“We're not post-colonial. We're post-colonized...Even if purportedly colonialism ended, it didn't end for the languages we speak, for the passports we hold, for the laws that govern our lives. To claim post-coloniality is a mirage.” COMMUNITY Inventing South Asia AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR “We're not post-colonial. We're post-colonized...Even if purportedly colonialism ended, it didn't end for the languages we speak, for the passports we hold, for the laws that govern our lives. To claim post-coloniality is a mirage.” SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Interview Karachi The Loss of Hindustan Intellectual History South Asia as a Term Experimental Methods Language Postcolonialism Karachi University Chachnama KK Aziz Michel-Rolph Trouillot Nationalism Postcolonialism as Myth South Asian Studies Columbia University Partition Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Interview Karachi 2nd Sep 2020 We're not post-colonial. We're post-colonized...Even if purportedly colonialism ended, it didn't end for the languages we speak, for the passports we hold, for the laws that govern our lives. To claim post-coloniality is a mirage. RECOMMENDED: The Loss of Hindustan: The Invention of India by Manan Ahmed Asif (Harvard University Press, 2020). Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Next Up:

WRITER Amira Ahmed AMIRA AHMED is a scholar and practitioner in the areas of diaspora engagement, migration, refugees, paid domestic work, and human trafficking. Her MA and PhD degrees focus on the intersectionality of gender, class, and ethnicity within local and global dynamics. Her PhD dissertation examined the vulnerabilities of migrant women domestic workers in Egypt. Ahmed has worked with leading humanitarian/development organizations such as UN-IOM in Jordan and Egypt and IFRC in Switzerland. She is a co-author of Skills for Science Systems in Africa: The Case of Brain Drain . WRITER WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

LITERARY SCHOLAR Aneil Rallin ANEIL RALLIN grew up in Bombay, lives in Los Angeles, and does not drive. He is the author of Dreads and Open Mouths: Living/Teaching/Writing Queerly , co-editor of the “queer and now” special issue of the journal The Writing Instructor, and a scholar of Rhetoric, English, and Literary Studies. He has held tenure-track appointments at Soka University of America, York University in Toronto, and California State University, San Marcos. LITERARY SCHOLAR WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

Musician Ali Sethi in conversation with Associate Editor Kamil Ahsan COMMUNITY Syncretism & the Contemporary Ghazal Ali Sethi Musician Ali Sethi in conversation with Associate Editor Kamil Ahsan The Ghazal originated in Arabia in the 8th century. That's the funny stuff right? That in order to retrieve legitimate cosmopolitanism, we have to go back to a medieval multicultural moment. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Music Ghazal Art History Historicity Syncretism State Repression Faiz Ahmed Faiz Khabar-e-Tahayyar-e-Ishq Siraj Aurangabadi Mah Laqa Bai Sensuality Metaphor Cultural Repression Art Practice Sound Poetic Form Performance Art Grief Raaga ALI SETHI is a Lahore-born writer and musician. He is the author of the novel The Wish Maker and a contributor to The New York Times op-ed page. Ali is also a classically trained vocalist. He made his singing debut on Season 8 of Coke Studio Pakistan and was featured on the soundtracks of Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2013) and Sarmad Khoosat’s Manto (2015). In 2019 he performed as a soloist at Carnegie Hall. As of July 2018 he is working on a record with producer Noah Georgeson. Interview Music 14th Oct 2020 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

WRITER Aamer Hussein AAMER HUSSEIN was born in Karachi in 1955. He began his literary career as a short story writer and reviewer in the mid-’80s, writing in both English and Urdu. He is the author of story collections Mirror to the Sun (1993), Turquoise (2002), Insomnia (2007), 37 Bridges (2015), Hermitage (2018), andd Zindagi s pehle (2020) . He is also the author of two novels, including the acclaimed Another Gulmohar Tree . His work has been widely translated in many languages including Spanish, Arabic, and Japanese. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2004, and is currently based in London and Karachi. WRITER WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

WRITER Joyona Medhi JOYONA MEDHI is currently working as an Academic Associate in IIMC, New Delhi, India. With a background in media sociology, she looks for every opportunity to go long-form especially with her writing, interviewing and research. She's also conducted in-depth interviews along the Indo-Bangladesh border as a Direction Associate for the documentary Borderlands . For her proposed PhD project. She's looking to develop a more sensitive and nuanced language around the way we see photographs, photographers and the photographic process today. Her reportage and writings on art have been published in magazines like The Firstpost, Quint, Smashboard, Zenger News, Burn Magazine and Art and Deal . WRITER WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

