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* Title of the Project – Print as Resistance: Proscription as Control – A Cultural History of Banned Hindi-Urdu Print in Colonial North India c. 1850-1947.

* Project  Investigators- 

  • Gajendra  Pathak, Professor, Department of Hindi, University of Hyderabad CV
  •  Ravikant Sharma, Associate Professor, CSDS, Delhi  CV

* Our Journey- 

The moment we were awarded this IOE Project the world was passing through the nightmare of COVID-19. We were almost in the dark since our primary research resources were available in the British Library and other archives. However, we were not hopeless because our research was focused on tributes to the unsung heroes of our great freedom struggle. It was not only a coincidence to remember the dark days of British imperialism during the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav. We were unsure about our field visits as the archival world faced a complete shutdown. Hence, we changed our strategy and started our journey with the online interviews of the subject experts especially the archivists like Shri Rajmani ji (Former Archivist at the National Archives, New Delhi). He was the key person behind the documentation process of the proscribed Hindi-Urdu Print of the colonial period at the National Archives of India. He agreed to an online lecture on our topic, and we started a new journey. Our online lecture series was a big hit not only in the Indian academic world, but we were able to draw the attention of several experts working in this area from outside India. Our Google Meet platform attracted substantial audiences on a consistent basis for all the thirteen lectures. We learnt a lot not only from subject experts but also from the participants. The feedback from the young students and research scholars was a driving force behind our research project. We uploaded all the seminar proceedings for the benefit of younger researchers.

After the lockdown began to ease a bit, we decided to hold an international seminar. The first international online seminar held from 15 to 17 November 2021 was a rare big event on the topic. The list of speakers and topics discussed was a milestone achievement of this project. The conference proceedings published as an edited volume and hopefully it will be an important text for research and reference.

 We planned for the publication of a special issue of the UGC Care Journal Apni Maati on proscribed Hindi literature where the pioneer of this area Prof. Manager Pandey agreed to write for us. Eminent Scholar Prof. Radhavallabh Tripathi’s transcribed speech focused on proscribed Sanskrit literature is a novelty for all scholars. This issue attracted three generations of the Hindi and Urdu world towards proscribed colonial writing. The success of this journal encouraged us to plan for another such experiment. The Apni Maati issue was planned after the first international seminar. We announced a special issue of the prestigious journal Lamahi during the second international seminar. Recently, we released the special issues of UGC Care Journal Lamahi in a grand inaugural function at our collaborating institution CSDS, Delhi amid a galaxy of academicians and research scholars. Publication of these two volumes has been greeted with much enthusiasm.

 We have also published two volumes of the banned colonial writings to underline the power of intellectual Indian resistance against the British Empire. Ten more volumes of such writings in collaboration with Nayee Kitab Publications, New Delhi, have been planned.

We conducted a three-day second international seminar in August 2023. It was an offline event packaged with an exhibition and a set of cultural performances in the auditorium of Hyderbad University. The week-long poster exhibition was arranged on the campus to coincide with the concluding day of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav. Honourable Vice Chancellor inaugurated both these events. As part of the cultural programme was staged the classic proscribed play ‘Kulipratha’. Selected proscribed folk songs and poems were also recited and recreated on the stage. More than one thousand students attended and appreciated this cultural programme. The beauty of this event was enhanced by the active participation of our students who prepared/rehearsed continuously for more than one month without any break. Like what they showed in the film Rang de Basanti, for most of them, it was their exposure to theatrical and musical performance based on actual lived artworks that were considered so dangerous in British India. The young generation present in the life sciences auditorium paid tearful tribute to unsung heroes of our freedom struggle. Both the exhibition and the cultural event created an instant connect, which underlines the fact that we need to diversify our presentations for the born-digital generation. 

 As a part of our outreach activity, a grand poster exhibition from proscribed material collected and curated by us a national seminar and workshop were organised at the annual language festival called ‘Samanvay’ at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi in November 2023. More than a thousand visitors attended our exhibition.

We also delivered several lectures in different international, and national seminars and refresher courses as a part of our academic outreach responsibility.

