Ash Sarkar

Ashna Sarkar (born 17 April 1992)[2][3] is a British-Bangladeshi journalist and left-wing political activist. She is a senior editor at Novara Media[4] and teaches at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam.[4] In 2017, she taught global politics at Anglia Ruskin University as an associate lecturer.[2] Sarkar is a contributor to The Guardian[4] and The Independent.[5]

Ash Sarkar
Sarkar in December 2019
Born
Ashna Sarkar[1]

(1992-04-17) 17 April 1992
Enfield, London, England, UK
NationalityBritish
Alma materUniversity College London
OccupationJournalist, academic, activist
RelativesPritilata Waddedar (great–great–aunt)

Sarkar has said that she is a libertarian communist, describing her view on communism as being "about the desire to see the coercive structures of state dismantled, while also having fun. It's not about driving everybody down to the same level of abjection, but making aesthetic pleasures and luxuries available to all."[6]

Early life and education

Sarkar grew up in Palmers Green, 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.[2] Her mother is a social worker[2] 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.[6]

She attended Enfield County School, an all-girls comprehensive school before moving to the Latymer School, a selective grammar school for sixth form education.[2] She gained undergraduate and master's degrees in English literature from University College London.[6]

Career

Sarkar is a senior editor at Novara Media and teaches at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam.[9] In 2017, she taught global politics at Anglia Ruskin University as an associate lecturer.[2]

She is a contributor to The Guardian[4] and The Independent.[2]

Political views, controversies and reception
Sarkar at The World Transformed in 2017

In her writings and commentary, Sarkar has expressed anti-imperialist,[7] feminist,[10] anti-fascist,[8] and libertarian communist[6] views. She has taken part in anti-racist, anti-fascist and anti-Trump protests[11] and in 2018 joined a hunger strike to protest against the detention of asylum seekers at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre.[12] She supported the Stansted 15's actions against deportation flights.[13] 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 the former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn's anti-austerity policies.[6][14][15]

Sarkar's writing and broadcasting makes liberal use of humour and London slang, and she has written that politics "should be joyful and exuberant".[6]

Although she only became a Labour Party member during the UK general election campaign in late 2019,[16] Sarkar (and Novara Media more generally) has become closely associated in media commentary with Corbyn's democratic socialist project:[17] The Times has described her as "Britain's loudest Corbynista".[2]

In November 2017, Sarkar spoke at a World Transformed festival. One of her fellow speakers, Paolo Gerbaudo, said that "the hatred in society was taken out on the wrong people" and that he wanted to "make the left hate again", pointing to Philip May, husband of the then–Prime Minister, as a legitimate target, as he "works for a £1 trillion hedge fund that is profiting from tax avoidance". In response, Sarkar said "I'm on Team Hate".[18]

In January 2018, during a debate with Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell, Sarkar jokingly said that "God Save the Queen" is "not the catchiest of national anthems. I would much prefer 'Wearing My Rolex'… a grime banger". According to Vice News, this made Piers Morgan "apoplectic with rage".[19]

In September 2018, Sarkar defended anti-Zionist activist Ewa Jasiewicz in relation to Jasiewicz's scheduled speech at a Momentum conference that was running alongside the official Labour conference. Jasiewicz had once spraypainted "Free Gaza and Palestine" onto a wall of the Warsaw Ghetto.[20]

Personal life

Sarkar lives in North London[21] and is a Tottenham Hotspur supporter. She is also a Muslim.[6][22]

References
  1. "Ashna Sarkar". Pen Pusher. Retrieved 11 October 2020.
  2. Fisher, Lucy (4 June 2018). "Meet Ash Sarkar, Britain's loudest Corbynista". The Times. Retrieved 26 August 2018.(subscription required)
  3. Sarkar, Ash [@AyoCaesar] (17 April 2020). "28 today" (Tweet). Retrieved 17 April 2020 – via Twitter.
  4. "Ash Sarkar". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 12 July 2018. Retrieved 26 August 2018.
  5. "Ash Sarkar". The Independent. Archived from the original on 17 July 2018. Retrieved 26 August 2018.
  6. Hogan, Michael (22 July 2018). "'That's when I lost my temper': Ash Sarkar on her clash with Piers Morgan". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 November 2020.
  7. Sarkar, Ash (5 February 2018). "My great-great-aunt was a terrorist: women's politics went beyond the vote". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 15 July 2018. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
  8. Sarkar, Ash (21 August 2018). "This isn't just a culture war – we need a radical anti-fascist movement right now". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 22 August 2018. Retrieved 26 August 2018.
  9. "Shadow Channel". sandberg.nl. Sandberg Institute. Retrieved 8 January 2021.
  10. Sarkar, Ash (8 March 2018). "Let's put the politics back into International Women's Day". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  11. "Piers Morgan clashes with anti-Trump protester who calls him an 'idiot'". The Irish News. 12 July 2018. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  12. Sarkar, Ash (28 February 2018). "By demeaning refugees, Tories have caused the Yarl's Wood hunger strike". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  13. "Ash Sarkar Meets the Stansted 15". Novara Media. 7 February 2019. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  14. McTernan, John (16 May 2019). "What does the rise of Corbynism mean for the future of Britain?". Financial Times. Retrieved 8 January 2021.
  15. Steerpike (17 July 2018). "'I'm literally a communist' T-shirt – literally free market economics". The Spectator. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
  16. "Thangam Debbonaire MP, Stanley Johnson, Johnny Mercer MP, Ash Sarkar". Any Questions?. 10 January 2020. Event occurs at 31:04. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 8 January 2021.
  17. Chakelian, Anoosh (25 September 2017). ""Luxury communism now!" The rise of the pro-Corbyn media". New Statesman. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  18. Shipman, Tim (26 November 2017). "Left aimed hate at Philip May". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
  19. "The UK National Anthem Probably Should Be a "Grime Banger"". Vice. 18 January 2018. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
  20. Rifkind, Hugo (11 September 2018). "The shameful silence of Labour's top team". The Times. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
  21. Cafolla, Anna; Alemoru, Kemi (4 July 2018). "Meet the voices resetting the political agenda in the UK". Dazed. Archived from the original on 4 July 2018.
  22. Sarkar, Ash (27 May 2016). "Take it from me as a young British Muslim: Islamophobia is alive and kicking". Huck. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
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