A panel on dominant narratives about Kashmir: the longue durée of Kashmiri struggle, the continued movement-building between Kashmir & Palestine, the People's Alliance for Gupkar, and what the repeal of Article 370 really entailed. COMMUNITY Discourses on Kashmir Huma Dar · Hilal Mir · Ather Zia A panel on dominant narratives about Kashmir: the longue durée of Kashmiri struggle, the continued movement-building between Kashmir & Palestine, the People's Alliance for Gupkar, and what the repeal of Article 370 really entailed. Just over a year after the repeal of Article 370 from India's constitution, pro-India Kashmiri political parties called for an alliance. What did it all mean? In our second panel from October 2020, Kashmiri activist-scholars Ather Zia & Huma Dar, and journalist Hilal Mir, discuss the predominant discourses of Kashmir that pervade public and international narratives with Editor Kamil Ahsan. The wide-ranging discussion discusses Indian-occupied-Kashmir, India as a settler-colonial state, journalism & how the Azadi Movement and the repeal of Article 370 are depicted, and the many self-serving narratives that don’t take Kashmiri realities into account. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the panel on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Panel Kashmir Intellectual History Settler-Colonialism Longue-Duree of Kashmiri Struggle Movement Organization Revolution Colonialism Burhan Wani People's Alliance for Gupkar Subaltern Studies Palestine Affect Internationalist Solidarity Media Blackout Radicalization Narratives Bollywood Occupation Genocide Pogroms Erasure Mass Protests War Crimes Movement Strategy Emancipatory Politics Humanitarian Crisis Activist Media International Law Hindutva Military Crackdown Military Operations Kashmiri Struggle Discourses of War Nationalism HUMA DAR 's paternal family was ethnically-cleansed from Srinagar, Kashmir in 1948 for demanding plebiscites under the UN Resolutions. Her maternal family, exiled from Kashmir after accepting Islam during the Dogra regime, fought for Independence from the British. With a background In interdisciplinary Studies, Dar lectures in the departments of Gender & Women’s Studies and Ethnic Studies at University of California at Berkeley and in the Department of Critical Studies and Philosophy at California College of the Arts. Dar’s work is focused on the intersections and co-formations of race, religion, class, caste, gender, sexuality, and national politics of South Asia and South Asian diasporas, centered on intellectual and political activism for social justice, especially in Indian Occupied Kashmir. Her published work includes “Cinematic Strategies for a Porno-tropic Kashmir and Some Counter-Archives” in the Journal of Contemporary Theory and pieces in several edited volumes focused on South Asia. Dar is a feature writer at Pulse Media , a collaborative political, activist, and academic weblog, and is a published poet. She is a founding member of the working group on “Muslim Identities & Cultures,” and organized the feminist conference, Boundaries in Question on the theme of Women and War, both at UC Berkeley. HILAL MIR is a freelance Srinagar-based journalist. He has previously reported for Greater Kashmir, Hindustan Times, The Huffington Post, and Kashmir Reader . Ather Zia is a political anthropologist, poet, short fiction writer, and columnist. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Northern Colorado Greeley, the author of Resisting Disappearances: Military Occupation and Women’s Activism in Kashmir, and The Frame , and the co-editor of Can You Hear Kashmiri Women Speak , Resisting Occupation in Kashmir, and A Desolation called Peace. Her work has received the Gloria Anzaldua Honorable Mention award, the Public Anthropologist Award, among many others. She is the founder-editor of Kashmir Lit and is the co-founder of Critical Kashmir Studies Collective . Panel Kashmir 24th Oct 2020 On That Note: Occupation and Osmosis 26th OCT Exhaustion & Emancipation 10th MAR The Craft of Writing in Occupied Kashmir 24th JAN

In December 2020, four of our founding editors discussed the origins of the South Asian Avant-Garde, what drew so many of us from our varied backgrounds to the thematic core of the avant-garde from an internationalist, leftist perspective, and where we hoped to go in the future. INTERACTIVE FLUX · A Panel on SAAG, So Far AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR In December 2020, four of our founding editors discussed the origins of the South Asian Avant-Garde, what drew so many of us from our varied backgrounds to the thematic core of the avant-garde from an internationalist, leftist perspective, and where we hoped to go in the future. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Live Virtual The Editors FLUX Global The Local and Global Internationalist Perspective Pitching Craft Submitting Operations The Editor's Craft Editing Avant-Garde Origins Avant-Garde Traditions Avant-Garde Beginnings in India Experimental Methods Aamer Hussein Zines Comics Magazine Culture Anthology Traditions Reportage Activist Media Iowa St. Louis Hybrid Karachi Kadak Collective Pitches Ethos Interview Series Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Live Virtual 5th Dec 2020 FLUX: An Evening in Dissent For our first virtual event, in December of 2020, the SAAG founding editors looked to what we had managed to establish thus far—as a project begun in the pandemic with a diverse collective—and what we hoped to accomplish in the future. Aishwarya Kumar moderated a panel with fellow editors Kartika Budhwar, Shreyas R Krishnan, and Nur Nasreen Ibrahim to discuss our early interview series as well as reporting, fiction, comics, zines, and the broader community-building efforts that motivated us and continue to. Jaishri Abichandani's Art Studio Tour Kshama Sawant & Nikil Saval: A panel on US left electoralism, COVID-19, recent victories, & lasting problems. Natasha Noorani's Live Performance of "Choro" Bhavik Lathia & Jaya Sundaresh: A panel on the US Left & its relationship with media in the wake of Bernie Sanders' loss. Tarfia Faizullah: Poetry Reading Rajiv Mohabir: Poetry Reading DJ Kiran: A Celebratory Set Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Next Up:

In 2020, New Delhi’s National Museum Institute was relocated to NOIDA’s industrial outskirts and renamed the Indian Institute of Heritage. Once ideal for the study of history amidst the city’s rich heritage, this institutional shift reflects a larger trend since the rise of the Modi government in 2014, where historical studies have been politicised, censored, and shaped by majoritarian ideologies. As textbooks are altered and dissent silenced, the institute’s move from heritage-rich Delhi to a modern, industrial zone exemplifies how urban development and academia are increasingly intertwined with political agendas, raising questions about the future of historical study. In 2020, New Delhi’s National Museum Institute was relocated to NOIDA’s industrial outskirts and renamed the Indian Institute of Heritage. Once ideal for the study of history amidst the city’s rich heritage, this institutional shift reflects a larger trend since the rise of the Modi government in 2014, where historical studies have been politicised, censored, and shaped by majoritarian ideologies. As textbooks are altered and dissent silenced, the institute’s move from heritage-rich Delhi to a modern, industrial zone exemplifies how urban development and academia are increasingly intertwined with political agendas, raising questions about the future of historical study. Prithi Khalique, Corroded Chromas (2025). 3d rendering and collage, 720 x 1080px. Artist Delhi Saranya Subramanian 13 Feb 2025 th · FEATURES REPORTAGE · LOCATION The Changing Landscape of Heritage I’m on the outskirts of NOIDA, a planned city in New Delhi’s National Capital Region, and I’m lost. The uncharacteristically bright April sun is beating down on me, Google maps keeps rerouting, and it looks like I chose the wrong day to wear heels. Around me are wide, solitary roads, farmland, roaming cattle, and jarring glass office buildings that appear out of place in this landscape. After half an hour's worth of directions from the Noida Electronic City metro station , I finally reach the Indian Institute of Heritage. A majestic stone structure, this arts building is a welcome sight in the midst of engineering colleges, multinational corporations’ headquarters, and bank offices. The institute’s relocation is proof that New Delhi’s culture has trickled outwards to NOIDA. Proof that even as new urban spaces are produced, they will eventually house at least one arts campus. The journey all the way from New Delhi, however, has been a slog. Till a few years ago, the campus was more centrally located in Janpath, a neighbourhood in Lutyens’ Delhi, making it much more accessible for city folk. Named after British architect Edwin Lutyens (1869–1944), this geographical area boasts a concentration of India’s political elite: it comprises the 1927 Rashtrapati Bhawan, government offices, dignitaries’ residences, and even India’s National Museum. Outside the museum’s gates lie the National Archives, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, and the old & new Parliament Houses—to name a few. Altogether, these institutions are arguably the most venerated cultural institutions in the country and have greatly influenced the study and practice of Indian history. Until 2021, the Indian Institute of Heritage (IIH) was housed right inside the National Museum . Originally called the National Museum Institute, it was an ideal place for the study of history because of its location in the heart of the historically significant capital; it cultivated rich, lifelong careers in history since its inception in 1989 . An entire ecosystem of archival studies was nurtured because of its accessible address. Theorists could connect with real life historians and conservation students learnt from the museum’s technical staff. Students were by default the first visitors to museum exhibitions: they had to walk through its galleries every day to get to class. This daily interaction with objects of historical import made their educational experience unique and holistic, enhancing the quality of the technical courses taught there. All of this changed in 2021, when the institute was separated from the National Museum and moved to Sector 62, NOIDA. Earlier, the students at the IIH lived in Delhi, an ancient, storied city whose earliest recorded histories date back to the 8th century AD. In comparison, NOIDA is practically infantile. Short for New Okhla Industrial Development Authority , the city came into administrative existence on 17 April 1976 in the National Capital Region (NCR) . This took place during Indira Gandhi’s Emergency term—a state of governance that authorised the prime minister to rule by decree. During this twenty-one-month period, all civil liberties were halted, elections were paused, Gandhi’s opponents were imprisoned, and the press was censored. In the midst of this political turmoil and inter-communal tension, NOIDA was established in the mythologically-rich region of Braj in Uttar Pradesh. Built primarily for industrial growth, infrastructural development in NOIDA began in 1976, while citizens in the rest of the country were victim to mass-sterilisation, censorship, judicial control, and deteriorating constitutional rights. Over the next fifty years, the city kept growing. Today, it houses frontrunners in tech, pharma, finance, and, most recently, full-fledged universities. Studying history