When the world got its breath back after the deadly Pandemic, we were among the first to remove the dust of state archives of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, U.P., Delhi, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. We collected rare documents and conducted interviews with several experts in local histories.

Our two visits to the British Library in London were a boon to our project. We were able to taste the fruits of Prof. N. Gerald Barrier and Dr. Graham Shaw who prepared the catalogue of proscribed colonial writing in 1973 and 2010 respectively. The smooth services at the British Library are an eye opener and the experience of a lifetime. We discovered thousands of ‘Kohinoors’. Kohinoors’ produced as a result of the policy of colonial proscription. We could feel the tears and fears of colonial history through the delicate and fragile yellow pages enveloped in chemical-treated white envelopes in the British Library. The value of freedom of expression reflected in words is no less than the life of a living body. Our Vice Chancellor in his inaugural address to our second international conference underlined the importance of uncovering the hidden. We are doing the same by publishing these rare documents. We have no words to thank all the stakeholders of the IoE for making this possible.

Passing through the legendary India House we felt that the making of people like Shyamji Krishna Varma, Mahatma Gandhi, V.D. Savarkar, Madanlal Dhingra and Bhai Parmanand is not only the virtue of time-tested history but the truth that witnessed the winds of London streets where personalities like Karl Marx and Ernest Jones have uncovered the truth of 1857. In the British Library, it was interesting to know that V.D.Savarkar was the first Indian to have revealed the ‘nationalist’ truth of 1857 only after the fifty years of the great revolution through the files of the India office library (then situated at the British Museum) in 1907. He spent one and a half years there and the result was his monograph on 1857. This book could see the light of the day only after independence. Ironically, V.D. Savarkar and Karl Marx shared a lot in common about the impact of 1857. In London, we could know about the ‘’Revolt of Hindustan”. A classic written by Ernest Jones. He was a pioneer of the chartist movement and was jailed in London in 1848 on sedition charges. Behind the bars, he forecasted 1857 in a poem. This poem is the first document that denounces the greatness of British Empire. He underlined the role of bloodshed in the making of the Sun that never set. 1857, 1905, 1919, 1931, 1942 and 1947 are not the numbers in the colonial history of India but the symbols of our effort to overthrow the repressive regime. The materials we collected there say different stories and we are sure that the publication of these materials will certainly fill the gap of not only our political historiography but literary historiography as well.

Our project has encouraged several of our research scholars to work in this area. This is a shining output of our research. Several research scholars from other Indian universities have become a part of our network and this is a unique achievement of our research project that may change the research ecosystem of Indian language students where there is a huge scope for interdisciplinary research. More than fifty research scholars presented their research papers in our seminars, workshops and conferences.  We published more than twenty-five research scholars’ papers in our two UGC Care journals as guest editors.

We have trained five interns in our project. These interns presented their research papers after their internships. They belonged to different disciplines and their observations were remarkable.

We have launched a website for our project. All the events are available on this website for public use. All cultural events and lectures were uploaded on the YouTube channel of the project. upload the scanned copies of the banned posters, books and rare journals. Once all the materials are uploaded on this website, we will hand over this website to our university with a link to the CSDS website for wider reach.

Up Coming Activity:

We have promised a two-hour radio documentary subject to the availability of funds. The script is ready and the technical experts working with Akshvani have suggested that for all logistic requirements, we may require a minimum of rupees fifteen lacs. We will submit the tentative budget for your kind consideration, subject to the availability of funds. This documentary may be of great importance for the common people of our nation. We are also working on a series of short films on the lives and works of legendary journalists/writers, who preferred not to compromise and either paid fines or went to jail for publishing patriotic reports, stories, poems, editorials, cartoons, and so on. We are working on videos of talk shows on the banned books and journals.

Dedicated to the unsung heroes of our national freedom struggle, we have developed a departmental library with the due permission of the competent authorities. All the collected proscribed material during our fieldwork including framed rare posters is displayed here.

We are working on a critical anthology of historical analysis of the banned fictional and non-fictional Hindi-Urdu print. This book is expected by March 2025. We are also working on a SWAYAM/MOOC course on this topic and planning to launch this course by the next academic year.

