Culture ideology and politics: Jyotiprasad Agarwala and his vision for social transformation

In Assam, Jyotiprasad Agarwala's politics and ideology have been contested from different quarters. A section of the intelligentsia and academia, and cultural practitioners strove to project Jyotiprasad Agarwala as a devotee of beauty and humanism. For Jyotiprasad, humanism and beauty did constitute the core of his life long concerns. However, for him beauty was not abstract. He linked his vision of a beautiful and humane world with peoples' endeavour to free themselves from injustice, oppression and subjugation. Jyotiprasad was very critical of the emerging Indian state and condemned capitalism as a force of evil-duskriti. The proponents of Jyotiprasad's beauty and humanism very often ignore this political and ideological orientation in Jyotiprasad Agarwala's work. The present volume edited by Akhil Ranjan Dutta is an attempt to assert this political and ideological vision of Jyotiprasad Agarwala without, however, undermining his life-long concern for beauty and humanism.