is often an afterthought to the people developing modern Indian urban landscapes. NOIDA is no exception. Cities are first built on capital and industry, followed by hospitals and residences, schools and banks, and then gradually, they house libraries, archives, and museums. While NOIDA is a new city and home to many polluting industries, it also has a budding arts education ecosystem with colleges like Shiv Nadar University , Galgotias University , and Gautam Buddha University . The brand-new Indian Institute of Heritage is an addition to NOIDA’s growing miscellany of urban institutions, many of which are an afterthought in this primarily industrial land. As I walk through the expansive lands of NOIDA, I am forced to question why the National Museum Institute was moved out here? Does “place” matter for the study of history? National Museum in Janpath (2024). Image courtesy of the author. Relocation & Rebranding Today, the National Museum Institute has officially become the Indian Institute of Heritage. Sudeshna Guha , Faculty at Shiv Nadar University’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences, spoke to me about the relocation of the campus, and the role of the politics of space and place in India’s long relationship with its National Museum. She posited that while the initial move, with its merging of the Archaeological Survey of India and the National Museum of India, was about space, the two institutions’ combined clout has now allowed the government to peddle a very specific version of Indian history. “Politics comes in when the ASI and NMI join hands, and decide to teach the kind of Indian history they do. Earlier, the Institute of Archaeology would regularly get professors from Deccan College, Pune, and MSU , Baroda, to teach specialised courses in archaeology which the latter has developed. But now the focus is on heritage studies, and they are establishing through the courses Hindutva histories—the innately Hindu heritage of pre-colonial India.” For decades, the National Museum Institute was connected to New Delhi’s progressive academic ecosystem, its student resistance movements, and the city’s active participation in national social issues. Moving NMI to Delhi’s outskirts happened at the same time as the renaming, as well as the altering of the types of history taught there. Creating a new university outside of New Delhi’s congestion may have been an inevitable symptom of urban development. It's hard to ignore, however, the ways the IIH’s relocation has created hindrances in students' access to educational resources. While students still venture beyond the campus on field trips and guest lecturers are invited to the new campus, the question remains: what happens to the study of the old when it’s forced into a place so sterile, so clinically new? Relocation is not the only change that has taken place since 2021. Rebranding is an extensive process, and the National Museum Institute has been rechristened as the nebulous “Indian Institute of Heritage.” As Dr Guha pointed out: “What they teach are technical courses. But what the heck will a heritage school do? Heritage doesn’t exist out there; it’s something that is created.” Wouldn’t it be better, she asked, if the institution could reflect on the practice of heritage-making? “The National Museum has shut its doors to researchers and the [IIH] students are not taught the importance of both historiography and materiality, which inform the many histories of a particular phenomenon, and of the many histories of a collection and an object. So how can they advance knowledge about the collections of the Museum or enhance collections management protocols? Besides, the curatorial lapses in the Museum are glaring to the visitors. Look at the displays. The object labels show the lack of research catalogues and databases.” Guha’s questions are fundamental; after all, if a technical school does not question historicity, then it will have detrimental effects on maintaining collections, databases, research catalogues, and deciding displays. Contentment and Complacency in the National Museum’s Institutions Seeking answers to the changes that the school has undergone, I met with administrative and faculty members of the National Museum & Indian Institute of Heritage. BR Mani, the Museum’s director general and vice chancellor of the Indian Institute of Heritage, welcomed me to an online and in-person interview. He spoke with me at length about the campus relocation, saying, “Anyone would admire the new campus as it provides better infrastructure and study facilities.” IIH is now giving out diplomas through the Institute of Archaeology and Bhopal’s Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya museum. Apart from this, the university has also co-opted programs with the IGNCA and National Archives, among others, and is planning to connect the academic wings of various institutions to the IIH. Development is what the museum’s admin wants to focus on, and not the imminent possibility of demolition. When asked about the National Museum’s rumoured demolition , BR Mani spoke about the upcoming Yug Yugeen Bharat Museum . “The Yug Yugeen Bharat museum is bound to be the biggest one in Asia yet, ” he said. “With 950 rooms, all of the best artefacts from this building will be shifted there. There is work undertaken to build a North Block and South Block for the National Museum, and this present building might continue to remain if not demolished.” With all of these positive changes, I asked him why the institution needed rebranding. “IIH is one overarching umbrella. Courses should be regulated by one authority. It is