When 29-year-old Mathur Sathya, an NIT Trichy graduate, gravitated towards public policy and began studying and understanding social inequalities, he was keen to spread awareness about what he was learning. However, a few of his acquaintances and friends warned him about his chosen path, saying, "You are going down the wrong route." But Mathur, who quit his high paying corporate job in 2019, was determined to learn and contribute to the society in whatever way possible with strong support from his family and girlfriend.
Over the past two years, Salem-based Mathur has done several YouTube videos for Neelam Social, a web channel initiated by director Pa Ranjith, on social justice. He also uses social media to keep the public informed about various social issues, and is currently focusing on the ideologies of Periyar, Ambedkar and Karl Marx.
It was through a friend that Mathur was introduced to Neelam Social, and he was asked to make a video for the web channel. “Director Ranjith, after seeing the video, said that he liked the way I spoke about politics and encouraged me to present videos. He named the show Patravai (Ignite)," says Mathur.
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Mathur has so far made 15 videos for Neelam Social. ‘Rumours about Reservation’, ‘Valentine's day-Annanukku Oru Mutta Puffs uh’, ‘Bigg Boss-top secrets’, are some of his videos that have gathered several positive comments from viewers on the channel that has 90.7K subscribers. Mathur says that all his videos consist of complex concepts broken down into simpler narratives for the masses to consume, or use a popular, trending subject to garner public attention.
“Depending on the concept, it takes hours or days to make a video. I read several books and articles to understand the concept in detail and work out how to explain it to my family in simple language,”says Mathur. Besides this, Mathur often creates IGTV rants on his personal social media profile, where he speaks about trending social issues.
A native of Salem, Mathur worked as an IT professional from 2014 to 2019. He became interested in cinema, reading and writing during this period. He started writing screenplays and even directed a music video. It was around then that Mathur, who was fairly unperturbed about social inequalities earlier, started reading books like Roots by Alex Haley and Everybody Loves a Good Drought by P Sainath. He also read books on politics, economics and philosophy to understand the fabric of society. In June 2019, Mathur quit his job and decided to work for social change.
“When I started reading books like Roots, I started to understand oppression and I slowly moved to reading about social evils and the realities of society. I was deeply troubled after that,” says Mathur.
Incidents such as Rohith Vemula's death, the debate over the introduction of the Aadhar card, demonetisation and so on, prompted him to become involved in public policy.
“I'm a well-educated youngster, if I don’t contribute, how can I expect someone less fortunate to get into the fight? – this was my first realisation,” says Mathur. “Soon after that, I read about Ambedkar, Periyar. However, I still found myself in a dilemma about what course to opt for, to understand the policies that will bring solutions to society.”
Subsequently, in March 2019, Mathur took up a fellowship with Young Leaders for Active Citizenship and grew interested in public policy. During the fellowship, he worked under Arunachal Pradesh Member of Parliament (MP) Ninong Ering, contributing to drafting a policy brief on ‘preservation of tribal and indigenous languages in India’.
Mathur says that the experience he gained with the fellowship and the books he read made him understand policy failures on the ground.
“In 2019, I applied for the National Law school, Bengaluru, and learned how broad leftist politics is and how it is kept hidden from public discourse,” he says.
Having participated in the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests in Bengaluru, Mathur says that his small participation helped him understand the struggle people face in political protests and the discourse surrounding it. He has also worked with the Panchami Land Restoration Movement, Ambedkar Peravai, Dalit Man Urimai Kootamaippu Nilam, and done internships and projects with various groups pushing for social justice.
Vijay fans reunite as ‘Anil Marxist Sangam’
Combining his love for cinema and social justice is the 'Anil Marxist Sangam' — a joke that began in WhatsApp that has now grown into a study circle.
“During the COVID-19 lockdown, we Marxists started a WhatsApp group and held discussions on articles, books and concepts. One day, when Vijay's Master film poster was released, we realised that all of us are his fans,” says Mathur, laughing.
Explaining the name ‘Anil Marxist Sangam’, Mathur says that Vijay fans are usually trolled by the name ‘Anils’ (squirrels) on social media. “And to distinguish ourselves (Marxists) from other Vijay fans, we started identifying ourselves on Facebook and Instagram as Anil Marxists,” says Mathur.
“Nanga sadha anils kedayadhu, we are Anil Marxist (We are not just anils, we are anil Marxists). However, we will soon be changing the name," he adds.
The Sangam in March 2020 came about when many followers on social media started asking them for book recommendations on Marxist, Periyarist and Ambedkarite ideologies, and showed interest in discussing these further.
“As we realised that this had so much potential, we turned it into a study circle,” says Mathur, who is a coordinator of the Anil Marxist Sangam.
Currently, the Sangam has 25 active members and 200 members overall. There are about 10 study groups where the members learn about Marxist philosophy, sociology, anthropology and current news such as Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), National Education Policy (NEP), COVID handling and so on. Besides this, discussions are also held on Periyar, Ambedkar and the works of anthropologist and writer Tho Paramasivan.
“We learn about contemporary politics and how to interpret government data. Additionally, veteran communists hold public sessions on topics such as Pegasus, climate change and slum clearance, where we discuss all these issues from a Marxist lens,” says Mathur. “A layperson hesitates to read public documents or the budget. But here, we break this down for members through public sessions and articles. We have based this on Ambedkar’s slogan 'Organise, Educate, Agitate (OEA)'."