SOAS’s Brunei Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition by Pragya Dhital of DIY and decolonial print and the simple duplication technology used to produce it, with focus on the ‘Gestetner’ stencil duplicator. Stencil duplicating involves copies being made from a cut-out, patterned or lettered sheet (a stencil), through which paint or ink is applied onto paper. Originally intended for bureaucratic purposes, it was one of a series of Victorian-era
Farzana Whitfield is the subject librarian for South Asia and Development Studies at SOAS. Here she looks back on her family’s personal experience and memories of Partition. This article has previously appeared on SOAS’s library blog. This August marks 70 years of India’s independence from British rule (15th August) giving birth to 2 nations- a Hindu majority India and a Muslim majority Pakistan (14th August). Subsequently there were 3 wars between
Jonathan Goodhand is Professor in Conflict and Development Studies in the Department of Development Studies at SOAS University of London where he teaches courses on Development Practice and War to Peace Transitions. Oliver Walton is a Lecturer in International Development in the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at the University of Bath. He specialises in NGO politics, conflict and peacebuilding. Sri Lanka and Nepal may have turned their backs on protracted and
Simona Vittorini is a Senior Teaching Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies where she lectures undergraduate and postgraduate courses on the comparative politics of Asia and Africa. A diplomatic crisis was narrowly averted last week in Delhi when the African Heads of Missions finally agreed to participate in the Africa Day celebrations organised by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) in New Delhi. A few days
Jonathan Goodhand is a Professor Conflict and Development Studies at the SOAS Department of Development Studies. His research focuses on the political economy of conflict, war to peace transitions and increasingly on the role of borderlands, with a particular focus on South and Central Asia. Oliver Walton is a Lecturer in International Development at the University of Bath in the Department of Social and Policy Sciences. His research focuses on
Shashi Tharoor’s recent op-ed for The Guardian, where he charged PM Modi with damaging India’s reputation worldwide by waging a ‘war on Muslims’ and on tolerance, was slammed by Modi’s fans, accusing him of tarnishing India’s image, and of a PM who works tirelessly to lift India to a position of prosperity and world leadership. To them it amounted to washing the national dirty laundry in the land of the
On 19 November 2015, following Narendra Modi’s visit to the UK, the SOAS South Asia Institute hosted a panel discussion featuring SOAS academics whose own social science research engages with the changes of the new Modi era. The panel was an opportunity to assess Modi’s policies to date and the impacts they have had upon a range of different sectors and aspects of society in contemporary India. Please click on the titles
The sudden collapse of President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s regime following his shock defeat in Sri Lanka’s presidential polls on January 8 has been heralded as a potential sea change in both domestic governance and foreign relations. Under Rajapaksa Sri Lanka’s relations with the United States and other western states, which had been excellent since the late seventies (i.e. throughout the three decade armed conflict), had deteriorated sharply in recent years. Relations
2014 has been a year of commemorations and remembrances of the events of 1984. June 2014 marked the 30th anniversary of Operation Blue Star, the code name for the Indian army storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Operation Blue Star is also referred to as the second ghallughara (transl. carnage, holocaust).[1] November 2014 marked the 30th anniversary of the anti-Sikh pogroms which followed the assassination of Indira Gandhi who
Prof. Lawrence Sáez (Professor in the Political Economy of Asia at SOAS) delivered a talk on ‘The 2014 Indian elections and their impact on the region’ at Pakistan Institute of International Affairs. Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2014. http://www.dawn.com/news/1146860/bjp-appeasing-non-hindutva-voters-to-broaden-support-base