possible that in the future, with some act of parliament, it could be a full-fledged university. Professionally, I feel happy in finding better space and infrastructure at NOIDA, which was not there in the National Museum.” Manvi Seth echoed a similar sentiment during my interview with her. Dr Seth has been affiliated with the institute, as both a student and a faculty member, since 1997. She is currently the head of the Department of Museology at the Indian Institute of Heritage. When I asked her why the word “heritage” was chosen to represent the institution, she said “...it is all encompassing. For instance, when you say culture, you mean only natural heritage. Heritage is the only all-encompassing word.” Being “all-encompassing” also gives the IIH power over an “all-encompassing” national history. When I visited the Noida campus, I met with some numismatics & conservation students. One art history student candidly told me, “Noida is disgusting, and there are only some other institutes and office buildings around. It’s completely deserted. There’s no reason to leave the campus because, well, there’s nothing here. Also, the National Museum library is better than the one here, but we have to travel one and a half hours just to borrow a book.” Other students focus on the positives: larger conservation labs, exciting heritage field trips, and the school’s reputed name. Some even go as far as likening the IIH to the IITs and IIMs of India. One student told me, “We talk about how the Indian Institute of Heritage will keep growing, and hopefully become like the IITs and IIMs of India.” The Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management are galaxies of their own, orbiting modern India’s dreams of national progress and development. Highly coveted by most of India’s population, these competitive technical schools have campuses all over the country, offering students an incomparable asset: respect. Attempting to create a similar ethos for the IIH, however, is jarring. It seems as though students and administration alike are prioritising optics first and education second. Perhaps that is why questioning historicity becomes secondary to being part of a consolidated, proud, national endeavour. The latter is a pressing priority and very often controls the kind of history we study and the narratives we wish to follow. This student’s ambitious hope mirrored Dr BR Mani’s response to my question regarding the institute’s relocation, “There were positives and negatives to the situation as the Institute was not getting expanded and remained in a confined location” they said. “Now, it has its own infrastructure and entity to expand and coordinate with other departments of the Ministry of Culture.” It’s ironic that connection and expansion is reliant on a place surrounded by barren land, bank headquarters, and only one metro station in sight. All other departments of the Ministry of Culture are still in Lutyens Delhi. Controversies around History, Culture, Heritage, and Urban Development Lutyens Delhi, where the National Museum resides, is where the heart of India’s cultural pulse thrives. Studying there is ideal for students of art, history, heritage, and culture—unlike the corporate glass and concrete buildings that are peppered around NOIDA. One alum of the erstwhile NMI, art historian and scholar Gaurav Kumar told me, “The location of the National Museum Institute within the National Museum itself and amidst the vibrant art scene of Janpath was highly impactful during my time as a student. As an art student, it provided easy access to numerous important institutions such as the Triveni Kala Sangam cultural centre , AIFACS Gallery ( All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society ), National Gallery of Modern Art , and more, enriching my learning experience through exposure to diverse artistic expressions.” He went on, “Additionally, being near cultural landmarks, like the 100-year old India Gate, 16th century Purana Qila, and Lodhi Gardens, further enhanced the immersive environment for exploration and study.” Analysing the Indian Institute of Heritage’s displacement and development is an indication of how selective a national history can be. It’s important to recognise that this has occurred against the larger, terrifying backdrop of Hindutva nationalism —a political ideology that prides in Hindu histories while erasing other religious narratives. Union Culture Minister G Kishan Reddy wrote in parliament that “the [IIH] will be a “world-class university” that will focus on the conservation and research in India's rich tangible heritage, while offering research, development and dissemination of knowledge, excellence in the education of its students and activities associated with heritage that contribute to the cultural, scientific, and economic life of India.” But what about our shameful past and present, and all that is not tangible and glorious? According to historian Dipesh Chakrabarty, “heritage means acknowledging both our ‘successes’ and our ‘failures.’” This acknowledgement is lacking in Minister Reddy’s statement. Any acknowledgement of “failures” in our history is being shunned, as the Indian government increases their monopoly over historical records. In 2015, the Murty Classical Library, which features English translations of some of the greatest works of Indian literature, was the victim of Hindutva censorship . American scholar Sheldon Pollock was forcefully ousted from the MCL after he signed two statements condemning government action against Delhi University’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, and senior editorial members