This essay was published as an Op-Ed in The Columbus Dispatch on March 16, 2023 and picked up by Yahoo on March 17. Ohio Senate Bill 83, just introduced in the Ohio Senate at the time of this writing, brings Florida to Ohio in terms of the vicious attacks on…

Revised to include some comments on history, film, and representation, and bring in the voices of other critics. This is a review of RRR, directed by S.S. Rajamouli. [Spoilers ahead!] …

Notes on my lecture at the Socialism 2019 Conference, Chicago August 2022: New audio link added, correcting an earlier problem. In July 2019 I had the opportunity to deliver a lecture on a topic that’s long been on my mind, to an audience of activists and socialists interested in history…

About a year ago, just before his devastating electoral defeat, Donald J. Trump launched an attack on any body of writing or teaching that critically questioned accepted histories and mythologies of the United States. The 1619 Project, Critical Race Theory, Ethnic Studies, books like Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of…

Protest song from India/South Asia — A couple weeks ago, a Desi comrade drew my attention to this amazing protest song, dating back to the anticolonial struggle against the British and written by the Hindi/Urdu lyricist Shailendra. I’m putting this together to make it accessible to a wider English-speaking audience, Desi or not. There are different…

Early voting in Ohio, 2022 — When I went for early voting today here in Ohio, planning to vote for the Dem slate, I wasn’t smiling one bit. But something happened at the very end that reminded me of what I truly value, and how change will come. Can you blame me for not smiling and…

Independence in Pakistan and India — August 14–15, 2022. As Pakistan and India celebrate 75 years of independence from Britain, I think about the land of my birth (India), of my people, and of the meaning of freedom across South Asia. I think about: the freedom fighters and committed masses who forced the British out after…

Just signed a contract with Bloomsbury Academic (UK) for my article “Centering the Oppressed: Marxism and the Question of Race and Class.” It will appear in a volume called “On Class, Race, and Educational Reform,” edited by Antonia Darder, Cleveland Hayes II, and Howard Ryan. In a very short space…

May Day, Central Ohio — Written on May 1, 2017. Still applies. In Central Ohio, Asian origin workers are not thought about often when we talk about workers, or immigrants, or people of color. But here I am and here we are. Today I am asserting my presence: — as an immigrant, born in Ahmedabad …