Forms of the Left in Postcolonial South Asia - (Critical Perspectives in South Asian History) by Sanjukta Sunderason & Lotte Hoek (Hardcover)

About the Book

"This book explores aesthetic forms of the left to negotiate the political frontiers of post-colonial, post-partition South Asia. Spanning India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the contributors study art, film and literature to illuminate interconnections across regions and countries, and discuss the shifting political contours of the region during the latter half of the 20th century. With a clear focus and conceptualization this volume raises two key questions; how left-wing art generated cultural and social formations, and how aesthetic forms held political value across the region. Reframing political aesthetics within a postcolonial and decolonised framework, it traces the trajectories and nuances the left-wing cultural movement took during decolonization, and focuses on connections and continuities across post-1947 India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Following the evolution of progressive culture in the 1950s and 60s, networks of leftist filmmakers and theatre activists in postcolonial Pakistan, and the changing fate of left cultural politics in Sri Lanka and India during the 1970s, this book looks to reinvigorate the entangled histories of the left cultural movement in post-partition South Asia"--

Book Synopsis

This book explores the aesthetic forms of the political left across the borders of post-colonial, post-partition South Asia. Spanning India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the contributors study art, film, literature, poetry and cultural discourse to illuminate the ways in which political commitment has been given aesthetic form and artistic value by artists and by cultural and political activists in postcolonial South Asia.

With a focused conceptualization this volume asks: Does the political left in South Asia have a recognizable aesthetic form? And if so, what political effects do left-wing artistic movements and aesthetic artefacts have in shaping movements against inequality and injustice? Reframing political aesthetics within a postcolonial and decolonised framework, the contributors detail the trajectories and transformations of left-wing cultural formations and affiliations and focus on connections and continuities across post-1947/8 India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Review Quotes

A first of its kind, this volume liberates the history of the left in South Asia. Focussing on 'form', the left is reconvened as an aesthetic force seeking to reshape our sensory and material being. In the face of aggressive nationalist aesthetics, Forms of the Leftoffers a critical alternative.
Prathama Banerjee, Professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India

In this richly variegated volume on the artistic lineages of left radicalism, the question of form takes on political urgency and heft, inviting us to imagine other futures than current political dispensations allow. Keenly attuned to political-aesthetic potentialities, Forms of the Left is a milestone contribution to global histories of the left.
Usha Iyer, Assistant Professor, Film and Media Studies, Stanford University, USA

About the Author

Sanjukta Sunderason is Senior Lecturer (UD1), in History of Art at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. A historian of aesthetic and intellectual formations of 20th-century decolonisation, she researches interfaces of visual art, left-wing thought, and transnational histories of postcolonial modernities. She is the author of Partisan Aesthetics: Modern Art & India's Long Decolonisation (2020).

Lotte Hoek is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Her ethnographic research is situated at the intersection of anthropology and film studies and explores the public and political life of the moving image in South Asia. She is the author of Cut-Pieces: Celluloid Obscenity and Popular Cinema in Bangladesh (2014).