The design of the interface of the Digital Archive is in progress. This website will be a dedicated platform for researchers and common people interested in the colonial history of our nation in general and proscribed writings in particular.

This project is not only an academic exercise. We have discussed it with people from different social bases. The common people of India are still ignorant about the real design and desire of the British empire. The writers of our vernacular languages faced the wrath of their violent ways. Writing and publishing in Indian language was an important tool of non-violent struggle and resistance. The British Empire was aware of it. Through various acts, the basic freedom of expression was suppressed. It is an irony that people like Lord Macaulay once considered the literature of the vernacular languages as unimportant and valueless. But after 1857, this acquired a dangerous value so much so that they were left with no choice but to ban these writings through various acts. Going through thousands of proscribed poems we have realised that some of the material exhibited excellent aesthetic design and ways of saying. The local poets used all popularly available forms to inspire, mobilse and organise the masses against the colonial regime. The writers from different social bases apart from their religious, regional, caste and economic identities wrote in Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi and other local dialects.  The boundaries to create differences amongst the Indians were demolished by the underlying feeling that they are being fooled and exploited. They died for the nation and their words were not any less powerful than bullets, jails and noose designed by the British Empire. Printed words resisted all the weapons of imperialism. Imperialism ensured these printed words reached London safely and the bodies and minds behind these words, behind bars.

* List of publications:- 

1.  प्रतिबंधित साहित्य विशेषांक (44) – अपनी माटी  (UGC-Care Journal)   अतिथि संपादक  – गजेन्द्र पाठक     https://amzn.in/d/iR0JFXz

2. प्रतिबंध और प्रतिरोध (1850-1947) – लमही (UGC-Care Journal) अतिथि संपादक  – गजेन्द्र पाठक  एवं रविकान्त     Click for Lamahi’s Inauguration and Panel Discussion Poster

https://notnul.com/Pages/Book-Details.aspx?ShortCode=xFI9OHOW

 3. Print as Resistance: Proscription as Control – Edited by Gajendra Pathak & Ravikant (Under Publication)

4.  प्रतिबंधित हिंदी पत्रकारिता (ब्रिटिश उपनिवेशवाद और भारतीय प्रतिरोध, खंड-1) – नयी किताब, नयी दिल्ली, ISBN 978-93-92998-85-0 Click for Book

5.  भवानी दयाल संन्यासी – दक्षिण अफ्रीका के सार्वजनिक कार्यकर्ता (ब्रिटिश उपनिवेशवाद और भारतीय प्रतिरोध, खंड-2), नयी किताब, नयी दिल्ली, ISBN 978-93-92998-75-1 Click for Book

6. जेल के यात्री (ब्रिटिश उपनिवेशवाद और भारतीय प्रतिरोध, खंड-3) नयी किताब, नई दिल्ली,  ISBN- 978-81-978298-2-6

 7. जय हिन्द (Under Publication)

8.  प्रतिबंधित हिंदी कविता (Under Publication) 

9. रस और अलंकार (Under Publication)

10. प्रतिबंधित उर्दू लेखन (Under Publication)

* Seminars or any other capacity-building programmes organized:

  1. International Seminar on ‘Proscribed Hindi-Urdu Print and Colonial Historiography’ (15-17 November 2021)  Click for Poster     Report of the Event
  2. International Conference on ‘Proscription and Censorship in late Colonial India(7-9 August 2023) Click for Poster  Report  of the Event
  3. International Workshop on “Colonial Proscription and Hindi-Urdu Public Sphere” (Department of Hindi, University of Hyderabad) 14-16 Nov 2023 Click for Poster
  4. हिंदी उत्सव ‘Book Exhibition and lecture series’ (30 Oct to 3 Nov 2023) Click for Poster
  5. National Seminar on ‘Posters, Magazines and Pamphlets banned by the Raj, 1920-50’, National workshop on Proscribed Print Click for Poster , Book exhibition Click For Poster   and Poster exhibition, Open Palm Court, India Habitat Centre, (24-26 November 2023) Click for Poster
  6.  Intern Presentations-(10 Jan 2023) Click for video Click for video

