam. When repressive measures failed to quell that unrest, the prime minister, in a moment of rage, overstepped her authority and cancelled the entire system. This had never been a demand of the protesters, who recognised the need for positive discrimination for disadvantaged communities. There are plenty of other reasons for the unrest. The price of essential goods has skyrocketed over the years, and people have their backs against the wall. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister herself publicly announces that her peon has amassed $40 million and only travels by helicopter. The peon is not the only one to travel by helicopter. Choppers were sent yesterday to rescue police trapped on a rooftop by angry protesters. 15th July 2024 It was reminiscent of 2018. The police van with water cannons and the long line of policemen standing at the Nilkhet corner on Monday made it abundantly clear that they were prepared. What were they prepared for? Certainly not the defence of unarmed students or the general public. They failed to lift a finger when the students were being attacked. The armed goons of the Chhatra League (CL, the ruling party’s student organisation) had been bussed in the previous night along with, apparently, youth gangs and leaders for hire. Their leaders had openly threatened the protesting students. CL was clearly the one the police were on standby to defend. It was CL that quota backdoors were designed to favour. As it turned out, there was little the unarmed students could do against the helmeted, armed, pro-government forces let loose. The police were content to let the mayhem continue, stepping in only when the ferocity of people’s power took the goons aback. We walked past blood and strewn sandals in the streets. People stopped us to say the injured had been taken to Dhaka Medical College Emergency Ward. CL goons took positions around the ward where some of the injured were being treated while others marched around the wards, weapons in hand, and the police conveniently stayed away. They continued to look away when CL members went inside the ward to beat up injured students. There was no need to intervene. CL was not in danger. The nation was. Democracy was. Common decency was. The public was in grave danger, but that was not their concern. The fact that the protection of the public was their primary task had never been part of the equation. Several were killed all over the country that day. “Justice will take its own course” is a common refrain of the law minister. The separation of the judiciary and the executive has never existed in Bangladesh. With this government, it has merged into one. It is used whenever the government wants to play good cop/bad cop. The court enacts government directives. The government takes credit. The blame goes to the court. The quota drama is no exception. Torture cells in public universities. Suppression of all forms of dissent. Jailing of opposition activists. The extra-judicial killings, the disappearances. India has been given huge concessions, and in return, it has helped prop up this illegal regime in many ways, all of which are causes of anger. Abrar Fahad, the bright BUET student who had critiqued Indian hegemony in social media, was bludgeoned to death on campus by party cadres. The same cadres the quotas would provide back doors for. An entire generation of Bangladeshis is growing up hating India. The Boycott India campaign is gaining steam. Hasina is getting to be a liability, even for our “friendly” neighbour. 16th July 2024 In a recent Facebook status, Abu Sayeed, the unarmed student of Begum Rokeya University whom police had pumped four rubber bullets into, had written an ode to his favourite teacher Shamsuzzoha, a chemistry teacher at Rajshahi University, who had died at the hands of the Pakistani army in 1971 while trying to save the lives of his students. “Yes, you too will die, but while you are alive, don’t be spineless. Support just causes. Come out to the streets. Be a shield for the students. It is then that you will be respected and honoured. Don’t fade away in the annals of time through your death. Stay alive forever. Stay Shamsuzzoha.” No chopper arrived, nor indeed any attempt made at rescuing the hapless student. He became Shamsuzzoha. The televised murder is an indictment of a rogue government that has long lost its right to rule. The defiant outstretched arms of the young man, a televised murder that will remain etched in public memory. His body shudders after the first bullet, yet he stands defiant. Then another bullet, and another, and yet another. All from close range. The body crouches, then crumples and folds. His outstretched arms as he had faced the police will become the Tiananmen Square moment in Bangladesh’s history. 17th July 2024 Border guards of Bangladesh, inept at protecting its citizens from becoming victims of the regular target practicing by Indian Border Security Forces, seem happy to turn their own guns towards unarmed students instead. The police were clearly lying when they claimed they had fired grenades to try and control unruly students. There were only four students at Raju Bhashkorjo. The only ones who had been able to get past the CL and police cordon. They wanted to hold a funeral for Abu Sayeed and other slain friends. When the police started shoving them away, they lay down on the ground in protest. They were surrounded by journalists. The police hurled a sound grenade which sent both the journalists and students scurrying. They then hurled further grenades at the journalists and bystanders left standing. That was when my colleague was injured. The police were the only ones conducting violence. The space was encircled by hundreds of armed police. There were armoured vehicles. Water cannon trucks and even a prison van. I wonder which country has supplied our police with the 48 mm sound grenades (NF24. NENF24BP. MFG: 2022. Bangladesh Police/ BP). The grenade was hurled directly at my colleague. It was the first time she had joined a protest. At least she got to see how brave our police force is. 18th July 2024 A group of feminists who had planned to gather at Shahbag to express solidarity with the quota protesters should not have posed a major threat. Police and government goons didn't allow them to gather, so they regrouped outside the Naripokkho office in Dhanmondi. They were attacked too. Safia Azim was injured, but did not require hospitalisation. The law minister, known for lying through his teeth, said earlier on BBC that it was the protesters who instigated the violence. Meanwhile, the state-run BTV, the National Television Station, had been set on fire. Mobile data was blocked. Things were escalating. That night Internet went down completely. Rumours spread about the military moving in, fuelled partially by sightings of a convoy of APCs in the streets. Other sightings of 15 helicopters taking off from the Prime Minister’s official residence gave fuel to the rumours that the Prime Minister was trying to make a getaway. The sound of shelling and gunfire rang throughout the night. 19th July 2024 The internet had been down, as had BTV, the national television station. Over 50 have allegedly been killed. Pro-government news outlets describe the protesting students as “miscreants.” A throwback to the term used by the Pakistani Army in 1971. There are other similarities. A flailing tyrant is lashing out to survive against an enraged public that has shaken free of its fear of a repressive regime. The attempt to disrupt the morning protest outside the Parliament Building in memory of Abu Sayeed failed. Far too many protesters had gathered. The Internet had been partially restored, but not BTV. That’s when news of attacks all across the country started pouring in. The leftist leader Zonayed Saki and other party members had been badly beaten in Purana Paltan. Police-backed vigilantes desperately tried to quell the increasingly angry protesters. A desperate government offered a deal. The court would convene on Sunday, and they were prepared to engage in dialogue. “Not over spilled blood,” the students replied. Fresh rumours emerged of the military having been given magisterial powers and asked to intervene “in aid to civil power.” Ironic. The people have spoken. The end is nigh. ∎ More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

Author Chaitali Sen in conversation with Fiction Editor Hananah Zaheer. COMMUNITY Nation-State Constraints on Identity & Intimacy Chaitali Sen Author Chaitali Sen in conversation with Fiction Editor Hananah Zaheer. I fight for a world without borders, but they're borders wrenched in reaction to colonialism, and fortified against the spread of English. It's interesting how capitalism homogenizes while making people want to put up walls. RECOMMENDED: A New Race of Men from Heaven: Stories (Sarabande, 2023) by Chaitali Sen ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Literary Solidarity Bengali Internationalist Solidarity Black Solidarities Satyajit Ray Statelessness Colonialism Language South Asian Women's Creative Collective South Asians Against Police Brutality Abner Louima Anthony Baez Literature & Liberation Diaspora Identity Community Building Post-George Floyd Moment Immigration Race & Genre Short Stories Fiction Avant-Garde Form Avant-Garde Traditions Emancipatory Politics Experimental Methods Rabindranath Tagore Mrinal Sen Separatism Tamil Separatists Punjabi Separatists Rajiv Gandhi Separatist Movements in India Indian Diaspora Syria CHAITALI SEN is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky (Europa Editions 2015) and the short story collection A New Race of Men from Heaven (Sarabande Books, January 2023) which won the Mary McCarthy Prize for Short Fiction. Her stories and essays have appeared in Boulevard , Ecotone, Shenandoah, New England Review, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, Catapult , and others. A graduate of the Hunter College MFA in Fiction, she is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice. Interview Literary Solidarity 17th Dec 2020 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

Time traveling from 1960s India to early modern Egypt with the acclaimed Urdu writer Qurratulain Hyder and her story “Roshni ki Raftaar.” INTERACTIVE Chats Ep. 4 · On Qurratulain Hyder's sci-fi story “Roshni ki Raftaar” Zuneera Shah · Nur Nasreen Ibrahim Time traveling from 1960s India to early modern Egypt with the acclaimed Urdu writer Qurratulain Hyder and her story “Roshni ki Raftaar.” A reading and discussion of the late Urdu writer Qurratulain Hyder and her short story “Roshni ki Raftaar” by editors Nur Nasreen Ibrahim and Zuneera Shah. Feat.: time travel, women in science, sci-fi traditions in Urdu compared to those in English, and much more. Must-watch: Nur and Zuneera's thoughts on the ending, speculations on whether Hyder intended for a sequel, what she might think of criticisms, how the tonal shift affects the story, and how humor functions in the story. More importantly: why do we expect or want character growth? Is there a fundamental difference with regard to character growth between the Anglophone literary tradition and the non-Anglophone one? Qurratulain Hyder is amongst the most acclaimed and influential Urdu writers of the 20th century, perhaps even the most popular alongside contemporaries like Ismat Chughtai (with whom she had a testy relationship). Best known for her magnum opus “Aag ka Durya” or “River of Fire,” Hyder was also a deeply expansive writer. Here, Nur and Zuneera discuss her use of fantasy and sci-fi framings, the manner of her world-building, and comparisons to contemporary films and TV shows in the most fun and audience-engaging SAAG Chats episode to date. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on SAAG Chats, an informal series of live events on Instagram. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Live Urdu Fiction Posthumous Qurratulain Hyder Science Fiction Time Travel Urdu Criticism Language SAAG Chats Genre Genre Tropes Speculative Fiction Fantasy Philosophical Fiction Syncretism River of Fire Roshni ki Raftaar Sahitya Akademi Genre Fluidity Difficult Reading Esoterica Time & Space Suez Canal Crisis Narrators Petty Bureaucracy Everyday Life Indian Bureaucracy Aligarh Science Characterization Ethical Standards for Fictional Characters Sci-Fi Rockets Romance Bitterness Scientist Characters Surprise Endings Gender Tonal Shifts Humor Short Story Naiyer Masud Zuneera Shah is a gender & development professional and writer based in Lahore. Nur Nasreen Ibrahim is a journalist and writer currently a Margins Fellow at the Asian American Writers Workshop, and a television producer formerly at Al-Jazeera and Patriot Act . She is based in Brooklyn. Live Urdu Fiction 30th Nov 2020 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

