in British and French India, 1928-48
Principal Investigator: Professor Jane Chapman
Research Assistants : Kate Allison, Piers Clarke
Administrative Assistant: Rebecca Inkley
Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council
This exhibition presents two episodes in 20th century Indian history when newspapers expressed the emerging citizenship of protest by the freedom movement in India.
Press articles and leaflets – sometimes read out loud to a group of people then destroyed because of censorship, sometimes consumed individually- acted as the main vehicle for the public communication of ideas.
Some journals were used as temporary acts of defiance to mobilise support for change. Nationalist leaders and activists also aimed for coverage of protest in the existing colonial newspapers in order to influence the climate of opinion in support for change.
A variety of newspapers, despite sometimes only having small circulations, still became part of the changing economic and political landscape that they were reporting on.
This exhibition focuses on two little known aspects of press and protest – one in Allahabad, United Provinces (Uttar Pradesh) in British India, one in the French territory of Pondicherry (Tamil Nadu).