Kamlesh Shukla, editor, poet, anti-Emergency activist, dies

The Hindi tabloid Pratipaksh held strong Socialist views and was an effective forum for political and literary arguments, often in conflict with the government of the day.

[related-post]

Born in 1937 in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, Kamlesh did not complete his formal education, but was considered among the most well-read writers of his time. Before he became wedded to the ideas of Ram Manohar Lohia, he was an associate editor with Kalpana, a well-known Hindi literary journal.

Kamlesh spent his early days in UP before moving to Delhi. Considered “a man of big dreams” by his friends, he was well-regarded as a Hindi poet, and published collections of verse in ‘Jaratkaroo’, ‘Khule Mein Awas’ and ‘Basav’.

Kamlesh is best remembered as the focal point of thinkers who backed the Socialist movement in the ’70s. He was a ‘Comrade in Arms’ to many prominent leaders during the Emergency and was jailed 40 years ago in the Baroda Dynamite case, in which he was named co-accused along with George Fernandes. He was closely associated with the likes of Madhu Dandavate, Kedar Nath Singh, D P Tripathi, U R Ananthamurthy, Kishan Patnaik and Sushma and Swaraj Kaushal (in their Socialist phase) among others.