Description
The paper would examine the hitherto underexplored interface between public history and IR. The two fields of enquiry have largely evolved independent of each other although these intersect at numerous points. Some such intersections include the battlefield, the museum and the border. Public history, with its focus on how history is located, experienced and interpreted at distinct sites, steers away from the academic field of enquiry that characterises history as a discipline. For instance, the standard accounts of important episodes in military history such as of the Second World War have privileged a statist Eurocentric reading that overlooks the role of those who made up the ‘forgotten army’. This in turn shines light on the construction of memory in sites outside the state and how alternative narratives have chosen to commemorate the subalterns. Such experiences and interpretations, more often than not, also mark a departure from official discourses on territory, war and history as evidenced in state sponsored projects such as memorials and museums. In what ways can public history inform ongoing discourses on identity within IR? Further, how have South Asian interventions, in discourse and in practice, influenced postcolonial IR? The paper is an enquiry into how the colonial, the national and the postcolonial intersect in the domain of public history in South Asia. These layers make the remembering, commemorating and teaching of political history an intrinsic part of identity making in the region.
