'Sentence - to be shot to death with musquetry'

A date for your diary:

Saturday, 15 January 2011 at 14.00:   Hedley Sutton (British Library) will present a paper to the Central London Branch of the Historical Association entitled " 'Sentence - to be shot to death with musquetry': crime and punishment in early nineteenth century India". 

Venue:  Wolfson Room, Institute of Historical Research at Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1 (nearest Tube: Euston Square). There will be a small admission charge for non-members of the H.A. 

 

Hedley Sutton

British Library

Royal Asiatic Society Library Temporary Closure

The RAS library will be open for the first week of January 2011 and then closed from 10th January for about 3 months while essential building work is done. This will necessitate the library collections being put into store and inaccessible for this period.

Other Society activities, including the SAALG Conference on 28th January 2011, are not affected.

For further information or an update on the progress of the building work, please contact the librarian Kathy Lazenbatt on kl@royalasiaticsociety.org or 020 7391 9424.

Royal Asiatic Society Lectures

The following lectures will be held in the New Year at the Royal Asiatic Society, 14 Stephenson Way, London NW1 2HD:





The Apu Trilogy: Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic

by Dr. Andrew Robinson (University of Cambridge)

Thursday 13 January 2011, 6pm.





Migrants, Slums and the Construction of Citizenship in Gandhi's Ahmedabad
by Tommaso Bobbio (Royal Holloway)


Wednesday 26 January 2011, 6.30pm

Please note that this is one of two RAS Student Series lectures that evening, the other being on a Japanese topic.



Lectures are free of charge and all are welcome.
RAS web site: www.royalasiaticsociety.org

Access to rare 20th century South Asian pamphlets

An inventory of the South Asian Pamphlets Collection at Duke University has been published online.  The majority of the pamphlets were published between 1950 and 2000, but a few date from the 1920s-1940s.   They were acquired through the Library of Congress South Asia Cooperative Acquisitions programme (SACAP). 

Arranged by country of publication, they number over 7,500, with the highest number (177 boxes) originating from India, 58 boxes from Pakistan, 15 boxes from Bangladesh and 8 boxes from Nepal.  Smaller collections are held for Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

The majority of pamphlets were published by organizations or agencies and cover agriculture, the arts, economic development, education, industry and commerce, international relations, politics and government, religion and philosophy, rural development, tourism and women. 

The pamphlets may be scanned on request to service remote research requests. For further information, see: http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/rbmscl/southasianpams/inv/

Borderlands: the SAALG Winter Conference

Kandyan chief
(Royal Asiatic Society)

Kandyan chief & wife
(Royal Asiatic Society)

Mudaliyar
(Royal Asiatic Society)

A date for your diary!  This winter's South Asia Archive and Library Group conference will be hosted by the Royal Asiatic Society on Friday 28th January 2011.  On the theme of Borderlands we have presentations on early photography at the Raj's margins (Burma and Sri Lanka) from Andrew Jarvis (University of Cambridge), 19th century travellers' tales from the Himalayas from Dr Richard Axelby (SOAS), and a personal account of working in local Burmese archives from Dr Mandy Sadan (SOAS).  There will also be an opportunity to view treasures from the Royal Asiatic Society's own collections, and hear a presentation from Burzine Waghmar (SOAS) on his linguistic research.

For further information and to book your place, please email Helen Porter at the Royal Asiatic Society.

WWII elephant rescue : archive footage released

TV, radio and newspapers are today reporting the story of 'Elephant man' and tea planter, Gyles Mackrell, following the release on the University of Cambridge's YouTube channel of a short documentary film chronicling an epic rescue mission.

Amid the chaos of the British retreat from Burma early in 1942, Mackrell mounted an operation to save refugees trapped by flooded rivers at the border with India, using the only means available to get them across - elephants.  His story is recreated from his diary, papers and cinefilms held at the University's Centre of South Asian Studies in Cambridge.

For more information, please see the University's press release or contact the Centre's archivist, Dr Kevin Greenbank.

Liberté : a talk on Noor Inayat Khan GC (1914-1944)

Thursday 11th November 2010, 6:30 pm, Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College, Cambridge.

Liberté ; a talk on Noor Inayat Khan GC (1914-1944) by Shrabani Basu, author of Spy Princess: the life of Noor Inayat Khan.

Noor was an SOE agent in the Second World War. She was the first woman radio operator to be infiltrated into occupied France and helped the Resistance. She was betrayed, captured and executed in Dachau Concentration camp. Britain posthumously awarded her the George Cross.

Shrabani Basu published her biography of Noor Inayat Khan in 2006 and has since been campaigning for a personal memorial for Noor. Following an Early Day Motion in Parliament signed by 34 M.P.s and a signature campaign backed by Shami Chakrabarti and Gurinder Chadha, she got the go-ahead last month to install a bust of Noor Inayat Khan in Gordon Square, near the house where she lived. The permission was granted by the University of London, which owns Gordon Square. It will be the first memorial to an Asian woman in Britain.

