Haunted by Fire

Mythily Sivaraman’s essays range from agrarian unrest, caste oppression, land, labour and wages, the centrality of class struggle, the early promise of change, the radical course of left struggles, the coercive apparatus of the state, issues of impunity, and the way the Emergency worked out on the ground.

Contents:

Introduction: The Life and Times of Mythily Sivaraman by V. Geetha and Kalpana Karunakaran Reading Mythily Sivaraman by V. Geetha

I. Dalits

1. Children of Darkness

2. Harijans: Forbidden Territories, Feckless Reforms

II. Understanding the Dravidian Movement

3. The Relevance of Periyar: Caste or Class Struggle

4. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam: The Content of its Ideology

5. Straining Hard for Ideas

III. Land and labour

6. Venmani and the Free Press

7. DMK: Kisan ’s Friend or Foe?

8. Thanjavur: Rumblings of Class Struggle in Tamil Nadu

9. Gentlemen Killers of Kilvenmani

IV. Workers and unions

10. The Industrial Policy of the DMK

11. A Report on MRF: A Monopoly, its Workers and the State

12. Plantations: The Green Industry and its Wage Slaves

13. The Politics of Repression

14. All-Out Attack on the Working Class

V. Repression and resistance

15. Who is the Aggressor?

16. Murder of Seeralan

17. Police on the Rampage

18. Story of Nagammal

VI. Electoral Politics

19. A Report on the Tamil Nadu Elections

20. Election Parole

21. Different Alignment for Assembly Election?

22. Glamour Politics in Command

23. Moment of Truth for MGR

24. Odd Man Out

VII. Exploring Socialism

25. Gandhian Thought in Cuba

26. Communists Must Ponder: Extremism and the Left

27. Education in Cuba

28. The Relevance of Truth and Non-Violence to Indian Politics Today

29. Towards Emancipation

30. People ’s Republic in China