Eastern Communism and the Politics of the Global South

Historian Vijay Prashad discusses political responses to inequality in the developing world.

Recorded November 17, 2014

India’s election of 2014 sent the BJP, the Hindu Right, to victory with 30% of the votes. More broadly, however, the majority of parties across the political spectrum in India— including the socialists — have moved to an accommodation with neo-liberalism. Only the Communists (and the Maoists) remain outside that consensus, resulting in a tough task for the Indian Left. Based on a book that is currently in development, titled No Free Left: The Futures of Indian Communism, Vijay Prashad will present a view of Indian politics from the standpoint of the country's political Left.

Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and Professor of International Studies at Trinity College in Connecticut. He earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of Chciago. He is the author of sixteen books, most recently: The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South (2013) and Arab Spring, Libyan Winter (2012).

His other publications include The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World (2008), which was chosen as the best nonfiction book of 2008 by the Asian American Writers' Workshop and which won the 2009 Muzaffar Ahmad Book Prize; and of two books chosen by the Village Voice as books of the year, Karma of Brown Folk (2000) and Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural Purity (2001).

Prashad also writes regularly in the media: as a columnist for Frontline magazine (Chennai, India), a contributing editor forHimal South Asia (Kathmandu, Nepal), a contributing editor for Bol (Lahore, Pakistan), a fortnightly contributor to Asia Times, an occasional correspondent for al-Akhbar (Beirut, Lebanon) and a regular contributor to Counterpunch.

Learn more: http://cis.uchicago.edu/prashad

This event is part of the Center for International Studies 2014-15 Global (In)Equalities series:

http://inequalities.uchicago.edu