were dismissed as well. Elsewhere in the country, Amritsar’s Jallianwalla Bagh was entirely remodelled . In 1919, British General Dwyer mercilessly massacred 1,000 Indians there, and since then, it has stood as a symbol of India’s independence struggle. Recently, however, the government covered up century-old bullet holes and injected the site with cosmetic changes, turning it into a tasteless exhibition of honour. Its walls have been replaced with scriptures and the “martyr’s well” has been enclosed with a glass shield. What was once a chilling experience of walking through those narrow, bullet-ridden corridors, has now been replaced with an amusement park-like journey that tells you a history instead of allowing you to experience it for yourself. Back in New Delhi, it seems like the BJP-run government is rushing to rewrite India’s story with the Central Vista redevelopment project . Launched in 2019, the project is well underway. The government is revamping the Central Vista, India's central administrative area located near Raisina Hill, New Delhi. Their reason is “ to house all facilities needed for efficient functioning of the Government ”. This project involves hollowing out or demolishing the current National Museum and moving its collections to the Rashtrapati Bhavan’s North and South Blocks. The upcoming Yug Yugeen Bharat will be the “largest museum in Asia,” as Prime Minister Modi declared during the G20 event in New Delhi. Astha Rajvanshi wrote for TIME Magazine about the new parliament, “the whole project—which began in the middle of a brutal second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021—has been met with widespread criticism for its cost, environmental damage, and disregard for heritage buildings.” Prem Chandavarkar addressed the effects of these changes for The Wire , “The redevelopment removes public institutions that sustain culture and heritage from the Central Vista, replacing them with government offices and facilities… Many citizens have expressed anguish over how the spatial heart of our democracy is being transformed from a public landscape energised by cultural institutions to become a space dominated by the visual spectacle of governmental bureaucracy.” Even the National Archives was to be demolished until a furore erupted against breaking down Grade-I heritage structures. Now the plan has been modified to break down only the annexe, with no clear reason as to why. Chandavarkar explained concerns regarding having the old parliament’s North and South Blocks co-opt the current National Museum. First, official records state that these plots of land are still termed as “Government Use”, while they need to be deemed as “Public/Semi-Public”—the basic requirement for a citizen’s museum. Second, no feasibility study was conducted to figure out whether the two blocks are workable sites for a national museum. Third, this location’s proximity to the Prime Minister’s Office and the Vice-President’s Residence implies that security audits are needed, especially if it will be open to the public. No such study has surfaced to date. Rashtrapati Bhavan’s North & South Blocks. Source: A Pravin, Wikimedia Commons. The IIH has been displaced to the city's outskirts, away from the country's social and political milieu, amidst a time of unprecedented censorship and a wilful subversion of history and heritage. While the Indian Institute of Heritage’s faculty members assured me that they have never faced pressure from the Ministry of Culture or any member of parliament to teach a particular history, throughout the country, history is being weaponised to bring another term of Hindutva regime to power. How can a historical institution not address this development? Given the current cultural milieu, any museum that does not explicitly reject the ongoing oppression of minorities, is implicitly adding to it. The Trickle Down Effect Inside the National Museum, displays of ancient sculptures are poorly exhibited, insufficiently labelled, and even found in the building’s basement and parking lot areas—unlikely spaces of conservation. While the National Museum suffers, Modi’s Hindutva-led government has promised to create an “ international museum ” at the newly consecrated Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. This will include “new-age technology like kinetic art, holograms, animatronics, and augmented artificial reality to provide a live experience of the Ramayana and the Ram Temple movement,” Sreeparna Chakrabarty told The Hindu . The Ram Mandir Museum project reinforces the right-wing, Hindutva narrative that we all come from one singular religion and history. Built on the desecrated Babri Masjid, the Ram Mandir site has been long contested between Hindus and Muslims . Faded labelling in the National Museum (2024). Image courtesy of the author. Other historical suppressions have been witnessed around the country as well. When an ancient civilisation (dating back to the 6th century BCE) called Keezhadi was discovered in Tamil Nadu, it was covered widely in the press. Ten years on, news of that archaeological site is missing from mainstream media. Sowmiya Ashok believes this to be a consequence of the fact that the Keezhadi discovery disproves the right-wing, nationalist notion that Vedic culture is fundamental to the origins of Indian civilisation. Keezhadi’s excavations point to early signs of language and the possibility of a Dravidian origin story for Indians. Ashok notes that “in popular media, the findings are likely to be reduced to the question of whether the Keeladi people were more like Aryans, the protagonists of Vedic civilisation, or