This book, with a Foreword by John Berger and a jacket endorsement by Joe Sacco, has already made news. See this report in Washington Post and this one in Open.

Says Joe Sacco, author of Palestine, ‘The artists Durgabai Vyam and Subhas Vyam have dropped most of the West’s and manga’s typical comics conventions and boldly use of their own artistic heritage, the Pardhan-Gond tradition, to craft a distinctive graphic biography of one of India’s bravest and greatest leaders, Bhimrao Ambedkar, an “untouchable” and a fierce critic of Gandhi’s. Heavy in symbolism and motifs, Bhimayana is challenging in all the right ways and still conveys with flair who Ambedkar was and why his revolutionary ideas about the caste system still matter so much to the India of today.’

John Berger in his Foreword says, ‘An extraordinary book… No more rectangular framing or unilinear time. No more profiled individuals. Instead, a conference of corporeal experience across generations, full of pain and empathy.’

The clothbound, hardback collector’s edition of Bhimayana, printed on special paper, will cost Rs 995 in the market. 8″ x 11″ (just about A4), half of the 108 pages in breathtaking colour. This limited, numbered edition can be booked for a discount price of Rs 750 now (inclusive of postage) up to 30 Sept 2010. Send a DD favouring “Navayana Publishing” to 155, 2nd Floor, Shahpur Jat, New Delhi 110049. Ph 011-26494795. The copy will be sent to you by 15 Nov 2010. A paperback will also be available simultaneously for Rs 340.

Based on experiences in the life of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, Navayana will soon launch a graphic book that will feature the work of Pardhan Gond artists Durgabai Vyam and Subhash Vyam. The artwork and the non-sequential non-realist mode of representation promises to be a landmark in the history of modern graphic books. Watch this space for bi-weekly updates that will offer a peep into what’s to hit bookstores by mid-August.

In his Sarai lecture, on 4 Jan 2010, Slavoj Žižek called Gandhi a ’soft fascist’ and said he was more in line with Ambedkar’s radical approach to the question of caste. In this interview to the Sunday Times of India (10 Jan 2010), he elaborates on these questions. Excerpts with links to full text.
Q: You have also been accused of glorifying political violence. Do you support violence as a means of political change?
A: Here I must be frank. For me, the 20th century communism is the biggest ethical-political catastrophe in …

Slavoj Žižek on
“Capitalism and Particular Life-Worlds: In Defense of Universalism”
7 Jan 2010. 11 a.m.
Room 1, New Academic Building, EFLU Campus
Interlocutor: Madhava Prasad
Come early to ensure seats. Žižek books and other latest Navayana titles will be available for sale at the venue.
To order Žižek’s latest book First as Tragedy, Then as Farce and The Sublime Object of Ideology, or any other Navayana title online in any part of South Asia, visit Scholars Without Borders.

Thus Spoke Ambedkar, Volume 1
A Stake in the Nation

Edited and Selected by Bhagwan Das
With annotations
Navayanan Ambedkar Library 1
7.5″ x 7.5″
Hardback with dust jacket, 228 pages
ISBN 9788189059187
Rs 395
The first ever annotated edition of Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s speehces.

The twenty speeches in the first of volume of Thus Spoke Ambedkar showcase the wide range of issues that Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar engaged with as one of the founders of modern India. Delivered between 1930 and 1956, they unravel a story otherwise jettisoned by mainstream ‘nationalist’ narratives that valorise a rather Hinduised ‘idea of India’. …

In Pursuit of Ambedkar
Bhagwan Das
Paperback   7.5″ x 7.5″   86 pages  (with DVD of documentary feature) Rs 175
ISBN 9788189059057
1943, Shimla. Bhagwan Das, all of 16 and a keen member of the Scheduled Caste Federation, waited seven hours to meet the man his father called ‘Ummeedkar’, the Harbinger of Hope-Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. That meeting defined the trajectory Das’ life would later take in his single-minded pursuit of Babasaheb’s ideals. After serving in the Royal Indian Air Force as a radar operator during World War II, Das worked with Ambedkar …

First as Tragedy, Then as Farce
Slavoj Žižek
Paperback   B Format   156 pages   Rs 200
ISBN 9788189059019
The title of this book is intended as an elementary IQ test for the reader: if the first association it generates is the vulgar anti-communist cliché —“You are right—today, after the tragedy of twentieth-century totalitarianism, all the talk about a return to communism can only be farcical!”—then I sincerely advise you to stop here. Indeed, the book should be forcibly confiscated from you, since it deals with an entirely different tragedy and farce, namely, the two …

In the first annual Navayana lecture series, Navayana, which turns six on 5 November, is delighted to present Slavoj Žižek – maverick marxist from Slovenia, “the Elvis of cultural theory”. He shall be in India from 2 Jan to 9 Jan 2010, participating in two public events in Delhi and one each in Hyderabad and Kochi. His tour shall coincide with the Navayana edition of his latest book, First and Tragedy, Then as Farce. There will also be pre-event shows – film screenings, launches, discussions. A …

Religious Rebels in the Punjab
The Ad Dharm Challenge to Caste

Mark Juergensmeyer

ISBN: 9788189059002
Pages: 382, paperback
Rs 400
What happens when untouchables decide they are not Hindus and refuse to subscribe to the concepts undergirding caste? They form their own religion. The Ad Dharm movement of Punjab, founded in the 1920s by Mangoo Ram, stakes claim as a religion separate from and superior to both Hinduism and Sikhism. In this pioneering work, MARK JUERGENSMEYER chronicles the history of the Ad Dharm movement based on extensive field research, sociological surveys and interviews that weave the …