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The Pamphlet Project is aimed at reviving the pamphlet, a literary genre that has gone out of vogue today.
A pamphlet is topical, generates interest and communicates with readers from a cross-section of society.
While today, pamphlets are largely used for religious and political propaganda, Red Earth wishes to
exploit the immense potentialities of the genre to articulate varied secular and non-ideological concerns.
The pamphlets published as part of the project will centre on issues of popular culture, urban life, and
the arts and culture in India.
A major premise of the project is to critique certain western models of
living and certain elements of the western ethos, which are being embraced by a significant part of the
Indian populace, uncritically and unthinkingly, even though they are mostly culturally dissonant and in
some cases even harmful. Additionally, it will also critique some aspects of traditional culture.
As part of the Project, Red Earth will also be taking up the publication of material (in the form of pamphlets,
broadsides etc.) that is often rejected for publication in the mainstream media due to its polemic nature or its
critique of state or media policies. This will be a humble attempt to counter the strong censure of critical voice
by the media. The vision is to generate public opinion and awareness and boost the critical mentality of the readers.
If accomplished, this would be a small step towards creation of a healthy, more democratic dialogue on some issues of
core importance to our lives.
The Pamphlet Project refutes the assumption that the lay reader is incapable of a deeper understanding of
things. Hence the pamphlets aim to balance the academic and the popular, the literary and the conversational,
to delight as well as to provide insight.
Coffee is a known stimulant that thinkers have liberally used down the ages. Literature and coffee
have been inextricably associated with each other ever since the emergence of the first coffee houses
in 17th century Europe. Just as there were separate coffee houses for politicians, scientists, merchants,
seafarers, etc., there were also coffee houses meant exclusively for men of letters. The literary genres
of the periodical, pamphlet and newspaper evolved in the ambience of these literary coffee houses and they
became institutions central to the cultural life of the city. Ever since, cafes have been the perfect places
to read, write, think, discuss, debate and interact.
In urban India today, there is indeed a 'coffee boom'. However, a 'coffee culture', in the real sense of the
term, is yet to emerge. Red Earth believes that the coffee house (or a coffee shop as it is known in today's
consumeristic times), with its pivotal role in the popular culture of the youth today, can be an exciting
space for a cultural flowering.
However, it seems that the idea of a coffee house as a public space, is
dead in today's capitalistic times. The new coffee houses are nothing but capitalist ventures (chains),
where everything is up for sale, and the only kind of information they offer is corporate advertising!
We regret that we have been unsuccessful in our attempts to make the pamphlet available through coffee
houses, but we believe that speaks more of the coffee houses than us. As of now, the pamphlets will be
available through bookstores as well as online. Hopefully someday there will be a coffee house where
the pamphlets will find a nurturing space!
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