Lal Salam (transl. "Red Salute") is a salute, greeting, or code word used by Communists in South Asia. The word lal means "red"; salam means "peace" and is an Arabic word for a greeting.
In some cases the equivalent phrase Surkh Salam (Urdu: سرخ سلام) is used interchangeably.
'Lal Salaam' meaning red salute in Hindi, Urdu is a greeting, salute, and code word used by Communists throughout South Asia. ‘Lal’ meaning red in Hindi/Urdu may be interchanged with the Persian word ‘sorkh’ which also means red. This greeting is now commonly used by guerrillas who now take part in armed warfare against the state in India particularly in the 'Red Corridor' which is the title of the Eastern, Central and Southern parts of India which have seen countless Naxalite/Maoist insurgencies. This corridor namely includes the states of Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, and Telangana.
In popular culture
- Lal Salaam is the name of a film based in 1990 India in the Malayalam language. It is based on the lives of three actual Communists in Kerala, South India: Mohanlal as Varghese Vaidyan, Murali as T. V. Thomas, and Smt K. R. Gowri Amma.
Further reading
- Ali, Kamran Asdar (2015). Surkh Salam: Communist Politics and Class Activism in Pakistan, 1947-1972. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-940308-0.