Review of Sonali Kolhatkar’s Rising Up — The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice: We are the stories we tell

“Never again will a single story be told as if it is the only one.” — John Berger We stand at a moment when free citizens of the world wonder if the dreams of their forefathers have been waylaid by the power-hungry state that licenses indefensible intolerance and sectarian violence. Sonali Kolhatkar’s Rising Up offers a timely exploration of how activists and the general public begin to narrate their personal stories about racism instead of the top-down official history, with the aim of advancing social justice in the U.S. where white supremacy dictates the thinking of the people in spite of the rise in the population of people of colour. Kolhatkar, who has been engaged in journalism for more than 20 years, shows the pursuit of racial impartiality through the narratives of writers, creators and educators aiming “to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.” Social justice advocacy is her abiding credo. Kolhatkar joins the call for the power of the narrative to demonstrate its exacting responsibility in creating, in the words of Pete Seeger, “The right song at the right time which would change history.” The poet Agha Shahid Ali seeks a world without borders and reprimands the authoritarian government, “My memory is again in the way of your history.” This is indeed, literature of witness, of the one who has been there and knows the torture of being marginalised within the punitive workings of the powerful. must have the courage to write the truth when truth is everywhere opposed; the keenness to recognise it, although it is everywhere concealed; the judgement to select those in whose hands it will be effective.” Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice; Sonali Kolhatkar, City Lights, ₹1,461.