Singing to liberation

Cultural Resistance in India has a rich and long history - right from the days in which the British ruled over the country. Protest music occupies a central position in the organizational fabric of contemporary Indian progressive and revolutionary politics. Cultural organizations such as Indian People’s Theatre Association and JANAM, have been crucial parts of the progressive movement in the country, along with martyrs such as Safdar Hashmi who was killed by the hooligans appointed by the then-ruling party in 1989 while attempting to put up a theatrical resistance to the dominant ideological paradigm of the times. Cultural politics has today emerged as an integral dimension of the vibrant student politics that characterize the progressive bloc in the country’s political spectrum. With rising attacks on the democratic and progressive nature of these spaces, forms of cultural resistance have become an integral component of the resistance that these spaces have been putting up to the neofascist regime that rules over India. This is the cultural and political junction at which the current work draws its relevance. Drawing from insights gained from over 25 interviews with cultural activists, the book analyses the deep connections between culture and other forms of resistance. 'Singing to Liberation is a highly provocative and timely work by Suddhabrata Deb Roy. The struggles, crises, violence, and resistant movements inside the university campuses in India have been openly spoken out without any unnecessary jargon and rhetoric. Each and every page of this book is a powerful archive of sociopolitical crises, censorships, and bloodshed that India is currently experiencing' - Sayan Dey, Author, Green Academia (Routledge) and Performing Memories and Weaving Archives (Anthem Press)