Cultural Events: Click for Poster

  1. भारत न रह सकेगा हरगिज़ गुलामखाना गीत Click for Song
  2. अब तो स्‍वराज लेंगे | देशभक्ति गीत Click for Song
  3. त्‍यागो गुलामी पथ को | देशभक्ति गीत Click for Song
  4. खिलाफत पर खडे़ रहना| देशभक्ति गीत Click for Song
  5. नाहक मे भइले बिअहवा | भोजपुरी गीत Click for Song
  6. हम हक पर जान देते हैं | गीत Click for Song
  7. करेंगे सेवा स्‍वदेश भूमि इसी पे तन मन लुटायेंगे Click for Song
  8. आल्‍हा गीत |1857 स्‍वतंत्रता संग्राम Click for Song
  9. क्‍यों जुल्‍म इतना हम पे सरकार हो रहा है?|गीत Click for Song
  10. गाँधीजी की ग्‍यारह शर्तें| गीत Click for Song

  11. Proscribed Play ‘Kuli Pratha’  Click for Poster  Click for Play

* Online Lecture Series Organised   under the IOE Project 

  • Coordinated IOE Project RC1-20-028 Lecture Series – 01 ‘Proscribed Literature: Published, Unpublished and Archived’ by Shri Rajmani (Former Director, National Archives, New Delhi)-23.01.2021 Click for Poster
  • Coordinated IOE Project RC1-20-028 Lecture Series – 02 ‘The Print Media and The Quest for National Identity: A Review of Proscribed (Banned) Literature’ by Dr Hasan mam (Centre for Advance Study, Department of History, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh) 31.03.2021 Click for PosterClick for video
  • Coordinated IOE Project RC1-20-028 Lecture Series – 03 ‘Proscribing Publications in the Colonial Context: The Position of the Colonial State and the Nationalist Response’ by Dr Nishant Kumar (Assistant Professor, Dept. of Political Science, Dayal Singh College, University of Delhi) 28.05.2021 Click for Poster Click for video
  • Coordinated IOE Project RC1-20-028 Lecture Series – 04 ‘Literary Resistance, Oppressive Colonial State by Prof. Anindita Mukhopadhyay’ (Dept. of History, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad) 05.06.2021 Click for Poster Click for video
  • Coordinated IOE Project RC1-20-028 Lecture Series – 05 ‘Pratibandhit Sanskrit Sahitya’ by Prof. Radhavallabh Tripathi (Former Vice Chancellor, Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, New Delhi) 12.06.2021 Click for PosterClick for video
  • Coordinated IOE Project RC1-20-028 Lecture Series – 06 ‘Pratibandhit Prawasi Sahitya’ by Dr Ashutosh kumar (Associate Professor, Dept. of History, BHU) 17.07.202 Click for PosterClick for video
  • Coordinated IOE Project RC1-20-028 Lecture Series – 07 ‘Aupaniveshik Bharat me sva ka Jagaran aur Pratibandhit Sahitya’ by Dr. Narendra Shukl (Head, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi) 20.08.2021 Click for PosterClick for video
  • Coordinated IOE Project RC1-20-028 Lecture Series – 08 ‘Freedom of press and censorship in France and England: 16th to 19th Centuries- some Reflections’ by Dr Vijaya Ramadas Mandala (Dept. of History, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad) 24.09.2021 Click for PosterClick for video
  • Coordinated IOE Project RC1-20-028 Lecture Series – 09 ‘Kalam par Pahra aur Pabandi’ by Padma Shree Vijay Dutt Shridhar (The Founder of Madhav Sapre Museum, Bhopal) 11.03.2022 Click for Poster Click for Video
  • Coordinated IOE Project RC1-20-028 Lecture Series – 10 ‘Hindi Cartoon and The Questions of Proscription in Colonial India’ by Dr Prabhat Kumar (Assistant Professor, CSDS, Delhi) 12.08.2022 Click for Poster Click for video
  • Coordinated IOE Project RC1-20-028 Lecture Series – 11 ‘Pratibandhit Sahitya ka desh kaal aur canon’ by Dr Mrityunjay (Azim Premji University, Bhopal) 28.11.2022 Click for Poster   Click for video
