From Ritual to Republic

This book is about mourning. It is about mourning for a death which has been conceived as a murder but in a distinct fashion as ritualistic as a sacrifice and as a martyrdom initiating a specific genre of democratic representation marking the birth of the Indian Republic. The person thus mourned was a school teacher and an activist of the Communist Party of India among many other things. He was killed on the first Republic day of India 26th January 1950 in a clash with the police. He had been leading a demonstration called ‘Rally for the Rights of the Citizens’ pauravakasajaatha purportedly against the highhandedness of the police in the name of maintaining law and order in Nattika Firka in the erstwhile district of Malabar in the presidency of Madras.