Boston South Asian Coalition

05/27/2026

Spring thunder describes the beginning of the Naxalbari movement, which began in Naxalbari, a village in West Bengal and spread to other states.

On May 25, 1967, police fired upon a gathering of people who were protesting the murder of a tribal (Adivasi) farmer by a landlord's militia.
They brutally murdered 9 people.

This incident was the spark for an uprising by the rural poor which included Adivasis, landless farmers (from oppressed castes) and workers. This was a major movement for land and dignity. It was a revolt against feudalism and state terror.
It subsequently spread from rural areas to urban centers in India.

Large numbers of young people gave up their careers and sacrificed their lives for the revolutionary movement in solidarity with the Adivasis and impoverished people of India.

The Naxalbari movement was violently crushed by the Indian state.
The Naxalbari movement became the biggest threat to the capitalist class and the feudal landlords since the transfer of power from the British colonial masters to the Brahmanical capitalist class in 1947.



Source:
https://www.abebooks.com/9780862320386/Indias-Simmering-Revolution-Naxalite-Uprising-0862320380/plp

05/26/2026

Remembering Pandit Iyothee Thass - one of the earliest anti-caste intellectuals, Buddhist revivalists, and social reformers of modern India.

Born on 20 May 1845 in Madras (now Chennai), Iyothee Thass challenged caste hierarchy decades before it became part of mainstream national debate.

At a time when untouchability was treated as normal, he openly questioned caste oppression, historical erasure, and the denial of dignity to oppressed communities.

He believed education, self-respect, and reclaiming history were essential for liberation.

In 1898, he embraced Buddhism and founded the Sakya Buddhist Society, seeing Buddhism as a path toward equality and social justice.

In 1907, he launched Oru Paisa Tamizhan (“One Paisa Tamilian”), a revolutionary Tamil publication that gave oppressed communities a voice during a time of deep exclusion.

Long before Ambedkar transformed the national conversation on caste, Iyothee Thass was already laying the intellectual foundation for anti-caste thought in South India.

A thinker ahead of his time.
A voice history tried to erase.
A legacy that still speaks.

Source:
https://countercurrents.org/prout110410.htm

05/20/2026

BSAC condemns the horrific killings at the Islamic Center in San Diego

"Empire is what produces, sustains, and is in turn fed by anti-Muslim racism."

Massive protest in Kolkota against the violence

Sources:
https://jacobin.com/2023/02/islamophobia-anti-muslim-racism-history-empire

https://www.democracynow.org/2026/5/19/headlines/teenage_attackers_kill_3_at_san_diego_islamic_center_in_suspected_hate_crime

https://maktoobmedia.com/post?id=115436&slug=34-incidents-of-violence-mosque-attacks-and-demolitions-in-west-bengal-after-bjp-win-report

05/09/2026

Neha Dixit spoke to a packed audience on May 2 in Boston.

Drawing from her book The Many Lives of Syeda X, a widely acclaimed book, she had the audience inspired and moved. Syeda X's life is a political commentary of capitalist exploitation, patriarchal discrimination, and the polarization of society by the ruling class using religion.

Migrant workers form the backbone of the economy in India creating wealth for Indian suppliers and international corporations.

Syeda X's life illustrates the hard work performed daily under terrible conditions by cheap female labor.

Neha's book is a powerful indictment of capitalism, patriarchy, and growing religious intolerance - this talk was organized by Alliance, BSAC, IAMC and Sapan. The event was held the day after millions of workers celebrated May Day on the streets - for justice and against exploitation.

05/08/2026

BSAC condemns the hostile takeover of State Legislative Assemblies in the recently conducted elections in West Bengal (WB), Tamil Nadu (TN), and Assam.

A Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter rolls was instituted to delete 9 million names in Bengal and 7 million names in TN, under the pretext of removing dead or duplicate voters. This process was used last year in Bihar as well, in order to delete around 6.5 million names.

Only in Bengal, a special filter of “logical discrepancy” was applied to delete around 2.7 million names (close to the 3.2 million win margin of the BJP) who, even the Election Commission of India (ECI) says, are alive. Crucially, this list contained a higher percentage of Muslim names than is their share in the population in the state.

In Assam, in at least 10 seats, the process of redrawing electoral boundaries called Delimitation unduly favored the ruling islamophobic BJP by changing the demographic constitution of these seats from being predominantly Muslim to Hindu. The US is no stranger to such nefarious techniques of manipulation of electoral outcomes via gerrymandering of electoral districts.