Bangalore-based Reliable Copy is an intentionally designed independent publishing collective reshaping the landscape of contemporary art distribution and curation in South Asia. Rooted in friendship, knowledge-building, and a redefinition of what sustainability in art book publishing looks and feels like, their practice bridges transnational modernisms to turn the ‘lull’ in visual art into a space of possibility, where language, community, and curiosity meet at their respective limits to sketch new worlds. FEATURES Beyond the Lull Pramodha Weerasekera Bangalore-based Reliable Copy is an intentionally designed independent publishing collective reshaping the landscape of contemporary art distribution and curation in South Asia. Rooted in friendship, knowledge-building, and a redefinition of what sustainability in art book publishing looks and feels like, their practice bridges transnational modernisms to turn the ‘lull’ in visual art into a space of possibility, where language, community, and curiosity meet at their respective limits to sketch new worlds. In The Significance and Relevance of Early Modern Indian Painters to the Contemporary Indian Art (1971) by Nilima Sheikh , a Fine Arts dissertation published by Reliable Copy, the artist speaks of a “lull” in terms of Modernist painting in India. She reflects on how the Modernist movement emerged out of a reckoning with Mughal artistic traditions, as well as influences from British art. In the conclusion of the dissertation, Sheikh writes: “The task of the individual painter in India is perhaps more difficult because he has to start from scratch and question the basic premises; there is no concerted movement to whose ideologies he can subscribe or even reject as the reference for his own work.” Cover page of The Significance and Relevance of Early Modern Indian Painters to the Contemporary Indian Art (1971) by Nilima Sheikh, published by Reliable Copy in 2023. Image courtesy Reliable Copy. This ‘lull’ still continues to push artistic practices in South Asia to innovate and find unique solutions in order to create meaningful and thought-provoking works. Reliable Copy, a publishing house founded and led by artist duo Nihaal Faizal and Sarasija Subramanian in 2018, is an example of an initiative that has embraced this ‘lull’ as a challenge. In 2021, while helping plan an online conference for emerging arts professionals in South Asia, I kept hearing about Nihaal and Sarasija’s work—my colleagues based in India loved them. At the time, I was working at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka in Colombo, under the guidance of art historian and curator Sharmini Pereira , aiming to start my own writing and publishing practice. At the museum, I was exposed to her immense experience in publishing and the peripheral work of building the publishing house Raking Leaves, with a predominant focus on South Asian artistic practices. When I finally met Nihaal and Sarasija, it was both a revelation and a relief to know that people of my own generation were passionate about independent publishing just like I was and were excited to share more with me. Independent publishing, such as Reliable Copy’s practice, transcends one-off zines and DIY publication models, as well as the nefarious art-world entity of the biographical coffee-table book that is merely aesthetically pleasing. Reliable Copy’s practice prioritises substance, critical thinking, knowledge-building, deliberation, and intentional decision-making. They are currently engaged in two main publication series. The Fine Art(s) Dissertation Series highlights (un)published dissertations from the prominent Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda as a pedagogical tool. The Wiggle Room is a playful take on contemporary art from an international standpoint, bringing together artistic practices that aim for freedom or seek to “wiggle” out of conventionalities. A common thread emerges in how they have positioned one book after another since 2018. “As the publishing practice has evolved, we have been attempting more and more to play the role of positioning the artist, the book, and their contexts,” says Sarasija. This essay unveils different ways in which I have encountered this common thread in Reliable Copy’s work during my years as a fellow dreamer of an independent publishing practice. The Surroundings of the Practice At my first meeting with Nihaal and Sarasija, I was surrounded by a host of books on a busy, traffic-filled day in Bangalore. Our meeting exposed me to the extensive labour that goes into the publication of a book. Each book’s design identity, layout, paper, fonts, and printing technology had been well thought through. I was gifted several books published by them, including Mochu’s Nervous Fossils – Syndromes of the Synthetic Nether , The 1Shanthiroad Cookbook , edited by Suresh Jayaram, and Sculptor’s Notebook by Pushpamala N. Nihaal; Sarasija said they wanted the books to travel far. Flexing Muscles (2019) by Ravikumar Kashi caught my attention due to the artist’s detailed treatment of flex banners in Bangalore. The book includes an essay in both Kannada and English, accompanied by photographs. Kashi’s in-depth artistic analysis, of a subject that I had encountered yet ignored during my visits to Bangalore, was a unique way to re-experience that city from my desk in Colombo. Mochu’s book was of a completely different tenor yet felt similar—the artist’s rich imaginarium was salient in the big blue typography, almost-dystopian imagery, and the bright yellow cover. Despite a personal aversion to speculative theory and related fiction, I held onto this book as a reminder to myself of what books can do to their readers: intrigue, move, tell stories, and impart new knowledge and perspectives. In December 2023, I, too, took a leap and published a book with three artists. Sarasija spent hours with me, the designer, and one of the artists to ensure consistency in terms of colours, fonts, paper, and printing options in India (the book was to be mainly distributed in Delhi). This level of friendship-building and support is rare, at least in the phase of the career I am in, as a writer trying to be independent. When they recently sent me a copy of the newly minted publication Supporting Role by Jason Hirata from the Wiggle Room series, I realised that for Reliable Copy, friendship is the core. They began the series in 2023 with the publication High Entertainment by David Robbins, an artist they had developed a strong connection with during their At The Kitchen Table exhibition in 2021. Hirata’s Supporting Role has emerged from the same premise, extending a close relationship with another artist who was present in At The Kitchen Table . The Wiggle Room series’ conceptualisation is immersed in the contemporary and the emerging. Each publication interrogates the meaning of “art,” particularly in relation to contemporary technologies, digital platforms, and the artist’s evolving role within broader socio-cultural and economic structures. Art is never for art’s sake. Cover page of Sculptor’s Notebook (1985) by Pushpamala N, published by Reliable Copy in 2022. Image courtesy Reliable Copy. Beyond the Limits of Language Supporting Role’ s editor’s note refers to Marcel Duchamp ’s thinking about aesthetics, language, and fine art: “What [Duchamp] makes abundantly clear is that language serves a purpose, is essential and inevitable, but that it also comes with certain limits. Sometimes as soon as one’s language is carefully delineated, it starts to impose itself, it becomes an obstacle.” Duchamp, as an art historical example, helps contextualise Hirata’s practice as presented in the book. The book is an extension of Duchamp’s idea, which continues to hold true for most linguistic endeavours. While we encounter many labels and descriptors of visual artworks, the publication never presents what might be considered a conventionally ‘visual’ artwork. We do encounter two works by him: A Storied Past (Il sogno di una cosa) (2022) and the series Grave Fatura (2023–24), but they are not conventional paintings, prints, photographs, or sculptures. The book is composed of an edited selection of texts developed by Hirata to accompany his artworks: labels for the wall, invitations to exhibitions, essays, scripts, press releases, checklists, invoices, curricula vitae, and other paraphernalia he has preserved while working in contemporary art production and display in Berlin. These roles—often performed by those around the artist, such as partners, friends, and family—are frequently overlooked. Hirata’s book documents these contributions across his career, mainly through language-based materials. They are primarily text-based artworks with two qualities innate to books—mobility and reproducibility on paper—enabling sustained engagement beyond the confines of a white cube space. While Duchamp’s critique of language remains relevant to Hirata and the visual arts today, Nihaal and Sarasija push language to its limits. Many of us, myself included, forget its role in and around contemporary art. Though we may begin with the intention to explain and contextualise, the specialised vocabulary often alienates unfamiliar audiences. Supporting Role invites us to see language not as a mere support, but as an artwork in itself. Before Wiggle Room , Reliable Copy had already facilitated unexpected transitions through time and space with language and ephemera surrounding artmaking. Their curatorial project at the kitchen table , first exhibited in 2021 at 1Shanthiroad Studio/Gallery in Bangalore, travelled to the Ark Foundation for the Arts in Baroda in 2023–24. The project considers how publishing practices could inform exhibition-making and curatorial processes. “Through this introduction of artworks as records and documents—as secondary material—and together with cookbooks and videos, at the kitchen table spills its premise across the exhibition and its documentation, the library and the gallery, and the event and its eventual publication,” the catalogue states. The display explored food, with particular attention to the channels and platforms through which food travels, inscribed with material, trace, memory, and cultural politics. It included cookbooks, menus, anthologies of recipes from literary fiction, family archives of ‘secret’ recipes, historical records, and visual and textual references to the feasts held for occasions such as birthdays, funerals, or festivals. The moving image works were particularly compelling, with some questioning, mimicking, or parodying the performative format of instructional cooking shows. Carolyn Lazard’s A Recipe for Disaster (2018) incorporates footage from Julia Child’s The French Chef (1972), which used open captions and images for the deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences. Reflecting on this in the twenty-first century, Lazard foregrounds accessibility as a necessary aspect of social infrastructure, especially in mainstream media. The Community of the Practice During my visit to Bangalore in July 2024, Reliable Copy had just moved into a new studio. We were in the midst of a long-planned book exchange between Reliable Copy, Raking Leaves, Mumbai-based Editions JoJo, and myself. Nihaal, Sarasija, and I spoke at length about how independent publishing had evolved for Reliable Copy after their residency at Amant Art and their debut at Printed Matter’s Art Book Fair in New York earlier that year. This is when I began to consider Reliable Copy as a curatorial practice that exceeded the scope of independent publishing. By their fourteenth publication in late 2024, their carefully chosen collaborations had culminated in a new focus: actively strategising how to disseminate their books or how, as artists might say, to put the work “out there.” Nihaal spoke animatedly about a new project they had initiated: Total Runtime , a curated moving image programme that activates Reliable Copy’s publications. Featuring moving image works by artists previously published by the press, Total Runtime is mobile, flexible, and an answer to the ‘lull’. Its first iteration in New York brought together nine films, two book trailers, seven artists, and one publishing house. The participating artists included BV Suresh, David Robbins, Kiran Subbaiah , Mariam Suhail, Mario Santanilla , Mochu, and Pushpamala N. The next iteration, at Miss Read: The Berlin Art Book Fair, showcased films by David Robbins and Jason Hirata, celebrating the latter’s new publication Supporting Role with Reliable Copy. In late 2023, they also launched Press Works, their own distribution platform, making publications by renowned international independent art book publishers accessible to local audiences. These included Primary Information and New Documents (United States), Kayfa-ta (Gulf), kyklàda.press (Aegean archipelago), Editions JoJo (India), and numerous self-published titles. The curation of this platform is deliberate and thoughtful, drawing on a network of publishers they regard as models of interest. Participation in international art book fairs continues to expand their network and deepen engagement with the global independent publishing community. Each trip to a fair introduces Reliable Copy to new publishers and, in turn, allows them to introduce readers like myself to these practices. Guided by their own interests as readers, Nihaal and Sarasija explore the wider practices behind the books and aim to offer Indian audiences not just individual titles but an understanding of broader publishing patterns. A notable example of this curatorial pattern is the Los Angeles-based New Documents , recommended to me by Sarasija. The Halifax Conference (2019) presents a transcript of a 1970 conference held at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, capturing a cacophony of voices and opinions typical of such events. Intrigued by this, I was particularly drawn to New Forms of Art and Contagious Mental Illness (2023), a collection of transcripts and pamphlets by medical scientist Carl Julius Salomonsen , who argued in 1919–20 that Modernist art constituted a kind of “contagious mental illness.” The book offers a fascinating view of Modernism as something misunderstood, even pathological, in its own time. Its format, resembling a legal document, evoked, for me, a history of ownership and transmission. Until then, my knowledge of modernism had been shaped largely by the Sri Lankan context, due to my museum work on Sri Lankan modern and contemporary art. This book allowed me to see how Europe perceived the movement as it unfolded: not from a scholarly perspective, but through the lens of a medical professional. It felt as though Nihaal and Sarasija had noted my interest in modernist art and fed it back to me through their recommendations, often sent via WhatsApp or email, regardless of distance. These messages and emails lead me to one of the most enduring aspects of Reliable Copy: its ethic of community and friendship. Jason Hirata and Sarasija Subramanian with Marcel Duchamp's The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (1915–1923) at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia. Photograph by Nihaal Faizal. Image courtesy Reliable Copy. Friendship and Publishing I first met Nihaal and Sarasija in Bangalore, during a conference organised almost serendipitously by a mutual friend. Although we have never shared a formal panel as colleagues, I have attended nearly every talk the duo has given, not out of professional obligation, but out of friendship. I have always approached their practice not as a peer, but as a friend and fellow dreamer. At a particularly difficult moment, I wrote them a long, disillusioned email, venting about the challenges of starting my own publishing practice. I spoke of the scarcity of funding and the exhaustion that comes with trying to be creative in an industry already strained by lack, especially in South Asia. Their response was generous and clear-eyed. We discussed pragmatic paths forward, and their questions led me to reconsider what sustainability might truly mean—for work, and for myself. What they offered was not false assurance, but something more lasting: the reminder that while financial stability may always remain elusive, what must persist is commitment—uncompromising, careful, and rooted in a sense of purpose. At the time, I was still grappling with what exactly my priorities were as an independent writer and curator (I still am). They reminded me that patience was not a waiting room, but a form of practice. “Once the light comes on,” they said, “you will not be able to turn it off.” Community is the spine of independent art book publishing, as Nihaal and Sarasija have told me, and as I have come to understand it myself. This community is made up of artists willing to experiment with form and failure, designers who treat legibility and beauty as twin priorities, distributors who care as much about access as they do about profit margins, and a readership that reads not out of habit but out of care. Sustainability, then, cannot be reduced to financial viability alone. It rests on the presence of a community that cares enough to read, respond, and stay. Sarasija and Nihaal have observed a growing interest in the Indian market among international publishers, mainly because there are no dedicated art bookshops or art book fairs in South Asia, and no traditional infrastructure for these books to circulate. My siblings and friends who attend such fairs in the global North have noticed this firsthand. My sister’s visit to Forma’s Art Book Fair in London resulted in a video call from the fair and a parcel of discounted books mailed to me in Sri Lanka. Similarly, for Nihaal and Sarasija, there is a community of publishers that reduces their prices for the Indian market, allowing their books to circulate more widely. There is, for Reliable Copy, a network of publishers who lower their prices for Indian readers; not as charity, but as a gesture of circulation. This atmosphere, shaped by generosity rather than competition, stands in stark contrast to the saturated and often exclusionary contemporary art market. Independent publishing here is marked by specificity and thematic intention. People are not just selling books, but also exchanging ideas, paying attention, and bringing each other’s work home. For Nihaal and Sarasija, the warmth of printed matter is not abstract. It is embedded in the everyday ethic of this community. I remain hopeful about art book publishing, not only as an industry but as a practice shaped by care. My engagement with Reliable Copy has deepened my conviction. The so-called lull of independent publishing is passing. A new generation is ready to learn from it, and to begin again, as every serious artistic movement once did.