Roli Books acquired Kobad Ghandy's memoir

Ghandy, a communist and Marxist thinker and activist, who has been branded an anti-national by the government for his ideologies, talks about his life working for Dalits and poor, the couple‟s involvement with the Naxalites, and his ongoing legal battles in his memoir.

Publishing House Roli Books has announced that it has signed Kobad Ghandy‟s memoir, set to be published in the first quarter of 2021. Dedicated to his inspiration – his late wife, the book details Kobad Ghandy‟s early life – from his time studying in London to his return to India and introduction to the Dalit Panthers and radical politics – and gives us an insight into his decade-long journey of arrests and time in prisons across India.

Priya Kapoor, Director, Roli Books shares, "I began a correspondence with Mr. Ghandy in 2018, when he was still in a jail in Telangana. We had recently published Behind Bars by Sunetra Choudhury in which there was a dedicated chapter on Ghandy, a Parsi boy from a privileged background, who was educated at Doon School and had gone to London to study CA where he witnessed racism and as a result got interested in leftist politics. He quit his CA course and returned to India to join the Naxalite movement. He was imprisoned in various jails around India for ten years despite acquittals for charges ranging from sedition to charges under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). In October 2019 when he was released, I immediately asked him to write his story. I am delighted to be publishing Kobad Ghandy's memoirs – not only because it is an important account of our justice and penal system but also because he writes beautifully.‟

A decade in Indian jails seemed like a descent into a dark and hopeless abyss, a searing experience to body and soul. It was at the same time an experience that was enlightening and enabled a refinement and enlargement of understanding. This book traces the striving on my part and that of Anuradha, my late wife and inspiration, for a just and equal world. It is being brought out at a time the world is witnessing an earth-shattering experience, never witnessed before, of pandemics, environmental devastation and economic disaster. In such a scenario, the book takes the reader on a long journey, spanning half a century, igniting hope, towards a new dawn. Was the dream that we pursued realizable, or is it irrevocably shattered? Or is it merely deferred? The book is rumination and reflection on lives lived differently on a road less travelled among the poor and exploited. This may seem to many a utopian quest. But as Oscar Wilde once said "A map of the world that does not include utopia is not worth glancing at…" says Kobad Ghandy.