The speeches, lectures and letters collected in Inquilab: A Decade of Protest capture the most important events and issues of the past 10 years in India and includes a foreword by Swara Bhaskar. The book features words by prominent scholars and thinkers such as Ramachandra Guha, Nayantara Sahgal, Anna Hazare among others. In a conversation with The Morning Standard, Diya Kar, Publisher, HarperCollins India gives us insights on the anthology.
What led you to curate this anthology?
At one of our weekly acquisitions meetings, we were sitting around tossing ideas at each other and, invariably, we turned to politics and current affairs. The conversation moved to uprisings and coups.
We were struck by how powerful the idea of protest is, how India has been defined by some big protest movements in the past decade. This sense of frustration, anger, of the system letting us down, has led people to take to the streets We felt it was necessary to document the last 10 years, what this country has been fighting for.
What is the relevance of this book today?
This book is the idea of India that we would like to cling to — a country and citizens that fight for freedom and justice. In an increasingly intolerant nation, one that seems devoid of compassion, it is important to remind ourselves of the importance of dissent.
To speak up against inequality, to protest against the failure of the judiciary, to fight for our constitutional rights, to remind ourselves of our humanity.
What are the top issues that the book addresses?
The issues that the book centres on are those that have been our foremost concern in the past decade: corruption, caste, Kashmir, religious intolerance, fascism, hunger and poverty, rape, the Constitution, the judiciary, citizenship, who is Indian and whose India is this.
What is the role of literature in shaping the future of a country?
The literature of a particular period reflects the zeitgeist. There is a reason this book resonated with us. What we publish, what we write, has the power to move people. In a sense, it is also a form of protest.