Following the interventions of subaltern studies in the 1980s, which pivoted around the question of whether it was possible for the subaltern to speak through the colonial archive, the discipline of history has undergone seismic shifts in terms of moving away from a reliance on colonial texts. However, scholars continue to rely on speeches by leaders as an index of nationalist discourse. Yet photographs of such speeches being made, such as those which show large gatherings of peasants around nationalist leaders such as Gandhi, prompt us to ask: how were nationalist messages audible to the crowds around Gandhi? What could the subaltern hear?
Kama Maclean is Professor of History at the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University, Germany. She is the author of Pilgrimage and Power (OUP, 2008), A Revolutionary History of Interwar India (OUP, 2015), and British India, White Australia: Overseas Indians, Intercolonial Relations and the Empire, 1901–1947 (UNSW Press, 2020).
This lecture will take place as a hybrid event at the GHIL and online via Zoom. In order to attend this event, please register via Eventbrite to take part in person or online.
5:30 pm