Ash Sarkar (1992) British journalist and communist
Ash Sarkar (born 17 April 1992 is a British journalist and communist political activist. She is a senior editor at Novara Media and teaches at the Sandberg Institute.
In 2017, she taught Global Politics at Anglia Ruskin University as an associate lecturer.
Sarkar is a contributor to The Guardian and The Independent and is a regular commentator on politics and society in UK broadcast and online media.
Sarkar grew up in North London and was raised by her mother. Sarkar's great-great-aunt, Pritilata Waddedar, was a Bengali nationalist who participated in armed struggle against the British Empire in 1930s Bengal.[7] Her grandmother is a hospital carer.[1] Her mother is a social worker] who was an anti-racist and trade union activist in the 1970s and 1980s,[7][8] helping to organise marches after the racially motivated murder of Altab Ali.[8] Sarkar says that, as a child, her mother briefly met Mao Zedong while in Beijing.
Ash Sarkar talking on a panel at The World Transformed 2017
She attended a comprehensive school before moving to a selective grammar school for sixth form education. She gained undergraduate and master's degrees in English Literature from University College London
Political views and reception
In her writings and commentary, Sarkar has expressed anti-imperialist, feminist and anti-fascist views. She has taken part in anti-racist, anti-fascist and anti-Trump protests and joined a hunger strike to protest against the detention of asylum seekers at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre. She supported the Stansted 15's actions against deportation flights.
After a clip of her telling Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain that she was "literally a communist!" went viral, Sarkar clarified her views as Libertarian Communist, a "long termist" who supports Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn's anti-austerity policies.
Sarkar's writing and broadcasting makes liberal use of humour and London slang, and she has written that politics "should be joyful and exuberant."
Although she is not a Labour Party member, Sarkar (and Novara Media more generally) has become closely associated in media commentary with Jeremy Corbyn's democratic socialist project:[20] The Times has described her as "Britain's loudest Corbynista", and Dazed magazine said she is one of "the voices resetting the political agenda in the UK".
Everybody, everywhere seeks happiness, it’s true,
But finding it and keeping it seem difficult to do.
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