∎ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Mukhtar Kazi, Untitled (2025). Part of The Sea and the Sahel series. Acrylic on raw linen. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Essay Bangalore Reliable Copy Art History Art Institutions Contemporary Art Publishing Design Visual Art Installation Book Publishing Curiosity Language Community Nilima Sheikh Fine Arts Modernist Painting India Mughal British South Asia Nihaal Faizal Sarasija Subramanian Lull Sri Lanka Colombo Curation Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sharmini Pereira Publishing House Raking Leaves Independent Publishing Zines DIY Dissertation Education Knowledge Pedagogy Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda Art practice Suresh Jayaram Pushpamala N. Nihaal Ravikumar Kashi Kannada Mochu Color Theory Jason Hirata David Robbins Marcel Duchamp Aesthetics Production Friendship PRAMODHA WEERASEKERA is an art writer and curator based in Sri Lanka. She writes regularly about feminist artistic practices and occasionally about art books from South Asia. Her writing has appeared in e-flux , Art Review, Hyperallergic , BOMB , and several exhibition publications. Her curatorial projects have been presented at the Khoj International Artists Association in New Delhi, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Sri Lanka, and the Ceylon Literary and Arts Festival in Colombo. She is the Assistant Curator of Edition 9 of Colomboscope. Essay Bangalore 2nd May 2025 MUKHTAR KAZI is a self-taught artist based in Thane, Maharashtra. His work engages light through abstract forms. His work The Sea and the Sahel was exhibited with Stranger’s House Gallery at the 15th edition of the Dakar Biennale, or Dak’Art - Biennale de l’Art Africain Contemporain, in Senegal. On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

Where do radical movements stand in the US? In December 2020, Kshama Sawant and Nikil Saval took stock of the response to the COVID-19 crisis at the federal, state, and city levels and discussed the many failures of two-party politics. But the movements for housing, defunding the police, and taxing corporations in Seattle & Philadelphia are also deploying innovative and unprecedented organizing strategies, most obviously at the local level, that have ramifications for movements across the country. INTERACTIVE FLUX · Kshama Sawant & Nikil Saval on US Left Electoralism & COVID-19 Nikil Saval · Kshama Sawant Where do radical movements stand in the US? In December 2020, Kshama Sawant and Nikil Saval took stock of the response to the COVID-19 crisis at the federal, state, and city levels and discussed the many failures of two-party politics. But the movements for housing, defunding the police, and taxing corporations in Seattle & Philadelphia are also deploying innovative and unprecedented organizing strategies, most obviously at the local level, that have ramifications for movements across the country. FLUX: An Evening in Dissent FLUX was held at a peculiar time. In December 2020, there was both during a raging pandemic and following exciting victories by progressive candidates in state elections in the US, including Nikil Saval, former co-editor of n+1 , to PA State Senate. Tisya Mavuram and Kamil Ahsan convened with Sen. Nikil Saval and longtime socialist Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant to talk about the future of left politics, relations with the Democratic Party, and the pandemic. In Philadelphia, on the actual city budget level, the [Defund the police] movement's ability to win the cuts it demanded did not succeed, as it didn't in many other cities. But what did happen, it is important to highlight, was a protest encampment of the unhoused on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway which is very near to the Art Museum, a symbolic institution of the city. It's one of the richest and most subsidized areas of the city. It's rich because it has been made to be rich. So to have this encampment protesting for housing was a physical challenge to the housing in the city, including the shelter system, which is in shambles. Despite attempts by elected officials, the encampments were able to secure the transfer of city-owned property to a community land trust. This was unprecedented in Philadelphia history. It doesn't meet the actual need, but it begins to pioneer how movements can work with officials on the left in city government, coming from an abolitionist impulse. Tarfia Faizullah: Poetry Reading Jaishri Abichandani's Art Studio Tour Natasha Noorani's Live Performance of "Choro" Bhavik Lathia & Jaya Sundaresh: A panel on the US Left & its relationship with media in the wake of Bernie Sanders' loss. Rajiv Mohabir: Poetry Reading SAAG, So Far: A Panel with the Editors DJ Kiran: A Celebratory Set ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the event in full in on IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Event Panel COVID-19 Recall Efforts Democratic Party Progressive Politics Electoral Politics Accommodationism Bernie Sanders Socialist Alternative State Senate Local Politics Local vs. National Politics Washington Pennsylvania City Council Races State Senate Races Centrism Right-Wing Assault Amazon Gentrification Criminal Negligence Fighting the Two-Party System Migrant Workers Stimulus Package Legitimacy of the Capitalist System Demographics The Guise of Bipartisanship Capitalist Class Reactionary Democratic Elites Nancy Pelosi Chuck Schumer Insider Negotiation Standards of Living Minimum Wage Democratic Establishment Post-George Floyd Moment George Floyd Anti-Racism Mass Protests Amazon Tax Corporation Taxation Labor Movement Racial Justice Tax Cuts for the Rich Primarying Centrist Democrats Defund the Police Abolitionism Minneapolis Police Departments Mayoralties Pledges to Defund Police Career Politicians Budget Votes Movement Organization Movement Strategy Seattle Activist Politics Black Lives Matter Democratic Socialists of America Ballot Initiative Housing Municipal Politics Shelter System Encampments of the Unhoused Negotiating Directly with Philadelphia City City-Owned Properties Land Trusts Leftist Media Magazine Culture n+1 Hospitality Workers Growth of Left Media FLUX Philadelphia Seattle City Councils Labor SENATOR NIKIL SAVAL is a father, husband, writer, and organizer. Saval’s organizing is deeply rooted in the labor movement. From 2009 to 2013, he was a volunteer labor organizer with UNITE HERE. In 2016, he was a leader in U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign. He went on to co-found Reclaim Philadelphia, in 2018, he was elected as Leader of Philadelphia’s Democratic Second Ward. Saval was the first Asian American to hold the position of Ward Leader in Philadelphia. He previously served as co-editor of the literary journal n+1 and still serves on its board of directors. He has been a frequent contributor to the New York Times and a contributing writer for The New Yorker , covering architecture, design, and housing. His is the author of Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace (2014). KSHAMA SAWANT is a socialist activist, organizer, a member of Socialist Alternative, in solidarity with the Committee for a Workers' International. A visible presence in the Occupy Movement, and American Federation of Teachers Local 1789. She has been in office since 2014 when she was elected to the Seattle City Council on a platform of a $15/hr minimum wage, rent control and taxing the super-rich to fund mass transit and education. In 2014, she became the first socialist elected in a major US city in decades. Event Panel 5th Dec 2020 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

"There was no one else in the four-berth compartment. I was comfortable. Somewhere near the Andhra-Orissa border I woke up and found everything dark. The train wasn’t moving either. Pitch dark. You couldn’t see anything out of the window." FICTION & POETRY Two Stories Nabarun Bhattacharya "There was no one else in the four-berth compartment. I was comfortable. Somewhere near the Andhra-Orissa border I woke up and found everything dark. The train wasn’t moving either. Pitch dark. You couldn’t see anything out of the window." Translated from the Bengali by Arunava Sinha Cold Fire I WILL bring you the brochure and some other reading material. But if you simply watch this video, it’s about ten minutes long, it’ll be clear once you’ve watched the whole thing… this model of Akai VCR that you’ve got is my favourite too. This is the one we normally use at work. Yes, coffee, please… I was up very late last night… a new kind of elevated furnace is being used in village crematoriums these days, primarily through NGOs… the body’s put on a slightly raised surface like a stretcher and then placed on the iron furnace along with the wood… the ash that gathers beneath is a sort of bonus. People collect that stuff… I’ve seen it happen in Labhpur, close to Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay’s home. They offer training in Gujarat on this sort of thing. The concept is fine up to the village level. I’m switching on the VCR then sir. Some snow on the screen to begin with. Then the name—‘Cold Fire… which you have been waiting for. You had to wait eighty-four years for the fall of Communism. And in just six years you’re getting Cold Fire, whose elegance, whose exclusive company, only you or others like you deserve.’ Mr. K.C. Sarkar, owner of three tea estates, watched Cold Fire at work. Dressed in a dhoti and kurta, with sandalwood marks on the forehead, the body was laid on a coffin-like box. The lids opened, drawing the body in. The lids closed. The digital lights glowed. ‘Ten minutes later.’ The lights had been red all this while. Now the blue lights glowed instead. At the bottom, near the feet, a door opened, and two gleaming urns emerged. One was labelled ‘Ashes’, and the other, ‘Navel’. The lids opened. There was nothing inside. It was just like before. Polished, spick-and-span. Nagarwalla had told Mr. Sarkar about it at the club last evening. - I’m sending a young man to you tomorrow, KC. Fascinating! I’ve gone and booked it for myself. A lethal name too—Cold Fire! - I tried a vodka from Czechoslovakia once. Back in the Communist era—now of course the Czechs and Slovaks are different nations. That vodka was named Liquid Fire. Is this some kind of new liquor? - No sir. This is the ultimate spirit—it’ll make you a spirit. - Send him to me then. - I’ve ordered some chilled beer. Would you like some? - Beer after sundown? He was a pretty bright young man. His cologned cheek was permanently dimpled in an engaging smile. - How did you people come up with such a novel product? What prompted you? He began to stir a spoonful of sugar into his coffee. - I’ll explain, sir. Look, in the post-Communist world, the difference between the upper and the lower strata of society has taken on an absurd dimension. Every aspect of life—be it education, be it childbirth, be it transport—is different for them. For instance, if an affluent senior citizen like you needed to go on a vacation today, if you wanted to go to a coastal resort, your choice, even if you wanted to go somewhere close by, would be the Maldives or Seychelles, not Puri or Digha. If you have a vision problem, obviously Geneva would be preferable. But this form of existence that you enjoy, this free, superior, and magnificent lifestyle, is completely inconsistent with your funeral. For that, it’ll be the same filthy crematorium that everyone else goes to—Keoratala or Nimtala or Kashi Mitra or Siriti… horror of horrors! Have you had to visit a crematorium recently, sir? - Not exactly recently. Last year, when my father-in-law’s brother… - If you were to go now, you’d find it even more horrifying. For example, we have to visit the crematorium quite often on official work. Just the other day, about a week ago, what a horrible sight we saw at Keoratala. Three furnaces blazing. The area where they burn the bodies on wooden pyres had no corpses. A gang of criminals drinking and smoking grass. Meanwhile, six bodies were waiting upstairs for the furnaces. Four more downstairs, outside. And on top of all this, it was raining off and on. A hoard of ruffians with each of the bodies. You can’t imagine. - Practically hell, you’re saying. - I haven’t seen hell, sir. But I can’t imagine anything more hellish. One of the bodies was of a drowned man—decomposed. One was a BSF jawan shot dead by the ULFA. The rest were all old men and women from slums or lower-middle class homes, one was middle-aged, seemed to be a political goon, a group of people were shouting those typical Communist slogans, and in the middle of all this—chanting priests, all the paraphernalia of cremation, flowers—a couple of yards away the cot, mattress and quilts blazing—a bunch of urchins on the prowl, dogs, drunks, people weeping, body fluids oozing out from corpses, incense, prayers… - Oh my god, even your description is making me queasy. - Naturally. But whatever you may say, whether you book a Cold Fire or not, that’s your decision, I cannot imagine you amidst all this. Excuse me