  • Coordinated IOE Project RC1-20-028 Lecture Series – 12 ‘The Red Contagion: The Spectre of Communism and Imperial Surveillance in the Labour Movement of Bengal (1930-1947) by Manaswini Sen (Research scholar, Dept. of History, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad) 02.03.2023 Click for Poster  Click for video
  • Coordinated IOE Project RC1-20-028 Lecture Series – 13 ‘Book Discussion HICHY’S BENGAL GAZETTE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF INDIA’S FIRST NEWSPAPER’ by Andrew Otis (Author and Journalist at the Chronicle of Higher Education, Washington DC, USA) 15.03.2023 Click for Poster Click for video
  • Coordinated IOE Project RC1-20-028 Lecture Series – 14 ‘The Role of Women in the Individual Satyagraha Movement in Bihar (1940-1941)’ by Dr Sharda Sharan (Bihar State Archives, Patna) 27.04.2023 Click for video
  • Coordinated Online Lecture Series – 01 ‘Humara Samay Aur Kavita Samay’ by Prof. A. Arvindakshan (Poet), 01.2021 Click for video
  • Coordinated Online Lecture Series – 02 ‘Nirala Aur Bhartiya Saundarybodh’ by Shree Ashtbhuja Shukla (Poet), 02.2021 Click for video
  • Coordinated Online Lecture Series – 03 ‘Stree Sashaktikaran ka Mith’ by Rohini Agarwal, 03.2021 Click for video
  • Coordinated Online Lecture Series – 04 ’19 vin Sadi ka Gujarati Sahitya Aur Bharteey Navjagran by Prof. Alok Gupt (Gujarat Central University, Gandhinagar) 24.04.2021 Click for video
  • Coordinated Online Lecture Series – 05 ‘Ravindra Nath Thakur: Bharteeya Chintan ke Agradoot by Prof. M. Venkateshwara (Former Head, Dept. of Hindi, EFLU, Hyderabad) 08.05.2021 Click for video
  • Coordinated Online Lecture Series – 06 ‘Bhakti Andolan ki Pahchan Par Punrvichar’ by Prof. Madhav Hada (MLSU, Udaipur, Rajasthan) 05.07.2021 Click for video
  • Coordinated Online Lecture Series – 07 ‘Jaishankar Prasad: Jateey Smriti, Itihaas aur Sanskriti ke Sandarbh Mein’ by Prof. Vijay Bahadur Singh, 08.2021Click for video
  • Coordinated Online Lecture Series – 08 ‘Hindi: Kabhi Dur, Kabhi Paas’ by T. S. S. Prasad, 11.2021 Click for video
  • CoordinatedOnline Lecture Series – 09 ‘Adhunik Hindi Kavita ke Sau Varsh’ by Prof. Arun Kamal (Poet), 12.2021  Click for video
  • Coordinated Online Lecture Series – 10 ‘Rajbhasha Hindi: Samsya aur Samadhan’ by Shree Rudra Nath Mishra (NMDC, Hyderabad), 10.01.2022 Click for video
  • Coordinated Online Lecture Series – 11 ‘Raghuveer Sahay ka Rachna Sansar’ by Dr Abhay Thakur, (Bharteeya Rajasva Seva), 21.01.2022 Click for video

   *  M.Phil/PhD students trained as part of the project (name and title of dissertation/ thesis) – (Research In-progress)

  • ‘Hindi, Gujrati aur Sindhi Navjagaran ka Tulnatamak Adhyayan’, Vinit Kumar Pandey (JRF), Ph.D 2019,  CV
  • ‘Bharat Vibhajan Kendrit Hindi Evam Anya Bhashaon Ke Katha Sahitya Ka Tulnatmak Adhyayan’, Abhishek Upadhyay (JRF), Ph.D 2019 – 2024,  CV
  • ‘Kamataprasad Guru aur Kishoridas Vajapeyee ki Vyakaranik drishtiyon ka Tulanatamk Adhyayan’, Dharmveer (JRF), Ph.D 2019,  CV
  • ‘Bhavani Dayal Sanyasi aur Hindi Navjagran’, Brajesh Singh Kushwaha (JRF), Ph.D, 2020,  CV
  • ‘Ram Rakh Singh Sahgal aur Hindi Navjagran’, Gaurav Singh (JRF), Ph.D.2021,  CV
  • ‘Premchand aur Portugal ke Eça de Queiroz ke katha Sahitya ka Tulnatmak Adhyayan’, Vidhu Shekhar, Ph.D, 2023