The elections were conducted in a highly militarized atmosphere, where the center brought in around 250,000 armed paramilitary forces into Bengal, weeks before the election, and who will stay on for 60 days after the election. Even the imperialist US sent fewer troops to Iran for its war.

Post the elections, assaults have promptly commenced on individuals, party offices of opposition, Muslim communities. Shops owned by Muslims have been demolished. All this with the tacit inaction of the aforementioned paramilitary forces. These very forces are in fact protecting the rampaging mobs.

BSAC roundly condemns the deletion of voters through SIR and electoral chicanery such as delimitation or gerrymandering, which completely invalidate the electoral process.

We say a firm NO to the abuse of state power for electoral manipulation.

05/06/2026

BSAC Condemns The Hostile Takeover of State Legislative Assemblies


Boston South Asian Coalition (BSAC) stands in solidarity with the people of the states of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Assam who have been deceitfully deleted from electoral rolls or been wrongfully targeted via delimitation, by a highly compromised and partisan Election Commission of India (ECI). We also stand in solidarity with the people that have been previously disenfranchised in Bihar...

04/29/2026

Event registration link:
https://tinyurl.com/NDixit-May2

Some lives exist only in files, headlines or accusations. How do bureaucracy, policing and media narratives quietly decide who belongs?

What does Democracy look like from below?

Neha Dixit's talk will highlight the struggles of urban poor workers and will show how economic marginalisation intersects with political and social exclusion.

----------------
Neha Dixit is an independent journalist and author based in New Delhi. For over two decades, she has reported on politics, gender, labour, and social justice across South Asia, with work published in major international outlets.

She is the recipient of numerous national and international awards, including the International Press Freedom Award (2019) and the Chameli Devi Jain Award (2017).

Her debut book, The Many Lives of Syeda X, chronicles the life of a migrant Muslim woman navigating Delhi’s informal labour economy, holding over 50 jobs without minimum wage. The book has received multiple literary honors.

Join us for talk and interactive Q&A with Neha Dixit on:
Saturday, May 2, 2026
3 pm to 5 pm

Community Church of Boston:
565 Boylston St, 2nd floor,
Boston, MA 02116
(Copley Square T stop).

04/21/2026

Event registration link:
https://tinyurl.com/NDixit-May2

Some lives exist only in files, headlines or accusations. How do bureaucracy, policing and media narratives quietly decide who belongs?

What does Democracy look like from below?

Neha Dixit's talk will highlight the struggles of urban poor workers and will show how economic marginalisation intersects with political and social exclusion.

----------------
Neha Dixit is an independent journalist and author based in New Delhi. For over two decades, she has reported on politics, gender, labour, and social justice across South Asia, with work published in major international outlets.

She is the recipient of numerous national and international awards, including the International Press Freedom Award (2019) and the Chameli Devi Jain Award (2017).

Her debut book, The Many Lives of Syeda X, chronicles the life of a migrant Muslim woman navigating Delhi’s informal labour economy, holding over 50 jobs without minimum wage. The book has received multiple literary honors.

Join us for talk and interactive Q&A with Neha Dixit on:
Saturday, May 2, 2026
3 pm to 5 pm

Community Church of Boston:
565 Boylston St, 2nd floor,
Boston, MA 02116
(Copley Square T stop).

04/20/2026

04/11/2026

A recent screening in Boston of journalist and filmmaker Beena Sarwar’s documentary Aur Niklenge Ushhaq ke Qaaflay (There Will Be More Caravans of Passion) brought the 1950s Democratic Students Federation back into public memory, tracing its emergence as Pakistan’s first nation-wide student movement.
..

The event, titled “Resistance in Pakistan: Looking Back to Look Forward,” organised by the activist group Boston South Asian Coalition in collaboration with the Southasia Peace Action Network (Sapan) on 28 March, wasn’t just a documentary screening but a mini history lesson. 
..

“It was a very instructive morning in Boston, hearing about struggles in Pakistan. The  documentary of brave students struggles in the 1950s connected the present day struggles for an equitable society. The room was filled with revolutionary optimism,” Padma B., a healthcare worker in Boston who helped organise the event, told Sapan News.

Full event report:
https://sapannews.com/2026/04/08/reclaiming-a-progressive-past-documentary-screening-in-boston-revisits-an-iconic-student-movement-in-pakistan/