sir, I’m probably getting a little emotional… - Oh no, you are absolutely right. Since everything in my life is exclusive, why shouldn’t my funeral be that way too? If this frail body must burn just once, let it burn in style, don’t you think? Moreover, this can’t be thought of as a mere gadget. It’s a family asset if you come to think of it. - Right sir. People can buy Cold Fire for business reasons too. The very concept of cremation and funerals will change. - Have you read the Gita? - Yes sir, we had to take special training on thanatology. We had to read the Gita and the Tibetan Book of the Dead as part of theory. May I say something, sir? - Of course you may. Go ahead. - Do you believe in rebirth, sir? - I don’t exactly know, but this Cold Fire makes me think redeath might be a better idea. - This observation of yours is very philosophical, sir. Should I book one for you then, sir? - Of course. Wait, let me get my cheque-book. I think I can get hold of at least half a dozen other clients for you. - Thank you sir. I don’t have words for my gratitude. A large vehicle delivered Cold Fire to Mr. Sarkar’s residence the very next day. Family, friends, and relatives all showed up to take a look. It was certainly something to marvel at. Just that Mr. Sarkar’s ancient gardener and servant quit their jobs. The rare feat of being the first person in Calcutta to be cremated by Cold Fire was achieved by the famous gynaecologist Chandramadhab aka Chandu Chatterjee. Just the previous night he had hosted a lavish party at the Taj Bengal to celebrate his grandson’s first birthday. Scotch had flowed like water. The very next day stunned and grieving friends watched as Cold Fire was switched on at precisely eleven o’ clock in the morning, and the blue lights glowed at ten past eleven. The door near the feet opened and two gleaming urns emerged. One containing the ashes. The other, the navel. The whole thing was captured on video. Two hundred and thirty units of Cold Fire have been sold in Calcutta so far. ∎ The Gift of Death SOME people’s lives are so dreary that in the process of putting up with the tedium they don’t even realise when they just die. When you think about it, they seem to be under a cloud of doubt even after death. In that respect, few people are born as lucky as me. Whenever I get fed up of things, something inevitably happens to revive my spirits. But you can’t say this to too many people. Friends and relations all assume I’m grinding out an existence just like them. Hand-to-mouth. Brainless sheep, the whole lot. But then it’s best for them to think this way. Else they’ll be jealous. They’ll look at me strangely. I don’t know how to cope with envy. I’m afraid of the evil eye too. Good and evil—that’s what makes the world go round. The first thing I have going for me is my amazing contact with lunatics at regular intervals. Chance or fate, it just happens. An example or two will help me explain without creating problems on the business side. But it’s best not to tell the psychiatrist my wife took me to. Suppose she changes my pills? Just the other day this man—gaunt, half-dead, looks like one of those people who can fly—got hold of me. Had two terrific schemes, he said. He’d sent the details to every world leader. Two of them had replied so far. Both Thatcher and Gorbachev had praised his ideas. He’d be talking to both of them soon. He was flying out next month. I sat down to hear of his schemes. The first one was to build a projection jutting out from the balcony of every apartment in all the high-rise buildings coming up these days. Something like a diving board at a swimming pool. He would make a couple of prototypes to begin with. Once the government had approved enthusiastically, it would be added to the building plan, without having to be added on later. Apparently it was essential for people to have such high spots nowadays to stand or sit on. Without railings, not very large. It was for those who wanted to be by themselves. People were chased by thousands of things these days. He was being chased by the chief minister, by scientists, by the prime minister. The police commissioner too. Also by the Special Branch, the Criminal Investigations Department, and the Research & Analysis Wing. That was when the plan struck him. A slice of space—but outside the building. Speaking for myself, the idea appealed to me too. Entirely possible. But because I lived in a single-storied house inherited from my father, I didn’t give it too much thought. His second scheme was not exactly a plan—it was more of an adventurous proposal or proposition, though it was closely connected to the first scheme. He would stand as well as walk on the wings of a mid-air aircraft. He wanted to demonstrate this practically. Today’s youth would regain their courage if they saw him. The youth needed dreams, for the alternatives were drugs, cinema, and HIV. He wanted to perform this feat on an Indian Air Force plane. He had written it all down in detail. There were diagrams too. All of it gathered in a thin plastic folder. He kept these documents in a file tied up with a string. He wanted to know if I could help him with the second idea in. Whether I knew an Air Marshal, for instance. When I said I wouldn’t be able to help him, he requested me to pay for a cup of tea and a cigarette at least. I did. I have met several such insane people, in different shapes and sizes and with different behaviours. I have seen people who have gone mad with sudden grief. I’ve encountered not a few suicides too. Before killing themselves, some people develop a half-mad detachment. I’ve come across such people too. But then I’ve also run into not one but two cases where there wasn’t a whiff of insanity. Both of them used to spend time with mystics. One of them used to go to Tarapith, that den of mystics, every Sunday. The other was embroiled deeply in office politics. Both hanged themselves. All of these incidents are true. The age of making stories up has ended—why should people believe me, and why should I bother to make them up, either? Some of the lunatics and suicides I’ve seen were tragedies of love. But this isn’t the time for stories about women. Although the first person whom I told the story that I have eventually decided to recount here was my wife. A woman, in other words. And this was what led to all the quarrels and demands. For what? That I must see a psychiatrist. I was an able-bodied man—why should I abandon the business I ran and go see a doctor for the insane? She paid no attention. Her brothers came. Collectively they forced me to see a woman psychiatrist. What an enormous fuss they made. But it turned out to be a good idea. Very pretty. Western looks. And matching conversation. Very cordial. I liked her so much that I told her the story too. For years altogether now I’ve been taking the tiny white pills she gave me, thrice a day. Sometimes I take a blue one too. It gets wearisome. I get annoyed. But I like the woman so much that I can’t help trusting her. I try to tell myself that I’ve recovered from an illness. Not that I’m ill. The story that all this preamble leads up to is not about lunatics or suicides, however. In fact, it’s been three whole years. I was returning home by train from Madras. I have to travel indiscriminately on business. To save money I travel second class on the way out, but on the way back I give in to my longing for luxury and inevitably buy a first-class ticket. There was no one else in the four-berth compartment. I was comfortable. Somewhere near the Andhra-Orissa border I woke up and found everything dark. The train wasn’t moving either. Pitch dark. You couldn’t see anything out of the window. Once my eyes had adjusted to the darkness I realised that the train was standing at a small station somewhere. A deep indigo night sky. Hints of low black hills. A few lonely stars. People moving about. The glow of torches. Getting off the train, I heard that a goods train had been in an accident. It would have to be moved and the line, repaired. Only then would our train resume its journey. Almost without warning, the lights came back on. I went back to my compartment. At once I discovered that someone else had entered in the darkness. The man was—not probably, but almost certainly—not a South Indian. His appearance and way of talking made that obvious. In his forties. Fair, well-dressed, handsome. Slightly greying hair. His fine shirt and trousers, gleaming shoes and the tie around his neck gave him the appearance of a successful salesman of a multinational company. I wasn’t entirely wrong, but I still don’t know the name of the company or how big it was. So big that it was almost mysterious and obscure. After some small talk both of us lit our cigarettes. He was the one to offer his expensive cigarettes. When I asked him whether he wouldn’t mind a little whiskey, he said he didn’t drink. So I drank by myself. There was no sign of the train leaving. Neither of us spoke for a while. Almost startling me, the man suddenly said: Keep this business card of ours. Might come in useful. The card was black, made of some kind of paper with the feel of velvet. On it, an address in an unsettling shade of bright yellow. Nothing else. A Waltair address. Nothing else on either side of the card. Neither the name of a company, nor a phone number. - That’s not our actual address, mind you. You have to take a roundabout route to reach us. But when you write to us add your address with all details. Our people will certainly get in touch with you. It may take a little time. But they will definitely meet you. - What exactly is this business of yours? Seems to be some sort of secret, illegal affair... But then you’ve got business cards too—strange! - Look, our company doesn’t have a name. No name. We help people die—you could say we gift them death. Of course, it isn’t legal, but... - You mean you murder them. - Absolutely not! Murder! How awful, we aren’t killers. It will be done with your full consent. Different kinds of death, in different ways. You will choose your method, and pay accordingly. You want to die like a king? We can do it for you. We will fulfil whatever death wish you might have, no matter how unusual. You’ll get exactly what you want, just the way you want it. But yes, you have to pay. I had a long conversation with the man thereafter. I’m recounting as much of it as I can recollect. As much of the strangeness as actually penetrated my whiskey-soaked brain in the anonymous darkness of the station. As much as I’ve been able to retain three years later. His position was that, for a variety of reasons, each of us harbours a unique death wish within ourselves. That is to say, a pet notion—and desire—of how we’d like to die. Like a romantic, someone might want to leap from a mountain into a bottomless ravine on a cold, misty evening. Others want their bodies to be riddled by bullets. Yet others, to be charred to death in a fire. Someone else wants poison in their bloodstream, so they they begin with a slight warm daze and bow out as cold as ice. Some want to be conscious at the moment of death, while others prefer to be halfway to oblivion. One person wants to be strangled to death. Another is keen on being stabbed. Some people wish for death in a holy place, the sound of sacred chants ringing in their ears. But wishing doesn’t guarantee fulfilment. No matter what, the majority of deaths are uninteresting, drab, and dull. This company meets the demand for such deaths, fulfilling its clients’ death wishes. I remember some parts of the salesman’s pitch verbatim. - There’s a theoretical side to this too. Our R&D is extremely strong. You’ll find non-stop research underway, not only on the practical side of death, but also on other aspects, covering data from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Thanatos Syndrome, Indian thoughts on death, Abhedananda, and Jiddu Krishnamoorthy to the latest forms of murder, suicide and clinical death. Forget about India, no one in the world is engaged in this sort of business. It wouldn’t even occur to anyone. We’ve been told of a few small-scale attempts in Japan, but this isn’t a matter of automobiles or electronics, after all. They may have their Toyota and Mitsubishi, but those poor fellows still can’t think beyond hara-kiri. All those bamboo or steel knives—so primitive. Not at all enterprising. Incidentally, do you know which country has the most suicides in the world? - Must be us. - No sir, it’s Hungary. Magyars are incredibly suicide-prone. They offered access to all kinds of death. They would fulfill even the most intricate and virtually impossible proposals. A man from Delhi had always imagined dying when his jeep skidded on an icy mountain road. It was organised. If you wanted to die of a specific disease, their medical team would check on its feasibility. But they would not engineer someone else’s death on your request. You could only arrange for your own death through their services. I learnt a great deal from the conversation. Apparently, many people lived such bewildered lives that even though they had a vague idea of how they’d like to die, they could not express it clearly. The company had a choice of pre-set programmes for such clients. The most regal of these was the ‘record player’. A gigantic record player was set in the ocean at a distance. A huge black disc was set in it, the disc of death, turning at thirty-three and one third revolutions per minute. The record player was placed on a rig similar to an offshore oil-drilling platform. You had to get there on a speedboat. The fortunate man desiring death was made to sit on a chair over the spoke, shaped like a bullet or a lipstick, reaching upwards through the hole at the centre of the record. The record-player played an impossibly tragic melody—Western or Indian. ’s Aisle of Death, or the wistful strains of a sarengi, as you wished. Several thousand watts of sound enveloped the client in a trance. Revolving on the surface of the ocean along with the record, he was also transported to a place beyond the real and the unreal. When the music ended, the stylus entered the glittering space in the middle of the record with the sound of a storm, striking the man a mighty blow that ensured his death even before his body hit the water. His head was either torn off his body or pulverised. As soon as the corpse fell into the sea, hundreds of sharks swam up at the scent of blood. This was a very expensive affair. Very few people could afford it. Till date, not more than two or three people had heard the symphony of death. - Who are they? - Excuse me, but clients are more important to us than even god. We cannot possibly divulge their identities. Although we are practically friends now, you and I. Do you remember how Mr. ____ died? You should. - How could I not remember. Such a horrible plane crash! - It was a plane crash all right, but that was what he wanted. - But