Revolutionary Pasts and Decolonial Futures by Ali Raza

Talk

In a moment where far right nationalisms are ascendant across South Asia, it’s easy to overlook a shared past that was alive with hopes and possibilities of a more liberated and enlightened future. Few projects expressed those hopes with as much vigour as Communist Internationalism, by far the most radical political project of the 20th century. This talk, then, will touch upon the history of South Asian communism as part of a broader reflection on what this virtually forgotten past can offer us by way of a more progressive future.

Ali Raza is a historian specializing in the history of modern South Asia. He is the author of Revolutionary Pasts: Communist Internationalism in Colonial India (Cambridge University Press, 2020). He received his DPhil from the University of Oxford and was a research fellow at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin. His research and teaching interests include the social and intellectual history of South Asia, comparative colonialisms, decolonization, and post-colonial theory.

Location: Lahore Museum

Date: February 26, 2020