Obituary: KP Sasi, a powerful icon of India’s resistance movements, is no more

Featured By K A Shaji December 26, 2022 Read the article

KP Sasi, who breathed his last on Christmas Day, was one of the earliest champions of documentary filmmaking in the country.

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Sasi spent almost four decades travelling the country, reaching out to disempowered segments of the society to document their struggles for survival.

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He identified with the struggling millions and remained honest while narrating the harsh realities confronting such communities to the world outside.

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He gave up a successful career as a newspaper cartoonist, and suffered frequent financial crises and would even land in jail occasionally.

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He directly participated in the struggles like the Narmada Bachao Andolan and the anti-Coca Cola struggles in Plachimada.

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He always confronted the organised Left in India by questioning their perspectives on development and infrastructure.

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He documented the struggles in the North East against AFSPA and displacement of locals in Odisha in the face of the corporate takeover of their lands and livelihoods.

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With the music video America, America, he emerged as a critic of US imperialism and its adverse impacts on a changed world order.

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In recent years, Sasi was at the forefront of a movement supporting undertrials who languish in jails without trial.

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During breaks from documentary filmmaking, Sasi vigorously pursued his cartoon skills and integrated them with his activism.

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He had also penned numerous articles in newspapers and magazines; if compiled together, they will give a rare insight into India’s grave social realities.

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India’s civil society movements and the numerous newly-emerging survival struggles of ordinary people will badly miss Sasi.

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