what about the other passengers? Surely they didn’t want it. - Sorry. It’s prohibitively expensive. Because there are other victims. - But they were innocent. - Innocent! My foot! In any case, there’s nothing we can do about it. None of them told us to kill them. But if they insist on taking the same flight, what are we supposed to do? Moreover, this was his choice. Yes, choice. We made all the arrangements to fulfil his request, using the money he paid us. - But. Why did he do this? - He had got rid of Mr. ____ the same way. Not through us, of course. Lots of innocent people had died on that occasion too. So he wanted a similar death. - How many more such cases have you handled? - Numerous. But why should we tell you about all of them? Can all such cases be talked about? Should they even be talked about? We offer many services. We sell suicide projects, for instance. Not as expensive. Lots more. Let me just tell you this, all the famous people who have died recently—from the Bombay mafia leader being gunned down to the Calcutta film star who committed suicide with the phone in his hand and forty sleeping pills in his stomach—it was all our doing. And then there are always the political leaders. It’s very easy to help them—all of them prefer a heart attack. - So you people help only the famous? Give them the gift of death, that is. - We’re still trying to consolidate our business, you see. The company’s a long way from breaking even. But yes, pride in our performance is our major capital at present. Later, of course, we’ll have to think of the economically weaker classes too. To tell you the truth, poor people are much more trouble. The bastards aren’t even sure whether they’re alive in the first place, how can they be expected to think of death? And besides, they’re unbelievably crude. - What about those even lower down—miles below the poverty line—beggars? - Impossible! Last year our R&D people studied the death wishes of beggars in three metropolitan cities—Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. Their findings were—how shall I put it—silly and delightful. Childish demands. - Such as? - In most cases the image involves eating. For instance, some of them want their limbs, heads, and bodies to be stuffed with meat, fish, butter and alcohol till they explode. They desperately want liquor. Then again, some of them wanted god to take them in his arms at the centre of Flora Fountain in Bombay. Infantile, and so naive. - But you have to say they’re imaginative. - That’s true. They’re bound to, since they’re human beings. But yes, we get a lot of valuable ideas from children. Just the other day our R&D unearthed a fascinating story from an American newspaper. - Tell me, please. - A boy, you know. About twelve. Somewhere near Chicago. The fellow had dressed up as Batman. He was Batman constantly, jumping from roof to roof with a pair of wings clipped on. No one took him seriously. Even the girls used to laugh at him. Child psychology, you see. So none of you can recognise Batman, he said. One day he was found in a deep freezer, frozen after several days in there. You’d be astounded at the kind of cases there are. Batman! Actually it’s not like I don’t drink. Pour me a strong whiskey, will you? What’s this whiskey called? Glender! Oh, it’s Scotch. I’ve never heard of this brand. I had poured a few whiskeys. For the salesman. And for myself too. After I had poured several, he had left like Batman, swinging and weaving. I had weaved my way to bed too. The train had started moving. I could still hear his voice ringing in my ears... - But yes, there’s a grand surprise in death, especially in accidental death—a thrill that we never deprive our clients of. Say someone has booked a death to be run over by a car. But not all his efforts will allow him to guess when, where, or on which road he will die. The virgin charm of sudden death will always remain. Who was this man? What company did he represent, for that matter? The gift of death—the idea couldn’t exactly be dismissed out of hand. Despite my best efforts, I hadn’t been able to do it for three years. Secondly, don’t we have our own visions of death, after all? Would it be fulfilled in this one life, in this life? For instance, I have a specific sort of death wish of my own too. But then the death by record player is very expensive. Naturally. I live with doubts and misgiving like these. These things lie low when I take my pills regularly. When they raise their heads, I visit the psychiatrist. She changes the medicine. Blue pills instead of white. In the darkness of power-cuts I pull that man’s black business card out for a look. The disturbing yellow letters are probably printed in fluorescent ink. They glow in the darkness. I don’t mind showing the card to anyone who gets in touch with me. You can check for yourself by writing to them. It might take a little time but their people will certainly get in touch. You can be sure about this. They will definitely meet you. ∎ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Artwork by Ibrahim Rayintakath for SAAG. Mixed media. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Short Story Translation Bengali Posthumous Stories in Dialogue Anarchist Writing Fyataru Magical Realism Working-Class Stories Language Violence Communist Slogans Banality Andhra-Orissa Border Class Rebirth Philosophical Fiction Philosophy Criminal Investigations Department Research & Analysis Wing BSF Crime Choosing Death Suicide Tibetan Book of the Dead Rachmaninoff Mafia Metropolitan Bombay Calcutta Madras Delhi NABARUN BHATTACHARYA (1948-2014) was a poet, short-story writer and novelist. Harbart , his first novel, won him the Narasimha Das award, Bankim Puraskar, and Sahitya Akademi Award. He published over 15 works of fiction, three volumes of poetry, and several collections of prose. The only child of the renowned writer Mahasweta Devi and theatre personality Bijon Bhattacharya, he lived and wrote in Kolkata. Short Story Translation 6th Oct 2020 IBRAHIM RAYINTAKATH is an illustrator from and art director from Kerala, intrigued by all forms of visual communication. His clients include The New Yorker, the New York Times, NPR, Harper Collins, and more. He is currently based in Bangalore. ARUNAVA SINHA translates fiction, poetry and non-fiction from Bangla to English. Sixty of his translations have been published so far, with 12 of them having won or been shortlisted or longlisted for translation prizes in India and abroad. He is an associate professor of practice in the Creative Writing department at Ashoka University, and Co-Director of the Ashoka Centre of Translation. He is based in Delhi. On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

Solidarity failed when it came to a dire Afghan refugee crisis, decades in the making. THE VERTICAL Everyone Failed Us Arash Azizzada · Irene Benedicto Solidarity failed when it came to a dire Afghan refugee crisis, decades in the making. “A group of women leaders are badly in danger and one of them is my mom. I really searching for a person who can help us. They attack our home at first…. I hope you can help us. Every one of us really get depressed, please help us to get out of here.” THE BARRAGE of messages I receive, like the one above from western Afghanistan on almost a daily basis has not stopped, even a year later. Desperate daily emails from Afghans seeking refuge and safety flood our inboxes. Some are social activists, human rights defenders, former interpreters, and women leaders at risk of retribution from the Taliban. Other marginalized groups such as Hazaras and Shias have already been victims of ethnic cleansing by the Taliban and remain targets of ISIS attacks. Women activists have been disappeared by the Taliban authorities. Afghans seeking evacuation hold onto hope in what seems to be a hopeless situation. No longer expecting the international community to come to their rescue, for governments and institutions to do what they’re supposed to do, they rely on community organizers like myself and others. For two decades, America bragged about what it was building in Afghanistan. Last summer, the “Afghanistan project” was exposed for the facade that it was: a hollow rentier-state that only held ever legitimacy with Western donors and not with the Afghan people. Despite obvious bubbles of progress where hope flourished amidst the violence, the impending threat of a drone strike or Taliban suicide blast was always around the corner. Some rural areas were battered and mired in misery due to violence and poverty; others flourished, led by Afghan women and marginalized communities. The only constant was never-ending conflict. It seems as if the U.S. built a house of cards in Afghanistan, created in its own image, a house that started falling when the chains of dependency were challenged. The alliance with human rights abusers, the elevation of notorious pedophiles, and funding of endemic corruption brought back to power an oppressive, authoritarian regime that is erasing women, marginalized ethnic groups, and the disabled from public and daily life. The U.S. ran prisons where innocent Afghans were tortured. Entire villages were wiped off the map, and this was excused away as collateral damage. The U.S. spent years telling Afghans to pursue their dreams, break barriers, and challenge cultural norms. Then, it turned its back on them and betrayed them. Perhaps those of us who dreamt of a better Afghanistan were at fault for having expectations of a country whose very existence was kickstarted by genocide, a country where American presidents attempt brazen coups and its own citizens storm its political headquarters. The grim reality that we bore witness to these past few months is one that anyone who has paid attention to Afghanistan could have seen coming. There is even a U.S. agency–the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR)--which is dedicated to overseeing how reconstruction money was used in Afghanistan. In report after report, year after year, quarter after quarter, SIGAR wrote about the ghosts that the U.S. created–schools and hospitals that didn’t exist and a 300,000-man army that only functioned on paper. The Washington Post even devoted a series titled “The Afghanistan Papers, ” to showcase how policymakers and Pentagon officials had lied and deceived the American people about its success and accomplishments for 20 successive years. Nobody cared. The failure to value Afghan lives, however, lies not just with policymakers and elected officials. Certainly, the list of those responsible for the current situation in Afghanistan is long, ranging from Afghan elites to American elected officials from both parties going back four decades. Administration after administration has deprioritized Afghan lives and centered the needs of American hegemony. Congress held hearings on Afghanistan and yet rarely featured any Afghans. Policy discussions on Afghanistan in Washington D.C. at influential think tanks left out Afghans entirely. Afghans were left invisible in an occupation that lasted so long that it became not the “forever war” but rather the “forgotten war.” Afghanistan had disappeared from the psyche of the American people. Even when SIGAR released a report on rampant corruption that was wasting billions or when the Washington Post talked about lie after lie coming from the Pentagon, America just didn’t seem to care. The right-wing was too busy destroying democracy, the Democratic party was too busy fundraising from defense contractors, and the anti-war Left was too white to put Afghans and other impacted communities at the forefront. In our own Afghan American community, too many in our diaspora were profiting off the occupation. Their kids will go to prestigious American colleges, while Afghan girls will not be able to go to school at all and are robbed of a future. An international audience did finally pay attention to us last summer. American media, though, centered on the feelings of almost a million veterans who served in Afghanistan rather than asking Afghans how a withdrawal would impact them. The images of Afghans clinging onto the bottom of a military cargo plane had the world hooked. What does it say about our humanity that it took those tragic images for everyone to ask what we can do to help? For just a few days, people across the globe valued Afghan life. But moments like that are fleeting–Afghan history is littered with broken promises. Some of us have read enough history to know that the international community will not learn the lessons of its failure in Afghanistan and begin centering on the needs of the Afghan people. The Taliban spends every day perfecting its repression while the world has moved on, despite empty tweets and statements of solidarity. Today, as a year has passed since the chaotic withdrawal, wide-ranging sanctions on Afghanistan and theft of Afghan assets by the U.S. continue to inflict immense pain on innocent Afghan people, causing a humanitarian crisis that will likely lead to mass-scale death through malnutrition and starvation, a policy that disproportionately impacts Afghan girls and women. The United States’ attitude remains the same: focusing only on self-interest, even if it harms Afghans, except now it is done through economic warfare rather than through bombs built by defense contractor companies like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Afghans deserve justice and reparations for the harm America has caused in my home country. Despite that vision for the future, what America leaves behind are closed immigration pathways and a desire to pretend Afghans don’t exist in the first place. Perhaps if a few more Afghans clung onto a plane leaving the Kabul airport, someone would care. ∎ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Photograph courtesy of Arash Azizzada (November 2019). SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Op-Ed Afghanistan Refugee Crisis US Imperialism The Failure of the Diaspora ARASH AZIZZADA is a writer, photographer, and community organizer based in Los Angeles, CA. The children of Afghan refugees, Arash is deeply committed to social justice and building communities. He co-founded Afghan Diaspora for Equality and Progress (ADEP) in 2016, aimed at elevating and empowering changemakers within the Afghan community. He recently co-launched Afghans For A Better Tomorrow (AFBT), and has focused on evacuation and rapid response coordination efforts in the wake of America’s military withdrawal from Afghanistan. He has written for the New York Times , Newsweek , and been featured on NPR and Vice News . IRENE BENEDICTO is an investigative and data reporter with ten years of experience working as a journalist. She has covered breaking news and written in-depth long-form stories, local and international news from eight different countries on three continents, including the political hubs of Washington DC and Brussels, and three investigative data projects on migration, public health, and social inequities. Op-Ed Afghanistan 24th Feb 2023 On That Note: The Captive Mind 26th JUN Whiplash and Contradiction in Sri Lanka’s aragalaya 27th FEB Climate Crimes of US Imperalism in Afghanistan 16th OCT

