A Subversive Institution

I discovered theEPW in the mid-1990s when I was a college student. I was angry about many things, especially about turning into a refugee in my own country after being hounded out of the Kashmir Valley a few years earlier.

My vision of the Indian landscape was very limited. In school, I had hardly learnt anything. In college, my learning mostly took place outside the classroom. A senior in Panjab University asked me if I had read theEPW. I had no idea, of course. He smiled, perhaps at the possibility of turning me into a subversive, and gave me a few old copies of the journal to read.