ON January 1, Jana Natya Manch (JANAM) and the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) jointly organised a cultural programme and public meeting to commemorate the 29th Martyrdom Day of Comrade Safdar Hashmi at Dr Ambedkar Park, Jhandapur in Sahibabad Site IV.Comrade Safdar and Ram Bahadur, a worker, were killed in a fatal attack on JANAM orchestrated by Congress supported local goons in Jhandapur on Jan 1, 1989. Since then, JANAM has been going back to the same spot to observe, along with the trade union comrades and local workers, the legacy of Comrade Safdar’s creative and political work.

THE city of Bhopal witnessed a unique Festival – a festival of diversity, reason and resistance – from November 26-28. Named as Bhopal Utsav, it was organised by various progressive organisations, collectives and movements. The festival brought together activists from diverse movements, cultural activists, science activists and thousands of people from all walks of life. The festival was conceived as a response to the systematic assault on people’s lives mounted by religious sectarian forces and neoliberal economic policies.

MELANMAI Ponnusamy, a doyen among the progressive writers in Tamil Nadu and a Sahitya Akademi awardee, passed away in Chennai on October 30 after a brief illness. He was the founder of the Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers and Artistes Association (TNPWAA) in the 1970s.Hailing from Melanmarai Nadu of Virudhunagar district, Ponnusamy studied up to Class V and thereafter along with his younger brother Karikalan went to Thanjavur where the duo supplied sweetmeats to shops. After some time, they went back to their native village where they opened a grocery.

JANA Natya Manch, Delhi organised an all India meeting of street theatre activists from August 13-15. There were 28 street theatre activists from 12 states who participated in the three-day meeting that was held at Studio Safdar, Shadi Khampur. The agenda of the meeting was to share stories about each other’s work and discuss strategies to counter the rising Hindutva forces through cultural resistance.Each day was divided in three broad sessions.

One daythe apoliticalintellectualsof my countrywill be interrogatedby the simplestof our people. They will be askedwhat they didwhen their nation died outslowly,like a sweet firesmall and alone. SOME of us may be familiar with these verses from a poem titled “Apolitical Intellectuals” by Otto Rene Castillo. Fifty years ago, in March 1967, when he had barely crossed thirty years of age, this Guatemalan poet, a revolutionary and a guerilla fighter, was ambushed and captured along with another member of the guerrilla group, Nora Paiz and 13 local campesinos.