“I think of works like Shona N. Jackson's Creole Indigeneity, and fleshing out the narrative of brown movement. And, importantly, doing it in a way that decenters the United States, because, with indentureship we're talking about the movement from South Asia largely to the Caribbean.” COMMUNITY Romantic Literature and Colonialism Mani Samriti Chander “I think of works like Shona N. Jackson's Creole Indigeneity, and fleshing out the narrative of brown movement. And, importantly, doing it in a way that decenters the United States, because, with indentureship we're talking about the movement from South Asia largely to the Caribbean.” I couldn't imagine devoting any more time to Keats and Wordsworth and Shelley and Byron. So I turned to Brown Romantics where I looked at how Romantic ideas, philosophies, politics, and techniques were mobilized ends towards nationalist ends by 19th century writers in India, Australia and British Guyana. RECOMMENDED: Brown Romantics: Poetry and Nationalism in the Global Nineteenth Century (Bucknell University Press, 2017), by Manu Samriti Chander. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Romanticism English Postcolonialism Gayatri Spivak Postcolonial Poetry Romantic Literature & the Colonized World Colonialism Race Post-George Floyd Moment Black Solidarities Indigeneity Creole Indigenous Space Vijay Prashad Ruhel Islam Hufsa Islam Browntology Brown Left Kinship The Undercommons Diaspora Guyana Australia Subaltern Studies Intellectual History Internationalist Perspective Indigeneous Spaces Egbert Martin Henry Derozio Immigration MANU SAMRITI CHANDER is Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University-Newark and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Newark Chapter of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT. He is the author of Brown Romantics: Poetry and Nationalism in the Global Nineteenth Century (Bucknell UP, 2017). He is currently working on The Collected Works of Egbert Martin , with the support of a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Grant and his current project Browntology is under contract with SUNY Press. Interview Romanticism 13th Nov 2020 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

Three prominent Pakistani feminist activists convene with Associate Editor Nur Nasreen Ibrahim in the wake of the Motorway Incident in 2020. COMMUNITY Pakistan's Feminist Wave: A Panel Three prominent Pakistani feminist activists convene with Associate Editor Nur Nasreen Ibrahim in the wake of the Motorway Incident in 2020. VOL. 1 PANEL AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Watch the panel on YouTube or IGTV. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the panel on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Panel Pakistan 27th Sep 2020 Panel Pakistan Feminist Organizing Women Democratic Front Motorway Incident Body Politics Women's Action Forum (WAF) Awami Workers Party Public Space Gender Violence Girls at Dhabas Khwaja Siras Nirbhaya Movement Organization Pashtun Tahafuz Movement Internationalist Perspective Postcolonial Feminist Theory Contradiction Movement Strategy Aurat March Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. After the motorway rape case in September 2020, SAAG convened a panel of prominent feminist activists to discuss why Pakistan has seen growing violence against women and marginalized communities, and what movement-building and strategies they are involved in at a particularly charged moment in Pakistani feminist activism. More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

The aragalaya is an exceptional expression of democratic activism—but it contained contradictions that force us to reckon with its true limits and potential. THE VERTICAL Whiplash and Contradiction in Sri Lanka’s aragalaya Harshana Rambukwella The aragalaya is an exceptional expression of democratic activism—but it contained contradictions that force us to reckon with its true limits and potential. HOW DO we begin to make sense of the events of the past several months in Sri Lanka? A country that was ranked as a “middle-income” nation and had one of the highest standards of living in South Asia, now faces economic oblivion. What is truly stunning is the rapidity with which this national tragedy unfolded. Of course, this all says a great deal about the social and economic precarity that neoliberal policies force upon entire populations, who become unwilling victims of an insidious nexus between the instrumental interests of political and corporate elite. And all this has indeed been said frequently. But amidst its dizzying journey to national catastrophe, Sri Lanka also bore witness to a spectacular people’s movement—the aragalaya (“protest” in Sinhala)—which unseated a cabinet of ministers, a prime minister, and ultimately the all-powerful executive president of the country. However, almost equally swiftly the ‘democratic’ gains of the aragalaya have been rapidly undermined and the discredited political culture which the people’s uprising has begun to reconsolidate. The aragayala was a historic first for many reasons. It succeeded in breaking the vicious cycle of patron-client politics which often distorts electoral democracy in the country—with impoverished populations being mobilized on the promise of political largesse. It transcended—if temporarily—ethnic and religious divisions that have fueled conflict in Sri Lanka. It provided a space for youth activism rarely visible in the political mainstream. And it also provided a rare space for alternative cultural expression, including a visibly active LGBTQ community. One could cautiously argue that the aragalaya represented the emergence of a sense of democratic citizenship that has been rarely visible in Sri Lanka’s postcolonial history, despite Sri Lanka’s long tradition of electorally sanctioned democratic transitions of power at regular intervals. But since July 9th when the aragalaya peaked, forcing the executive president Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and subsequently resign, the historic gains of the struggle have been rapidly reversed. A parliament, dominated by the ousted president’s party, the Sri Lanka Podu Jana Peramuna (SLPP), supported the election of Ranil Wickremasinghe—a deeply unpopular six-time prime minister—as executive president, resulting in a situation where the very political forces that were rejected by the aragalaya and had seemingly lost their legitimacy rapidly reasserted themselves. Wickremasinghe, a canny and expedient politician, swiftly undermined the aragalaya through two strategies. One was to unleash a wave of state repression with arbitrary arrests and abductions, severely undermining the “liberal democratic” image Wickremasinghe has been careful to cultivate throughout his career. The other strategy has sought to undermine the legitimacy of the people’s movement by characterizing it as a form of anarchy: a deeply conservative and reactionary discourse which has unfortunately found some resonance in society, particularly among segments that have an instrumental motive for backing Wickremasinghe, who they believe will bring economic stability. Democracy, or something like that All of which begs the question: how can the rapid reversal of the aragalaya gains be explained? Given the seeming rapidity with which the aragalaya arose and its apparently equally swift decline, the nature of the aragalya and what it represents in terms of Sri Lanka’s democratic history requires closer scrutiny. The characterization of the aragalaya as a form of anarchy can be traced to a conservative political culture where mass politics, despite regular elections, has had an ambiguous status. Sri Lanka received universal franchise in 1931, ahead of all of its colonial peers. But from the very outset Sri Lanka’s political elite argued against universal franchise, worried about its implications for their authority. They instead argued for a restricted franchise and expressed deep reservations about the ability of the “people” to act with political responsibility. But when the Doughnomore Commission recommended universal franchise in 1931, despite elite objections, the political elite scrambled to work around it by building ethnically and religiously partisan voter bases rather than work towards a more democratically enlightened citizenry. This effectively resulted in the beginnings of a system of patronage politics, and at the same time laid the foundations for an ethnically polarized political culture that has bedeviled the country since independence. Unlike in neighboring India where the political elite were able to mobilize people through an anti-colonial agenda and develop a sense of pan-Indian identity (despite its Hindu-centric nature), Sri Lanka’s elite politics in the period leading up to independence in 1948 failed to articulate such a Sri Lankan identity. In post-independence Sri Lanka, therefore democratic politics easily translated into majority rule, which some commentators have dubbed a form of “ethnocracy”. Although transitions of political power in Sri Lanka have taken place through regular electoral cycles, the minimalist operation of democracy masked a deeply illiberal political culture. One dimension of this illiberality is in how the entrenched culture of Sinhala majoritarianism in the country has marginalized minorities—initially the ethnic Tamil community, and more recently the Muslim community. Sri Lanka’s thirty-year militant conflict where a faction of the Tamil minority fought for an independent state was a direct outcome of this illiberal democracy where the electoral domination of the Sinhala numerical majority led to a distorted rationalization and normalization of majority rule. At the same time, the post-independence Sri Lankan state was unable to establish a system of social and economic justice, an inability which perhaps explains the two armed insurrections among the Sinhala youth in the 1970s and 1980s. Both uprisings were brutally suppressed, and the state’s violent response to the Sinhala youth mirrored how it dealt with Tamil militancy, even if the ethnically biased nature of the state resulted in a more insidious form of state violence against Tamil militancy. In post-independence Sri Lanka, democratic politics easily translated into majority rule, which some commentators have dubbed a form of “ethnocracy”. In Sri Lankan political history the two Sinhala youth uprisings and the Tamil secessionist movement stand as the three most significant people’s uprisings against the state. All three were violent in nature, advocated the use of militant force to overthrow and challenge the state, and were also ethnically marked and geographically confined to a particular territory of the country. While all three uprisings emerged from what might be called a “democratic deficit” in the country’s political mainstream, their ambition could not be termed as truly democratic because of the militant and authoritarian nature of the politics they represented. It is against this history of armed insurrection as well as a warped and majoritarian, albeit seemingly smooth system of electoral politics, system of democracy, that one has to read the aragalaya —both its potentials and limitations. Gotabhaya’s Many Sudden Turns of Fortune The broader context to the emergence of the aragalaya lies in the historic mandate Gotabhaya Rajapaksa received in 2019, winning six point nine million votes—the largest presidential electoral margin in Sri Lankan history. Islamophobia in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday bombings of 2019 and nakedly racist political campaigning shored up a narrative of existential fear in the Sinhala majority and drove them in their millions to vote for Rajapaksa. But these developments were also accompanied by a non-ethnically marked discourse about a need for substantive political change. While Gotabhaya is a member of the Rajapaksa dynasty, headed by his charismatic two-time president and elder brother Mahinda, he was marketed as the “non-political” Rajapaksa option: the technocrat who successfully guided the war effort in 2009 as Defense Secretary and therefore, an efficient apolitical candidate. Gotabhaya was seen perhaps as the Sri Lankan incarnation of a fusion between Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohamed and Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yu—an efficient, nationally committed, benign authoritarian figure who would herald tough and efficient governance. It's easy to forget that in 2019, Gotabhaya’s overwhelming victory was hailed as a historic harbinger of change. Sinhala youth embraced his win enthusiastically. Days after his election a spontaneous nation-wide graffiti campaign (with the exception of the North) transformed wayside walls into colorful, if cheesy, murals themed variously on Sri Lanka’s past grandeur as well as visions for a future of prosperity. And yet, just two years from this moment of hope, it was arguably the same youth who gathered in their hundreds of thousands to oust Gotabhaya—disillusioned by consistently failing governance and holding him accountable for robbing them of their future, a disillusionment that resonated in the slogan “Gota Go Gama” (Gota Go Home). In this context, both Gotabhaya’s election within the recognized democratic system, and his ousting outside the electoral process, need to be seen as democratic. From a liberal perspective, the election of Gotabhaya—an heir to the dark and poisonous racist legacy of the Rajapaksa dynasty— was an illiberal outcome. But it was nonetheless an expression of the people’s will. Similarly, the ousting of Gotabhaya through a popular uprising, when no constitutionally sanctioned alternative was forthcoming is also democratic in its broadest sense. Undoubtedly, extreme economic precarity fueled the aragalaya . However, amidst the solidarity forged by precarity, less instrumental political desires also found a space of expression. This was facilitated by the formlessness of the aragalaya which had no distinct political leadership, no distinct political ideology, and no singular authorship, thus making it possible for diverse forces to coalesce under its banner. Set against the history of Sri Lanka’s armed insurrections sketched above, it is also easy to see why the aragalaya is an exceptional moment of democratic activism. But the very diversity of the aragalaya also meant that many contradictory forces operated within it, and these contradictions, in turn, speak to the limits of what the aragalaya represented. This formless nature of the aragalaya can be attributed to its beginnings. The