The exciting news this week that the Indian government has partnered with France to create a world-class museum heartened me, because such a museum is long overdue. India’s got plenty of museums and majestic outdoor monuments that function as museums, but nothing on par with the Louvre, the British Museum or the Smithsonian.
My first thought on reading the news in New India Abroad about plans for the Yuga Yugeen Bharat, meaning essentially National Museum of India, is that they’re laying the groundwork for the Kohinoor Diamond to finally return to the region.
One of the UK’s oft-repeated reasons for refusing to return the gem that the British Empire looted from India is that there’s no museum in India secure enough to display it while protecting it from being stolen. I’ve heard this same sentiment expressed by diasporic Indians in the US. While this might be arguably true or just a common misconception, this argument will evaporate with the launch of the Yuga Yugeen Bharat, which is still several years off.
The Kohinoor aside, India has many other historic art and cultural treasures that deserve a first-rate museum, so I’m happy to hear it. I do believe there’s a quiet agenda here, though, to clear a path for cornering the UK into finally returning it.
The French meet Hyder Ali
Given the fighting in India that went on between the British and French Empires in the 18th century, which in many ways mirrored their simultaneous conflicts and proxy wars in North America, I can’t help seeing the fact that France has stepped up to work with India as an old score being settled, the ghost of the French Empire firing a final shot across the bow of the British Empire before the sun sets on both empires forever.
Time will tell regarding the Kohinoor but if I’m right, you heard it here first.
On August 9th, 2024, a post-graduate trainee doctor (India’s term for a medical resident or fellow) was found dead, semi-nude, in a seminar room of Kolkata’s state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. The medical examination revealed the victim was sexually assaulted and murdered. No FIR (First Information Report, a police complaint) was filed for 14 hours.
Since that time, protests have raged in cities across India to change the country’s culture, doctors have gone on strike (except for medical emergencies) to demand better hospital security, a civilian volunteer has been arrested and charged with the crime, and the head of the hospital and a police officer have been arrested over accusations of negligence and tampering with evidence. Here is a timeline of these events.
I am so heartened to see so many people across India and in Indian communities around the world, including in the US and Canada, making their voices heard in a global demand for change. I felt condescending to “weigh in” in the immediate aftermath as though anyone cares what I think as an American man, but I have been watching the events unfold with deep interest, and I’m buoyed that so many across the globe aren’t reading this gruesome story in the paper, then shrugging it off and clicking past it to check their daily horoscope.
Here is an excellent piece written by my Kolkata colleague, filmmaker and journalist Debarati Gupta, about a group of Kolkata theatre artists’ recent response to the tragedy.
This horrific, infuriating societal curse and the unspeakable crimes it yields aren’t unique to India. Something similar is going on in France where protests have raged in 30 cities after a husband paid men to sexually assault his wife repeatedly over the course of a decade.
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In Kenya, Ugandan Olympic runner Rebecca Cheptegeiwas burned to death by her boyfriend, the latest in a string of similar cases there.
What can you do? After standing speechless, aghast and powerless at first, one thing you can do is take a lead from these inspiring ordinary citizens around the world and, at the very least, talk about it to those around you. Make your feelings known to your family, friends and colleagues.
I’m thrilled to share that my article “Nil Darpan: How a Mistakenly Published Play Helped Force Labour Reforms in British India” has been published in the rigorously peer-reviewed UK-based journal Race & Class which is produced in cooperation with the Institute of Race Relations.
Don’t be fooled by the title of my article. I promise an informative, thoroughly researched yet entertaining, engaging, darkly comic yarn complete with a plot twist ending involving Indian film director Abhijit Chowdhury. Many thanks to journal Editor Jenny Bourne and Deputy Editor Sophia Siddiqui for their keen eyes and for letting me keep the f-word.
