dispatchesfromthearchive-blog

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New Tumblr Blog Address

Hello new followers! Thanks a million for taking the time to follow Dispatches from the Archive - I'm really excited about the possibilities of using this space to share and learn. After fumbling around with tumblr this weekend, I've moved Dispatches from the Archive to a new address: http://archivestories.tumblr.com/ . Follow along, and get your submissions ready! 

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Duke University Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library

South Asia Pamphlets Collection, 1920-2005

Pondicherry, 1954-1972: A Profile of Progress

Designed and Published by the Home (Information & Publicity) Department, Government of Pondicherry. Printed at Sridaran Printer, Pondicherry

One of many booklets printed by the Indian government in the 1960s and 1970s that detail efforts to "modernize" India, on a state-by-state basis. Pondicherry, a city about 130 km south of Madras (Chennai), was controlled by the French until 1954. Between 1947 and 1954, there had been an intense struggle over the future of French India - would the French be allowed to remain in independent India, or would they be forced to leave? Although there was a promise to hold a referendum so that the people of French India could decide their future, the referendum never occurred, and the French agreed to leave in 1954.

 This booklet systematically lays out the improvements that had been made since 1954, the end of the French era. The drawing on the cover features a series of roadside markers (although they do look a lot like gravestones). Mobility and accessibility via paved roads were one marker of improvement that showed Pondicherry's "progress" towards modernity. 

This picture was printed in the "Family Planning" section, and shows a man receiving a "special prize" for submitting to sterilization. Although it is unclear what the "special prize" was, it is telling that it was distributed in a tote bag with a picture of a Indian girl on it (the braids seem to indicate the picture is meant to represent a girl-child.) This could have been part of another initiative to discourage female infanticide. 

While this picture portrays a very reasonable exchange, it is well known that the central Indian government's campaign for sterilization, especially during the period of the Emergency (1975-77) involved forced sterilization, mostly of the poor and low-caste who lived in slums. The science of family planning was considered a mark of modernity, but it was almost always those without resources whose bodies were altered and made sterile by the state. 

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Whose Archive?

I am often asked why I became a historian - was there a transformative moment in my life when I knew I wanted to devote my life to studying the past? I have a variety of answers prepared to address this question: I like to tell and hear stories, I've always been interested in the past, history is important to understanding the present...but the most honest answer is that I like looking at things, hearing voices recorded decades or centuries ago, and remembering ideas and people that can no longer be articulated, seen, or heard. 

Archives are often amazing places. They are sites of memory that contain not only documents, pictures, recordings, and other ephemera but also the labor of the people who took the time to collect the materials, house them, protect them, and eventually donate them to help others understand what has happened in the past. Archives are also sites of political struggle: only certain material is collected, some material is privileged over others, the First World has the capital to protect history in a way the Third World never has (thus perpetuating the colonialist notion that the West has more claims to history than the Rest), and access to archives is often controlled by the State, restricted to those who have the money and the right passport to travel to the archival site. As the Anthropologist Ann Laura Stoler wrote in Along the Archival Grain, "colonial administrations were prolific producers of social categories," and the archives we use to tell histories are still dependent on these categories. 

The politics of the archive play into the politics of writing history, a project that is in constant need of address and expansion. This tumblog is dedicated to expanding the definition of the archive, and to sharing and detailing the documents, images, voices, and ephemera that often get lost in national histories and major movements. 

Submissions can come from any place that you consider an archive (besides those places already categorized as an archive, you might consider the library, your grandparent's house, the local thrift shop, a flea market, the street). Tell us a bit about the document/image you submit, and where you found it. The more we share our archival findings, the louder the cacophony. 

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Nagaland: A Year of Progress, 1968

Duke University, Rubenstein Rare Books and Manuscript Library

South Asia Pamphlet Collection, 1920-2005

Nagaland is a state in the northeastern area of India. It was established in 1963, despite decades of protest against incorporation into the Indian state, and is bordered by Burma (Myanmar) and the state of Assam. It is believed that over 20 local languages are spoken by the almost 2 million inhabitants of Nagaland, although the government recognizes English as the official language. This pamphlet was produced in 1968, part of an effort to show the progress made by new states, showing how incorporation into the Indian state benefitted local communities. 

The historian Ramachandra Guha has suggested that the long history of rebellions and struggle in Nagaland have been ignored because of its geographical position on the margins of the Indian state. As Guha writes, "From the beginning, militant sections among the Nagas wanted nothing to do with India. They organized a boycott of the 1952 General Elections, as well as a boycott of a trip to the Naga Hills by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. The radical leader, A. N. Phizo, came to New Delhi, but his talks failed on the question of independence (which he claimed) versus autonomy (which the Government was willing to grant). Phizo went underground, and the insurgency began. For the next decade there were bitter battles between the security forces and the Naga rebels. There were heavy casualties on both sides, and much loss of civilian life." (Read more from Guha here)