most immediate precursors of the aragalaya were two protest movements that emerged during the early phase of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s presidency. One was a nationwide teachers’ struggle for better wages, which morphed into a national movement questioning the legitimacy of the government and its inability to be receptive to just demands by important segments of society. This was closely followed by a disastrous overnight attempt to switch to one hundred percent organic farming, resulting in farmers across the country protesting as yields plummeted and the entire agricultural sector was plunged into crisis. These two protest movements shook the seemingly solid foundation of the Gotabhaya Rajapaksa government. The rising public dissatisfaction swiftly accelerated as the economic crisis worsened and daily essentials such as fuel, cooking gas and increasingly medicines became scarce. Soon enough, the burden of economic mismanagement was laid squarely on the doorstep of the Rajapaksa presidency. In this context, both Gotabhaya’s election within the recognized democratic system, and his ousting outside the electoral process, need to be seen as democratic. On March 31st, a series of small-scale protests and candlelight vigils—a largely urban middle class phenomenon—that had emerged throughout Colombo and its suburbs turned into a more confrontational mode. Thousands congregated in the vicinity of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s private home in the suburbs of Colombo. In the ensuing confrontation with the police scuffles broke out, a bus was torched, and teargas was used. The government attempted a swift crackdown with mass arrests, but the legal community ensured that the protestors were provided protection. Mobilization for this protest happened mainly through social media—which became the default medium for protest mobilization and dissemination of aragalaya news. While the earlier teachers' and farmers' protests had provided the political backdrop, it was this urban activism that created the immediate conditions for the emergence of the aragalaya in a more visible and concrete form. Soon after the events of March 31st, the “Gota Go Gama” village became established as a group of youth began occupying the area in front of the Presidential Secretariat at Galle Face in the heart of the downtown business district in Colombo. As protests continued throughout the country, Gota Go Gama (or GGG) became their focal point. From its outset some organized groups with connections to political parties like the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the leftist party which launched the two insurrections against the state in the 1970s and 80s, and the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), a breakaway group from the JVP were present at GGG. In addition, the Inter University Students Federation (IUSF), which is connected to the FSP and has a large following among undergraduates at state universities, along with other trade unions and activist groups, were also present. However, none of these groups could claim ownership over the aragalaya . Instead, a group of youth with no distinct political affiliations essentially managed the GGG site. This politically non-partisan nature of the GGG site allowed it to flourish with a library, an IT facility, a kitchen, and even a cinema hall. At the height of its existence, GGG resembled a mini-township. Aragalaya Culture The cultural dynamics of GGG are immensely significant. GGG allowed a rare mainstream space for alternative cultural expression. The musician Ajith Kumarasiri, a man with a strong presence in the avant-garde musical scene in Sri Lanka but long shunned by the musical establishment, played a prominent role with regular musical performances. Alongside the music, installation and performance art that were both thematically and formally daring found expression at GGG. This cultural dynamic of the aragalya challenged the hegemonic Sinhala national cultural form—a form that is deeply conservative and has little space for marginal identities like the LGBTQ community. The “alternative” cultural identity of GGG also facilitated two significant events. One was the Mullivaikkal Remembrance Day which falls on May 18th and marks the deaths of hundreds of Tamil civilians in the closing stages of the war in 2009. This commemoration, effectively banned by the Sri Lankan state due to its human rights implications, and an uncomfortable truth that the Sinhala community had long ignored, was marked at GGG. What made the event all the more significant was the participation of Buddhist priests—often seen as guardians of Sinhala nationalist ideology—in addition to clergy from other faiths such as the iconic Catholic priest Father Jeevantha Peiris who was closely identified with the aragalaya. The other significant event was a Pride March at GGG on 25th June—a mass celebration of sexual identities that was an unprecedentedly public challenge to the traditional political and cultural mainstream of the country. Still, even while the “alternative” cultural vibe of GGG and the aragalaya forcefully flagged a progressive movement, this aspect of aragalaya culture also jostled for power alongside more established undercurrents. For instance, GGG had a hut for disabled soldiers that promoted the narrative of the ranaviruwa (or war hero), a trope that was weaponized by the Rajapaksas to delegitimize minority political demands and shore up their patriotic Sinhala credentials. Supporters of the controversial war-winning miliary officer-turned-politician Sarath Fonseka were also present in the space of GGG, as was the Buddhist priest Omalpe Sobitha who has a history as a hardline Sinhala nationalist. Their presence could be read in multiple ways. It could mean they strategically maintained a presence within the aragalaya to ensure that its political power remained within the ambit of Sinhala nationalist interests. At the same time, it could also be read as a softening of Sinhala nationalist ideology, potentially creating more space for alternative political and cultural imaginaries. These competing interests and ideologies that were united under the common aragalaya banner of “Gota go Home” became more starkly visible in the aftermath of the July 9th “victory” when protestors stormed several key state buildings, including the Presidential Secretariat, resulting in Gotabhaya Rajapaksa fleeing the country and eventually resigning from the presidency. With the common enemy gone, the competing interests of the various groups represented within the aragalaya began to emerge more explicitly. The FSP began promoting a narrative that the aragalaya had delegitimized the entire parliamentary system in Sri Lank a and that a radical restructuring of the state was necessary. This was also accompanied by a strategic insertion of the notion of a “people’s council,” a seemingly progressive proposal that empowers more direct citizen engagement with governance but was also an obviously strategically motivated bid for the FSP to become relevant in mainstream politics. One narrative that has since emerged is that the aragalaya was hijacked by organized political interests: an accusation that was directed towards the FSP and the JVP by middle class and professional groups that backed the aragalaya but are deeply suspicious of revolutionary politics and subscribe to the more conservative “liberal democratic” discourse discussed above. This narrative of hijacking was not entirely new: indeed, it dovetailed into the incidents of May 9th—early days of the movement—when politically backed thugs, emerging from a meeting at the Prime Minister’s official residence, Temple Trees, unleashed brutal violence on GGG while the police and armed forces did little to intervene. In the aftermath of this unprovoked attack, there was a national backlash, with over 70 houses and properties belonging to politicians thought to be involved in the attack on GGG being torched. One parliament MP was also killed when a mob attacked his vehicle. This is an interregnum in which fluid new political forms are emerging. The spectacular democratic mobilization that emerged during the height of the aragalaya and the spirit of active citizenship it unleashed remains—as does the economic precarity that fueled it. The drivers of the violence of May 9th are unclear. While there was a spontaneous backlash immediately following the attack on GGG, what followed later in the night with systematic burning of politician’s houses had a much more organized dynamic, but it is unclear to this day who drove this wave of attacks. The vigilante violence was of course repudiated by the youth of the aragalaya. But in a deeply conservative political culture where revolutionary political action is viewed with extreme suspicion, May 9th marked a loss of innocence for the aragalaya. Today, there is a sustained campaign to discredit the aragalaya by associating it with violence, a pernicious characterization of it as a “breakdown of the rule of law.” It is frustrating to insist on the fact that given Sri Lanka’s violent history, the aragalaya was indeed a peaceful expression of the people’s will, and not a violent, anarchic movement. It was a creatively conceptualized and executed protest movement that maintained non-violence as a cardinal principle. And it is precisely this peaceful nature of the protest that frustrated a national security apparatus used to the mobilization of force and violent confrontation to suppress dissent. What now? The aragalaya in the form it took since March 31st and lasted more than 100 days appears to be over now. The last of the physical structures that marked the GGG occupy site have been dismantled. As of now, the repression of the Ranil Wickremasinghe government along with its insidious narrative to discredit the aragalaya as a form of anarchy appears to be at least temporarily succeeding. But if we’ve learned anything over the past few months it is that this moment in Sri Lanka is a moment of significant and unpredictable transition. This is an interregnum in which fluid new political forms are emerging. The spectacular democratic mobilization that emerged during the height of the aragalaya and the spirit of active citizenship it unleashed remains—as does the economic precarity that fueled it. The aragalaya marked a distinct turning point in Sri Lanka’s political history as a population used to exercising their franchise within a system of political patronage, at least briefly, transcended instrumental political motivations to demand democratic accountability. The aragalaya also rattled a complacent political class that imagined it was secure within an entrenched patron-client political system. Politics in Sri Lanka are unlikely to follow a familiar script in the aftermath of the aragalaya. The traditional political party system of the country has confronted a significant existential challenge due to the aragalaya . A vast majority of the political parties and their representatives in the current parliament have had their legitimacy undermined—they are held accountable for the current state of the country and they are associated with a corrupt political culture. However, what the swift reversal of fortunes in the aftermath of the aragalaya suggests is that Sri Lanka’s long-entrenched culture of political impunity with deeply institutionalized structures of corruption, nepotism, repression, and violence are unlikely to change easily. If the brief hope kindled by the aragalaya is to survive and be fashioned into viable and sustained political change, it will take committed and long-term engagement by a variety of actors, including civil society and progressive political parties, as highly contingent socioeconomic conditions continue to shape the politics of the moment. Whether anything of this nature will emerge is anybody’s guess. ∎ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Mural painted as a Rapid Response by the Fearless Collective during the GotaGoGama protest in Galleface, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Courtesy of the Fearless Collective (June 2022). SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Op-Ed Sri Lanka Aragalaya Gotagogama Energy Crisis Economic Crisis Poverty Gotabhaya Rajapaksa Mullivaikkal Remembrance Day Ranil Wickremasinghe Contradiction Teachers Movement Movement Organization Movement Strategy Precarity Postcolonialism Doughnomore Commission Universal Franchise Ethnocracy Sri Lankan Civil War Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Islamophobia Easter Sunday Bombings of 2019 Lee Kwan Yu Mahathir Mohamed Technocracy Agricultural Labor Agriculture Agrarian Economy Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna Sinhala Nationalism Majoritarianism Accountability HARSHANA RABUKWELLA is the director of the Postgraduate Institute of English, Open University of Sri Lanka, and the author of Politics and Poetics of Authenticity: A Cultural Genealogy of Sinhala Nationalism (2018). His work has appeared in the Journal of Commonwealth Literature, boundary 2 , and Journal of Asian Studies , among others. He has been a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Social Studies and Humanities (IASH) at the University of Edinburgh. Op-Ed Sri Lanka 27th Feb 2023 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

