The Red Quiz

It is April 5, and exactly 57 years ago EMS Namboodripad was elected the first communist chief minister of India. Since I spent my college days in the ’80s in a university which had just three political factions, ‘left’, ‘extreme left’, and ‘just a little further left,’ the socialist movement seemed like a really good idea for a quiz. Answer away, fellow traveller.

1 638 Ways to Kill ______ is a Channel 4 documentary film that was broadcast in the UK in 2006. It tells the story of some of the numerous attempts of the CIA to kill a particular gentleman, which included exploding cigars, radio stations filled with LSD and poisoned fountain pens. Fill in the blank.

2 Who was kidnapped on March 16, 1978, by the Red Brigade (BR), a Marxist–Leninist urban guerrilla organisation, and killed after 55 days of captivity?

3 Which song is now believed to have been inspired by a gospel hymn of the mid ’30s titled If my Jesus wills, which was credited to a Baptist choir director named Louise Shropshire?

4 The country that made it in the early ’60s called it the ‘Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart.’ How do we know it?

5 This gentleman started his political career as a follower of Bhagat Singh. After hoisting the Indian tricolour at Hoshiarpur in 1930, he was arrested, and when produced in court stated his name as ‘London Tod Singh.’ By what name do we know this veteran leader?

6 He read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Worcester College in Oxford. While at university he was a staunch supporter of the Labour party and was an executive committee member of the Oxford University Labour Club. Interesting beginnings for someone currently the 91st richest person on the planet, with a net worth of around $13.4 billion, and who was once one of Margaret Thatcher’s closest supporters. Who am I talking about?

7 Where would you see a memorial column that has the following names: Dhaneswari Devi, Simaswari Mullick, Nayaneswari Mullick, Surubala Burman, Sonamati Singh, Fulmati Devi, Samsari Saibani, Gaudrau Saibani, and Kharsingh Mullick ?

8 Started in 1942, original members included Prithviraj Kapoor, Ritwik Ghatak, Utpal Dutt, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Salil Chowdhury and Pandit Ravi Shankar. Balraj Sahni was a member of the Punjab group. Name this organisation, which provided many more luminaries to the Indian film industry.

9 Isaac Deutscher’s three-volume biography — The Prophet Armed, The Prophet Unarmed, The Prophet Outcast — is considered one of the most comprehensive works on which political leader?

10 Which Hollywood star produced, directed and played the lead role in the film Reds, based on American journalist John Reed’s work on the Russian revolution, Ten Days That Shook The World?

Answers

1. Castro

2. Aldo Moro, the former Italian PM

3. We Shall Overcome (previously it was believed to have been based on Charles Tindley’s song I’ll Overcome Someday)

4. The Berlin Wall

5. Harkishen Singh Surjeet

6. Rupert Murdoch

7. Naxalbari, these are the villagers who died in the original police firing

8. IPTA (Indian People’s Theatre Association)

9. Leon Trotsky

10. Warren Beatty

Joy Bhattacharjyais, in this age of televisions pundits and Facebook gurus, simply grateful that facts are not opinions.

Follow Joy on Twitter >@joybhattacharj

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