South Asia Institute Film Event
Film Screening: 4:30PM – 6:30PM; Q&A with Director: 6:30PM – 7:00PM
Sanjay Kak, Indian Documentary Filmmaker
Chair: Ajantha Subramanian, Professor, Social Anthropology Program, Harvard University
‘Let us declare that the state of war does exist and shall exist’, the revolutionary patriot Bhagat Singh had said almost a hundred years ago, and that warning travels into India’s present, as the armed insurrection led by Maoist guerillas simmers in Bastar, in the troubled heart of central India. To the east too, beleaguered adivasis from the mineral-rich hills of Odisha come forth bearing their axes, and their songs. And in the north the swelling protests by Punjabi peasants sees hope coagulate—once more—around the iconic figure of Bhagat Singh, revolutionary martyr of the anti-colonial struggle. But are revolutions even possible anymore? Or have those dreams been ground down into our nightmares? This is a chronicle of those who live the revolutionary ideal in India, a rare encounter with the invisible domain of those whose everyday is a fight for another ideal of the world.
Cosponsored with the Political Anthropology Working Group