“I really got into organizing through the Palestinian solidarity movement. I co-founded my school's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. The same people who used to walk by me in the student union when we were organizing for an academic boycott—those same people have reached out to me since to say they wish they had gotten involved, that they feel differently now. Really, the Black Lives Matter movement opened a lot of people's eyes to the interconnectedness of state violence.” INTERACTIVE Zohran Kwame Mamdani on Palestine in 2021 “I really got into organizing through the Palestinian solidarity movement. I co-founded my school's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. The same people who used to walk by me in the student union when we were organizing for an academic boycott—those same people have reached out to me since to say they wish they had gotten involved, that they feel differently now. Really, the Black Lives Matter movement opened a lot of people's eyes to the interconnectedness of state violence.” VOL. 1 LIVE AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Follow our YouTube channel for updates from past or future events. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Follow our YouTube channel for updates from past or future events. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Live New York 5th Jun 2021 Live New York Palestine Intifada Gaza Dissent Occupation Israel Apartheid State Power Methods of Resistance Mass Protests Anti-Israel Protests Black Lives Matter Students for Justice in Palestine SJP DSA Democratic Socialists of America Inequality Racial Justice In Grief In Solidarity Power Dynamics IDF NYPD IDF and American Police Departments Police Brutality Political Prisoners Refugees Anti-Zionism Dehumanization Islamophobia Dismantling Oppressive Structures Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. There is a pervasive and commonly vocalized sense that the dire state of Gaza and the actions of Israel since October 2023 have created an unprecedented level of public support for Palestine. And perhaps the scale of public support—or, more accurately, its endurance—is indeed unprecedented. But in an interview from the SAAG archives held on 5th June 2021, NY State Assemblymember Zohran Kwame Mamdani shared his own feelings as a longtime SJP and DSA organizer for the Palestinian struggle, as well as in his political role, that with the uptick of violence in Gaza in 2021, he found immense positive signs of shift within society, the first instances of prominent politicians being on the backfoot with protesters and organizers, and other instances of what he had previously considered unthinkable. For Mamdani, much of the roots of this uptick in pro-Palestinian sentiment and the delinking of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism lie in part with the Black Lives Matter movement and the education of society writ large due to mass movements for racial and economic justice over the past decade, and longer. Mamdani and Naib Mian invoke the dichotomy that motivated the event for which they spoke— In Grief, In Solidarity . Mamdani’s sense of how power is and should be wielded, both inside and outside the “halls of power,” as it were, is held simultaneously with how deep the institutional roots between Israel and the US really go, for instance with the links between the NYPD and IDF’s brutal tactics, or most police departments in the US for that matter. This slice from our archive illuminates to a large degree that while change can feel faster than it is, histories of deeply grievous injustices and those of positive change are longer than we perceive them to be. Histories and ideas of collective action are invoked here, too: Mamdani’s idea of solidarity in action—whether deployed over a shipping container or outside a courthouse and wherever it may be—is deeply capacious. When Mamdani says that “we have not yet hit the ceiling of support for Palestinians,” he evokes a sentiment of today. Three years later, we still haven't. More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

Gujarat’s Surat was the capital of the global diamond trade before the Russia-Ukraine war, but sanctions imposed on Russia’s diamond exports since 2022 have placed a sword to the throats of diamond workers in the collapsing industry’s headquarters. Mass layoffs and obscene wage cuts have led to dozens of labourers dying by suicide, leaving hundreds of their family members to cope without support from the Indian government. THE VERTICAL Expunging India's Diamond City Gujarat’s Surat was the capital of the global diamond trade before the Russia-Ukraine war, but sanctions imposed on Russia’s diamond exports since 2022 have placed a sword to the throats of diamond workers in the collapsing industry’s headquarters. Mass layoffs and obscene wage cuts have led to dozens of labourers dying by suicide, leaving hundreds of their family members to cope without support from the Indian government. VOL. 2 REPORTAGE AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Trupti Patel Indian Landscape (2019) Terracruda, 29 Earth Pigments of 29 Political States of India, New Delhi Ash, Acrylic medium and Gold Leaf on Fabriano paper. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Trupti Patel Indian Landscape (2019) Terracruda, 29 Earth Pigments of 29 Political States of India, New Delhi Ash, Acrylic medium and Gold Leaf on Fabriano paper. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Reportage Surat 2nd Apr 2025 Reportage Surat Gujarat India Diamond Trade Russia-Ukraine Conflict War Trade Route Working Class Labour Rights Banned Raw Materials Mental Health Suicide Layoffs G7 European Union Sanctions Unemployment Epidemic Global Crisis Supply Chain Luxury Market Consumer Spending Diamond Workers Union Trade Unions Government Neglect Inaction Economic Security Narendra Modi Industrialization Health Crisis Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Roshan, 20, remembers his father, Ram Nagina Singh , as a hardworking man who spent decades polishing diamonds that would glitter in luxury stores across the world. But this October, Singh’s life came to a devastating halt. Based in the western Indian city of Surat, he once earned a comfortable salary of ₹60,000-₹70,000 ($800-$900) a month but was soon barely scraping by on ₹10,000-₹12,000 ($120-$150) as the city’s diamond industry buckled under immense economic pressures. The stress proved too much. Singh took his own life, hanging himself from the ceiling fan in his bedroom. Roshan is still grappling with his father’s sudden death. “My father didn’t say much, but we knew he was under immense stress,” Roshan recalled. “There was no work in the company, and he wasn’t receiving his wages or bonuses. He used to come home and talk about it, but we didn’t realise the depth of his despair until it was too late.” Singh’s story is tragically common. He is one of at least 65 diamond workers in Surat who have died by suicide in the past 16 months as financial hardships have deepened following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. For decades, Surat has been the world’s epicenter for diamond polishing, employing over 600,000 workers . However, since the onset of the war, sanctions targeting Russia —one of the largest exporters of rough diamonds— have sent shockwaves through the city’s once-thriving diamond industry. Both the supply of raw materials and the demand for polished Russian diamonds have drastically decreased. The European Union and G7 nations have implemented strict bans on Russian diamonds, including those routed through intermediary countries. This has severely disrupted the flow of raw diamonds to India’s factories, leaving thousands of workers in Surat unemployed and struggling to survive. The crisis has had a ripple effect, leading to widespread layoffs , wage cuts, and—tragically—suicides. A Suicide Epidemic Like Roshan, Jayantibhai’s world fell apart three months ago when her 28-year-old son, Mikunj, took his own life after losing his job. Once a diamond polisher, Mikunj had been out of work for over three months. Unable to secure another job as Surat’s diamond industry crumbled, he grew increasingly depressed. His sudden death left a gaping void in the family. “He never said anything to us,” Jayantibhai said. “What can we do now? He was our only son.” Without Mikunj, the family is struggling. At 60, Jayantibhai is too frail to work. She has already survived two heart attacks and relied on her son’s income to support the household. Her daughter-in-law, Rupali, has also stopped working. She used to tutor children from home, earning just enough to contribute. After Mikunj’s death, she withdrew entirely. “We needed him,” Jayantibhai said, her eyes welling up. “Now we are left to fend for ourselves, praying for help.” Her plight mirrors that of dozens of other families in Surat, staring at an uncertain future. Beyond the economic toll, the ongoing crisis in the diamond industry has triggered a significant mental health crisis among workers. The stress of unemployment and an uncertain future has pushed many to their breaking point. “Yes there are thoughts in my mind about suicide,” says Gohil Vijaybhai, another struggling diamond worker. For Vijaybhai, the past two years have been a relentless search for work. Once a steady earner in Surat’s diamond industry, he now moves from one labour site to another, hoping to make ₹500-700 ($6-8) per day. His company shut down when the economic slowdown, fuelled by the Russia-Ukraine war, cut off the supply of rough diamonds. “I’ve been doing this for 11 years, but now there’s nothing,” he shared. His income, once around ₹30,000 ($360) a month, has evaporated, leaving him in debt and unable to pay for necessities like rent and his children’s school fees. His three children, ranging from kindergarten to fifth grade, are now at risk of being forced out of school. “I told the school to wait for six or seven months for the fees,” he said, though he knows the money is unlikely to come. Without stable work, his family of seven depends on sporadic daily wages, and his debt continues to mount. “What can a single labourer do?” he asked. “We take out loans just to survive.” As his financial troubles deepen, Vijaybhai admits to feeling overwhelmed by despair. “When someone is under this much tension, what would he do? Suicide, right?” he asked. He is not alone; many diamond workers in Surat find themselves caught between a failing industry and rising debts. Deepak Rajendrabhai Purani, a diamond worker for over 10 years, describes the stark reality workers like him face. “I used to earn ₹25,000-₹27,000 ($300-$350) a month, but now I’m lucky if I make ₹15,000 ($180),” he said. “Some months, there is no work at all, and I have been sitting at home for weeks without any income.” Deepak, who lives in Surat with his parents, wife, and young son, is contemplating leaving the diamond industry but does not know where to turn after working there for so long. “I don’t know anything else. But how can I continue like this? We have bills to pay, mouths to feed, and no government support.” Deepak’s father, who once sold samosas from a cycle, is now bedridden with asthma. His brother, also a diamond worker, is one of the few fortunate ones who still has steady work. But Deepak knows this could change at any moment. “The companies keep only as many workers as they need,” he explained. “If there is no work, they tell us not to come in the next day. It’s as simple as that.” “There are no bombs thrown at us directly,” he added, “but this [Russia-Ukraine] war has killed us.” A Global Crisis Turning the Tide on Surat With disruptions in the supply of rough diamonds from Russia, many factories in Surat have either shut down or significantly scaled back their operations . This has left thousands of diamond workers, many of whom have spent decades in the industry, struggling to make ends meet. India’s diamond sector plays a vital role in the global diamond supply chain, with approximately 80% of the world's rough diamonds being cut and polished in the country. Surat, in particular, is the epicenter of this labour-intensive industry. However, the glitter of diamonds hides the harsh realities many of these workers face—low wages, erratic work conditions, and almost no social safety net. While Surat’s diamond workers have borne the brunt of this crisis, the impacts of the sanctions and war have rippled across the global diamond trade. India's diamond exports have experienced a steep decline, plummeting by 28% in the fiscal year 2024, and are projected to fall further, reaching their lowest levels in a decade. Luxury markets in the U.S. and Europe, traditionally strong buyers of diamonds, have also contracted as consumer spending patterns shift in response to economic uncertainties. Rising inflation has curbed discretionary spending , with more buyers focusing on essentials rather than luxury purchases. This trend has further depressed demand for polished diamonds, exacerbating the crisis for workers in Surat who depend on robust global sales. The price of rough diamonds has also skyrocketed due to supply shortages, making it harder for manufacturers to remain profitable. Factories in Surat and other diamond hubs have had to make tough decisions—either lay off workers or shut down altogether. A Helpless Union and Government Neglect As the number of suicides among diamond workers continues to rise, the local Diamond Workers Union has launched a helpline to provide emotional and financial support. Since its inception in July, the helpline number has received around 1800 distress calls. "We have saved lives," said Zilriya Rameshbhai, the president of the union, recounting how workers on the brink of suicide reached out for help. The union also provides temporary relief to struggling workers by paying school fees, supplying food, and helping them manage debt. Unfortunately, such measures are not enough to lift Vijaybhai and others like him out of financial distress. Despite its best efforts, the union is overwhelmed by demand and constrained by limited resources. “[The] union is doing what they can,” Vijaybhai said, “but we need the government to listen.” Many workers feel abandoned by the government, which has yet to meaningfully address the crisis. The Indian government, typically focused on bolstering exports to strengthen the economy, has done little to provide immediate relief to the struggling diamond sector, according to workers. Jayantibhai, who lives in Amroli, a suburb of Surat, is frustrated by the lack of response from the authorities. “They are dead silent. [PM] Modi considers Gujarat his home, but how can he not listen to our plight?” she asked bitterly. “We have tried contacting the party’s office, but nobody listens. We are just forgotten.” Other workers share this frustration. “The government isn’t talking about the diamond industry,” said Deepak. “If they were, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Workers are roaming around without jobs, and nobody is doing anything.” Government inaction has intensified feelings of helplessness among diamond workers. Ramesh Bhai, the president of the local union, stated that they have repeatedly requested an economic relief package to support both the industry and its employees, but their appeals have gone unanswered. “There is no support from the government,” he said. “All the workers have been left on their own. Nobody cares how much we have contributed to the growth of the state and country’s economy.” He also mentioned the union's proposal to establish a special board including workers, factory owners, and government representatives to address the industry's challenges, but there has been no progress on that front either. With no relief in sight, the future of Surat’s diamond industry remains uncertain. While some workers hope for improvement, others are less optimistic. “There is no guarantee that the diamond industry will see growth again,” said Deepak. “We are all just waiting and watching, but we don’t know what will happen. The future seems bleak.” For workers like Roshan, who lost his father to the industry’s collapse, the pain is still raw. Yet, he remains determined to stay in Surat, the city he has called home for over 20 years. “Everything is here,” he said. “After what happened to my father, I just hope that things get better.”∎ More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5