(Awarded)

  • ‘Hindi ka Pratibandhit Sahitya aur Itihas lekhan ki samasyayen’, Ashutosh Kumar Pandey (JRF), Ph.D.-2021 CV
  • ‘Chand’ Patrika ke ‘Phansi’ ank ka Alochnatmak Adhyayan,Vikas Shukla (JRF) M.Phil.-2021 CV
  • ‘Hindi Ke Pratibandhit Natkon Mein Swadheenta Ki Chetna Ka Swaroop’, Bhawana (JRF), M.Phil. 2016  CV
  • ‘Hindi Ke Lokgeeton Mein 1857: Alochanatmak Vishleshan’,Sunil Kumar Yadav (JRF), M.Phil.-2016 CV

*  Post docs trained-01

  • ‘Proscribed Hindi Journalism (1900-1947)’, Dr. Warsha Kumari, IoE- Post Doctoral Research Fellow,  (13.06.2023 to 31.03.2025)  CV

* Total Number of project staff employed (name and tenure) -02

  • Ashutosh Kumar Pandey (01.06.2021 to 31.03.2024)  CV
  • Naushad (01.06.2021 to 31.05.2022) CV

*  Other highlights :

 Extension lectures/ Invited lectures/ lectures as resource person on this topic by PI-

  • Delivered a Lecture on, “1857: Partibandh aur Pratirodh” in a national symposium ” Lokvritta se pare: Aupniveshik Pratibandhit Lok Sahitya” organised by CSDS, Delhi, 03.09.2024
  • Delivered a Lecture on “Upniveshvaad aur Bhartiya Pratirodh ki Parampara” as a resource person in the UGC Refresher course organised by the MMTTC, Jawahar Lal Nehru University, New Delhi, 02.09.2024
  • Delivered a Lecture on “Pratibandhit Bharteeya Lekhan aur itihas lekhan ki samsyanyen”as a resource person UGC Refresher Course organised by MMTTC, Pondicherry, Puducherry 15.03.2024
  • Delivered a Lecture on “Prampra aur Itihas Bodh”as a resource person UGC Refresher course organised by MMTTC, Pondicherry University, Puducherry, 15.03.2024
  • keynote address on “Aupniveshik Bharat men Pratibandhit Bharteeya lekhan” at the international seminar organised by Alliance University, Bengaluru, 04-05 Feb 2024   
  • Delivered a Lecture on “Pratibandhit Bharteeya Lekhan aur Itihas Bodh” as a resource person, UGC Refresher course organised by MMTTC, University of Hyderabad, 2024
  • Delivered a Keynote address on “Aupaniveshikkalin Bharteeya lekhan aur Manvadhikaar”at the National Seminar organised by the National Human Rights Commission, New Delhi and Calicut University, Calicut, 17-18 Dec 2023
  • Invited Lecture on”Proscribed Colonial Print” organised by Govt. College Bagru, Rajasthan, 12 Oct 2023
  • Invited Lecture on “Proscribed Hindi Print”organised by the Central University of Jharkhand, Ranchi, 2023
  • Delivered a Lecture on “Hindi Navjagran aur Upnayas”as a resource person in the UGC Refresher course organised by MMTTC, Calicut University, Calicut, 2023
  • Invited lecture on “Proscribed Hindi-Urdu print in colonial India” organised by Katha Foundation, London (UK), 30 September 2023.
  • Participated in an international seminar on “Science, Visual Cultures and Museums”organised by the Centre of World Environmental History, University of Sussex, UK, 26 June 2023