Stigma: Narratives of families in HIV/AIDS care in Kerala

The Centre for South Asian Studies, Edinburgh University has a series of seminars for October, including a talk by George Palattiyil on
HIV/AIDS in Kerala

Royal Asiatic Society Lectures

The RAS in London is hosting the following two lectures:

Ghulam Ali Khan and the Delhi School of Painters, 1770-1857
by Yuthika Sharma (Columbia University, New York)
Wednesday 13 October 2010, 6.30 pm.

Colin Mackenzie's Adventures in India (1784-1821)
by Dr. Jennifer Howes (British Library)
Thursday 11 November 2010, 6pm.

All are welcome, free of charge, no need to book.
Each lecture will be followed by a reception.

Royal Asiatic Society
14 Stephenson Way
London NW1 2HD.
http://www.royalasiaticsociety.org/

South Indian painting at the British Museum

Thursday 21 October 2010
South Indian painting at the British Museum
18:30 Stevenson Lecture Theatre

Anna Dallapiccola, University of Edinburgh, will speak about two different co-existing South Indian painting traditions - the Company paintings made for European clients in the 19th century, and the vibrantly painted narratives used by local storytellers.

£5, concessions £3
Book tickets through the British Museum Ticket Desk on +44 (0)20 7323 8181 or in person, daily 10:00-16:45.

World History and Digital Scholarship conference

Henson Collection. Jubbal, India, c. 1915. © CSAS

29 October 2010


A one-day conference addressing the role played by digital humanities in the history curriculum and in inter-disciplinary research projects.


Organised by The Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge.
Venue: Adrian House, Burrell’s Field, Trinity College, Cambridge.



For registration (until 25 October 2010): digital@s-asian.cam.ac.uk
For further information: http://www.s-asian.cam.ac.uk


Speakers
Prof. Elizabeth Edwards (University of the Arts London)
Prof. Chris A. Bayly (University of Cambridge)


Panelists
Dr Kevin Greenbank (CSAS, University of Cambridge)
Dr Lee Grieveson (Centre for Intercultural Studies, UCL)
Susanne Hammacher (RAI, London)
Nico de Klerk (Film Instituut Nederland)
Dr Sean Lang (Anglia Ruskin University)
Dr Mathew Mead (University of the Arts London)
Dr Annamaria Motrescu (CSAS, University of Cambridge)
Dr Heather Norris-Nicholson (Manchester Metropolitan University)
Susannah Rayner (SOAS, London)
Dr Susan Whitfield (British Library, London)

Indian Hemp Drugs Commission

Harding-Simpole is a publishing house which specialises in books which are often difficult to find.Some of these will be reprints that are rare or impossible to obtain through the usual channels.
In association with the National Library of Scotland, they have published a facsimile reprint of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission report of 1893-94.
This report is the most comprehensive study on the effects of cannabis use ever undertaken. 1,455 witnesses were cross-examined in 86 meetings in 36 cities throughout India.

This reprint includes including rare photographs of cannabis cultivation, production and consumption.
There are some fascinating case studies: “[When] he [a soldier in the 13th Regiment] went on leave and lost some relations from cholera … he took to immoderate smoking, which resulted in madness …he was a raving maniac – violent, obstreperous.”
Anyone studying narcotics will find this work compelling, especially as it appears that the same debates still rage now, for example: should the use of cannabinoids for medicinal purposes be approved?

[Quote]:
“It has been clearly established that the occasional use of hemp in moderate doses may be beneficial; but this use may be regarded as medicinal in character.”

This publication is also available on Amazon and at the National Library of Scotland.

Securing the future of elephants in India

Photo by James Gaither (Flickr, Creative Commons)

The Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, has recently published a
report by the Elephant Task Force, titled: Securing the Future for Elephants in India.(August 31, 2010). The report is available online in pdf format at:
http://www.moef.nic.in/downloads/public-information/ETF_REPORT_FINAL.pdf


The report includes chapters on monitoring systems, securing elephant corridors, poaching, the care of captive elephants, mitigating the human-elephant conflict and recommendations on governance and law.

South Asians Making Britain 1858-1950 Interactive timeline launched

An interactive timeline relating to the South Asian contribution to Britain from 1858 to 1950 has just been launched on the Guardian's website at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2011/sep/10/south-asians-making-britain

This timeline has been produced in collaboration with the Making Britain project.

Tackling stereotypes and reconfiguring the nation’s understanding of how South Asians have helped shape Britain, the Making Britain project reveals and celebrates the unsung contribution of South Asians to Britain 1870-1950

Further details of the Making Britain project are available at http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/south-asians-making-britain/

Open Cambridge, Open Libraries

Image credit: Centre of South Asian Studies
University of Cambridge

The Library at the Centre of South Asian Studies in Cambridge will be open to the public on Saturday 11th September from 10 am - 1 pm.

Come and view photographs, artwork and home movies shot in India 1911 - 1956, and listen to archive recordings in which men and women reflect on events and issues they experienced during that period.

Many other libraries and buildings will be open too for the Open Cambridge weekend - For a full listing see:
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/opencambridge/index.html.