Speaker: Dr. Swapna Liddle, author and historian with specialization in the history of Delhi. Closely involved in the movement to preserve heritage monuments and sites. Dr. Liddle is associated with the Delhi Chapter of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH). She is the author of Chandni Chowk: The Mughal City of Old Delhi (2017); Connaught Place and the Making of New Delhi (2018); and recently, The Broken Script: Delhi Under the East India Company and the Fall of the Mughal Dynasty, 1803-1857 (2022)

Chair: Prof. Partho Datta, School of Arts & Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University

The cataclysmic events of 1857 had a profound impact on Delhi. The revolt and its brutal suppression also changed the way later generations would assess the culture of the period before 1857. To that extent 1857 is a prism that distorts the view of the preceding half-century. Based on the research in her recent book - The Broken Script: Delhi under the East India Company and the Fall of the Mughal Dynasty, 1803 - 1857, Swapna Liddle discusses the role of 1857 as a distorting lens, and how we can look behind it to reassess what Delhi was really like under the British East India Company and the last two Mughal emperors.