FRONTIERS OF HISTORY

When is the Right of Secession Justified?

Speaker: Prof Neera Chandhoke, Department of Political Science, Delhi University, and author of Contested Secessions: Rights, Democracy, Self Determination and Kashmir  (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012)

Chair: Shri Srinath Raghavan, Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research, Delhi

Delhi Durbar 1911

Speaker: Sunil Raman, co-author of Delhi Durbar 1911: The Complete Story (New Delhi: Roli Books, 2011)

Chair: Dr. Narayani Gupta, author of Delhi Between Two Empires (1981)

An illustrated talk that draws on unpublished official papers to unearth anecdotes and debates on the planning and execution of the Delhi Durbar, which cost the government one million pounds sterling

Broken Memory, Shining Dust (34 min; 2011; dvd)
Director: Nilosree Biswas

Broken Memory, Shining Dust is a humble and honest attempt to depict the extraordinary journey of Kashmiri women from loss, separation, pain, anger, helplessness to hope, faith, grit and determination thrown up by tragedies and the circumstances around them. The film is about "˜women in wait' for their loved ones who have gone missing in the conflict-ridden valley of Kashmir in the last two decades. Woven around the life of Parveena Ahanger, a Kashmiri mother, and other such women, the narrative of the film interweaves their memories of loss, pain, struggle, separation vented cathartically that  have formed into a resistance movement which in practicality revives their hope of tracing a clue about their missing family members. The film embarks on a narrative to share and sense their lives as they are now and were in the past, revealing hours and days of endless wait, grief, anger, resilience, devotion, resistance combined in a blanket of sisterhood and spirituality that has sprung from the time and space shared by these women.

Followed by a discussion with the filmmaker

Visual Archives and Cultural Histories
Panelists: Dr Jyotindra Jain, CIVIC; Dr Malavika Karlekar, CWDS; Dr Yousuf Saeed, Tasveer Ghar: A Digital Archive of South Asian Popular Visual Culture

Moderator: Dr Tapati Guha-Thakurta, curator of the exhibition, and Professor of History, CSSSC

The City in the Archive: Calcutta's Visual Histories

An exhibition from the archival collections of the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (CSSSC)
Curated by Tapati Guha-Thakurta (with the CSSSC's exhibition and archive team) and designed by Hiran Mitra

Emerging from a 15-year project of archiving and documentation at CSSSC, this exhibition conceives of Calcutta of the 19th and 20th centuries through the prism of illustrated books and journals, popular paintings and prints, hoardings, cover designs and commercial art; modern art, theatre, photography and cinema. Sections on print productions and graphic design, on consumption and entertainment; on portraits and personalities; and on urban sites and spaces help to visualize the modern city's cultural productions and practices and changing forms of middle-class sociability. Calcutta features equally as the site from which issued this range of cultural products and the many private and institutional collections these inspired

Inauguration on Tuesday 27 at 18:30

FILMS ON SPIRITUALITY AND FAITH

The Saltmen of Tibet (109 min; dvd; English)
Director: Ulrike Koch

A work of sublime beauty and epic scale. Documenting the ancient traditions and day-to-day rituals of a Tibetan nomadic community, the filmmaker transports us into a realm untainted by tides of foreign invasion or encroaching modernity.

CANCELLED

Roads of Bhakti Poetry
Speaker: Dr Andrew Schelling, Jack Kerouac School, Naropa University, Boulder, Colorado

Chair: Vidya Rao, scholar and singer

A translator from Sanskrit, Pali and Hindi and author of six volumes of poetry indebted to studies in ecology and ethnopoetics, the speaker has edited The Oxford Anthology of Bhakti Literature (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2011), and describes how Bhakti is "˜salted' with an intensity that requires intellectual effort and a great deal of honest probing to get close to, how efforts to break free of social constraint took hundreds of forms across India and the resonances this literature evokes for audiences far removed in time and place

Presented by Vidushi Malti Gilani

Vocal recitals by Himani Dalmia, Maya Saran and Bhaveen Gossain, accompanied on the tabla by Nawab Ali, and on the sarangi by Ghulam Sabir, Zamir Ahmed, Sajjad Ahmed

Followed by the screening of an audio-visual by Shri Avinash Pasricha
A Retrospective Journey: Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan

Nature, Environment and Tribal Experiences
Poetry reading by Leeladhar Mandloi, Director-General, All India Radio

Chair: Dr Ganga Prasad Vimal