From the journal’s website…
Race & Class, “a journal on racism, empire and globalisation…is a refereed, ISI-ranked publication, the foremost English language journal on racism and imperialism in the world today. For three decades it has established a reputation for the breadth of its analysis, its global outlook and its multidisciplinary approach.”
“One of the few scholarly quarterlies that bridges the gap between the academic and the ghetto.” Guardian, UK
“Combines scholarship, insight and sympathy for the hopes and problems of the poor and oppressed people throughout the world. It is an achievement as significant as it is rare.” Noam Chomsky
Abstract: In 1860s India, Bengali playwright Dinabandhu Mitra wrote the play Nil Darpan (Indigo Mirror), an exposé of violent abuses committed against Indian farm workers by powerful British indigo dealers. With help from a Christian missionary, the play was translated into English and shared with the office of Bengal’s Lieutenant-Governor, Sir John Peter Grant.
Grant approved a few copies to be printed to share with colleagues; instead, hundreds were mistakenly printed and distributed to Parliament members in England, outraging and embarrassing the British Raj. But would the amusing debacle help bring positive change to Indian labourers?
The events of the Nil Darpan controversy are well-known to historians but have often been mythologised and misrepresented. The author provides a unique perspective on the events by comparing and contrasting the news media’s coverage of the Nil Darpan controversy, and Bengali theatre and film artists’ reactions to it, using his own findings from Indian, UK and US newspapers of the era ranging from 1859 to 1917. This article is based on his lecture given at the annual Fulbright Association Conference in October 2023 held in Denver, Colorado.
The article begins below:
Crisis
During the period of British rule of the majority of India, Calcutta was, for most of Britain’s reign, the nation’s capital. Kolkata, as it is called today, situated in Bengal on the banks of the Hooghly River, a tributary of the Ganges, is now thecapital of the Indian state of West Bengal. As the capital of British India, much of the anti-British sentiment that was expressed here by Bengalis set the tone for the rest of the country through Bengalis’ arts and politics. This includes patriotic,therefore implicitly anti-British, songs and plays.
Some native Bengali children, mostly boys at first, attended Christian missionary schools and colleges, where they learnt about, and were influenced by, western playwrights, especially UK playwrights, whose plays were crafted using a traditional five-act plot structure, ranging from Shakespeare to Shaw.
But what about outside of Calcutta in the rest of Bengal? As you might imagine, the land was chiefly rural and therefore chiefly agricultural. During the nineteenth century, a major cash crop in Bengal was indigo, the plant from which blue dye is made, and from which blue clothing was manufactured. Indigo imported from India made blue clothing highly fashionable, and England now had… You can finish reading the full article here. Note that it is currently Restricted Access, meaning you need to log into your university account through the Race & Class website to view it.
Studentshad watched a portion of Abhijit’s latest film, The Strange Life of Dhrubo, currently in post-production, in advance of his visit to discuss the challenges of writing and producing independent films on a shoestring.
The Fulbright Association Conference schedule is live! I’m honored to be jetting to Denver later this month to rep my alma mater NYU Tisch School of the Arts where I also teach part-time, and grateful to have received a Tisch Adjunct Professional Development Grant to attend. I’ll be giving a 60-minute talk entitled “Happy Accidents: How a Mistakenly Published Play Forced Reforms in British India”.
My abstract: In 1860s India, Bengali playwright Dinabandhu Mitra wrote the play Nil Darpan (Indigo Mirror), an exposé of violent abuses committed against malnourished Indian farm workers by powerful British indigo dealers. With help from a Christian missionary the play was translated into English and shared with the office of Bengal’s Lieutenant-Governor Sir John Peter Grant. Grant approved a few copies to be printed to share with colleagues; instead, hundreds were mistakenly printed and distributed to Parliament members in England, outraging and embarrassing the British Raj. But would the amusing debacle help bring positive change and food security to Indian laborers? These events are well-known but have often been mythologized and misrepresented. Stanley will provide his own findings from Indian, UK and US newspapers of the day.