Dravidians, the forebears of Tamil culture.” Last year, news broke that the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbooks have now erased all traces of Mughal history in India. Even though Mughal histories are now obliterated, subaltern and Dalit histories have never even been part of the discourse. Vidhi Doshi explains how Indian Dalits are sidelined from academia, and have resorted to archiving their own community’s history, “[Vijay Surwade’s] collection includes everything from documents and photos to Ambedkar's broken spectacles and dentures, all housed in shoe boxes and concertina files in Surwade's apartment in the western city of Kalyan, about 45 km northeast of Mumbai. It is among a number of informal archives collected by ordinary Dalit people who say their stories otherwise risk being lost, undermining their cultures and the fight against caste-based discrimination.” Grand buildings and palaces are being turned into proud markers of our heritage; light and sound shows will create carnivals out of them. There are other ways, however, in which we honour our living history. A derivative of heritage is inheritance—passed down generation after generation. Preserving History, Defining Heritage I think about the histories I have inherited on my walk back to the metro station from the IIH Noida campus at 2 pm. I cannot wait to curl up in an air-conditioned train back to New Delhi and stroll around Janpath. My patience is rewarded. In Lutyens Delhi, I am surrounded by overwhelming history—stone structures, Mughal architecture, multiple languages, with gardens everywhere. Inside the National Museum, an open verandah and cafe become a picnic spot for families, couples, and even stray dogs. Today is Eid, and people have come in their best attire, sharing meals and spending the day together. We bask in this glorious heritage until the time we will all return to our decidedly less glorious lives once these gates close. If heritage comprises parts of the past that continue to live on to this day, then my heritage is everything that I experience once I am outside these institutions. The miserable heat, the stares from men, the station-side chole bhature , the broken, Brahmin Tamil I speak with my family, and the accented Hindi I employ in North India. All that seems intangible yet integrated into everyday life: food, language, patriarchy, and casteism. It is a messy, flawed heritage, one that stands proof of violence and oppression. It is also the heritage that we do not see inside these institutions. It is not covered at the Indian Institute of Heritage. As I step into the older, less affluent neighbourhoods of Chandni Chowk and Nizamuddin Dargah, I see people in ancient, crumbling buildings, eating and working and praying in structures that are on the verge of collapse. My immediate thought is an urban, privileged one: why can’t these buildings be cosmetically preserved? Of course, the fear of turning into what Jallianwalla Bagh’s remodelling became—a tasteless performance of honour more concerned with vanity than the Indian freedom struggle—is always lurking at the horizon of heritage conservation projects. But these buildings do not carry the traumatic weight that Jalliwanwalla Bagh does; they could be architectural representations of our everyday heritage. Dr Mrinalini Saha reminds me, however, that “one person’s heritage is another person’s livelihood. Delhi is littered with ancient monuments. Preserving them, sprucing them up is one thing, but it also means dislocating the people who live there.” Tangible history is complicated, maybe just existing amidst ruins is a sufficient act of conservation. I meander between New Delhi’s Outer Ring Road and Inner Ring Road in a crackling autorickshaw, passing through parts of the Red Fort that was built by Shah Jahan in 1639. Living heritage. When I met Dr Manvi Seth, she gave me a handful of books and pamphlets published by the Indian Institute of Heritage. A teacher’s handbook to History, Museum Goes to Hospital , Gandhi Hai Sabke Liye ( Gandhi is for Everyone ), Museum Safari for Lucknow’s State Museum etc. The institution’s efforts to spread historical awareness are impressive, yet, I cannot help but see this for the sanitised narrative that it is. Where are the Dalit histories, the tribal histories, the feminist histories? And what about the academic strain that argues that Gandhi is in fact not for everybody? Books and pamphlets published by the Indian Institute of Heritage (2024). Image courtesy of the author. In Old Delhi, I travel past dug-up roads and sewage, a reminder of how caste is ubiquitous even in big cities. Most manual scavengers and construction workers come from disenfranchised castes and communities and make up a major part of India’s migrant workers. Later in the evening, I go through Vasant Vihar in South Delhi which houses the infamous “Coolie Camp” slum, which was hidden behind giant green curtains while India hosted the G20 . Is this failure of our nation-state not part of our heritage? Dr Chakrabarty said it perfectly, “It is when you feel insecure about your past that you produce a one-sided version of it. To present the past as a site of disputation takes a greater sense of security about one’s own collective sense of self. But if you think this representation will threaten the sovereignty of the nation, then representing the past becomes a matter of either/or choices. It’s either Shivaji or Aurangzeb, Ram Mandir or Babri Masjid.”∎ SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 SARANYA SUBRAMANIAN is a poet, writer, and theatre practitioner based in Bombay. An MFA graduate from the University of San Francisco, she has been featured in the New York Times. Her writing has been published in Frontline , Lithub , The Caravan , Madras Courier , Aainanagar , Outlook , the Museum of Art and Photography, Scroll , The Bombay Literary Magazine, among others. Her essay, The Cockroach and I was published as an ebook by Penguin Random House after winning runner-up to the Financial Times/Bodley Head Essay Prize in 2020. She runs the Bombay Poetry Crawl , an archival and research space dedicated to 20th-century Bombay Poets. PRITHI KHALIQUE is a visual designer and animator based in Dhaka and Providence. Essay Delhi India Heritage Culture History Disappearance Nationalism Hindu Extremism Displacement Education Erasure Infrastructure Isolation Edwin Lutyens State Government Narrative National Archives Museum India National Museum Institutional Forgetfulness Indian Institute of Heritage National Museum Institute Archive Archival Studies NOIDA Ancient History Mughal Dalit Tamil Dravidian Indira Gandhi Uttar Pradesh Interethnic Conflict Internally Displaced Persons Intercommunal tension Industrial Deterioration Censorship Constitution Urban Development Urbanization Development Shiv Nadar University Galgotias University Gautam Buddha University Relocation Rebranding Branding Sudeshna Guha Archaeological Survey of India Archaeology Hindutva Pre-colonial Resistance Movement Visitor Researcher Idolatry 11th century BR Mani Demolition temple demolition Asia South Asia Manvi Seth Department of Museology Numismatics Conservation Preservation Gaurav Kumar Art Historian Art History Janpath AIFACS Gallery India Gate 16th Century Lodhi Gardens Union Culture G Kishan Reddy Parliament Murty Classical Library Sheldon Pollock Jawaharlal Nehru University Amritsar Jallianwalla Bagh General Dwyer 20th Century Massacre Independence Martyr Martyrdom Central Vista Raisina Hall Rashtrapati Bhavan North and South Yug Yugeen Bharat G20 Astha Rajvanshi TIME Magazine COVID-19 Pandemic environmental hazard Prem Chandavarkar The Wire Democracy Bureaucracy Government Use Public Space Outskirts Ram Temple Ram Mandir Museum Sreeparna Chakrabarty The Hindu Babri Masjid 6th Century BCE Keezhadi Tamil Nadu Sowmiya Ashok Right Wing Vedic Aryans Vidhi Doshi Vijay Surwade Kalyan Mumbai Anti-Caste Caste-based inheritance Chandni Chowk Nizamuddin Dargah Mrinalini Saha Outer Ring Road Inner Ring Road Red Fort Shah Jahan 17th Century Disenfranchisement Migrant Laborers Vasant Vihar Coolie Camp Sovereignty Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

Feminist Theorist and English Professor Fawzia Afzal-Khan, in conversation with Drama Editor Neilesh Bose. COMMUNITY Movements in Pakistani Theatre AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Feminist Theorist and English Professor Fawzia Afzal-Khan, in conversation with Drama Editor Neilesh Bose. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Interview Theater Performance Art South Asian Theater Internationalist Solidarity Parallel Theatre Movement Realism Non-Realist Plays Sufism Ajoka Theatre Women Singers of Pakistan Madeeha Gauhar Women Democratic Front Shahid Nadeem Authenticity Avant-Garde Form Native Formats Nationalism Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Interview Theater 24th Sep 2020 The work I started doing, like Sheherzade Goes West could be considered avant-garde in a certain way it did not conform to representational theatre even though I gave it a very self-ironizing subtitle—speaking out as a “Pakistani/American/wo/man, because I wanted the title itself to question certain ideas of self-representation. RECOMMENDED: A Critical State: The Role of Secular Alternative Theatre in Pakistan (Seagull Press, 2005) by Fawzia Afzal-Khan Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Next Up:

MUSICIAN-COMPOSER Shahzad Ismaily SHAHZAD ISMAILY is a largely self-taught composer and musician, having mastered a wide array of instruments. Ismaily has recorded or performed with an incredibly diverse assemblage of musicians and has also composed regularly for dance and theater. He was a two-time nominee at the recent 66th GRAMMY Awards, for both Best Alternative Jazz Album for Love in Exile (Verve Records, 2023) with Vijay Iyer & Arooj Aftab, and Best Global Music Performance for the track "Shadow Forces" from Love in Exile . Most recently, Ismaily is part of the new quartet Beings which will release its debut album There is a Garden (No Quarter) in July 2024. MUSICIAN-COMPOSER WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

“How do you laugh at untrammeled power? Either you are completely terrorized by it, or you completely delegitimize its authority by laughing in its face and doing the most absurd things.” COMMUNITY Experimentalism in the Face of Fascism “How do you laugh at untrammeled power? Either you are completely terrorized by it, or you completely delegitimize its authority by laughing in its face and doing the most absurd things.” VOL. 1 INTERVIEW AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Chennai 7th Sep 2020 Interview Chennai Sociolinguistics Avant-Garde Form Experimental Methods Dalit Literature Dalit Histories Indian Fascism Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Tamil Tigers Auto-Fiction Bhima Koregaon Marxist Theory André Breton Absurdity Explanation Affect Translation Tamil Eelam Personal History Failure Narrative Structure Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. RECOMMENDED: The Orders Were to Rape You: Tigresses in the Tamil Eelam Struggle , the newest book by Meena Kandasamy (Navayana, 2021). More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5