Mar 29 2025 to Mar 29 2025 11 a.m.

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

The NLS Archives’ Maps of Memory exhibition displays archival fragments and glimpses of personal memory to reconstruct joyful utopian worlds that feminists began building across South Asia in the mid-20th century. It invites us to reflect on key questions: How do we remember social movements? How do we archive friendships, solidarities, and resistance?

Featuring Dr. Uma Chakravarti’s collection from the NLS Archives, the exhibition offers a visual, cinematic, and scholarly journey through the people’s movements in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Through posters, films, and groundbreaking historical research, it invites visitors to engage with the intertwined narratives of friendships and struggles for democratic rights across South Asia.

The inaugural event will begin with a dramatic reading of a short story “Bacchisu” by Du. Saraswathi, a well-known Kannada writer, theatre artiste, and activist.

This will be followed by a multimedia, interactive panel discussion featuring Uma Chakravarti, Du. Saraswathi, and historian and publisher V. Geetha—friends and co-travellers—alongside the NLS curators. Together, they will explore creative expression and the process of making history.

Speakers

Uma Chakravarti
Historian, Filmmaker & Activist
Dr. Uma Chakravarti is a historian, feminist, filmmaker, civil liberties activist and teacher. Since the 1980s, she has played a key role in recovering and documenting histories—both in print and film—of pioneering women activists and extraordinary women’s lives from the late 19th century onward, shaping the field of Women’s Studies in India. She taught for many years at Miranda House, Delhi, and her students have since become feminist writers, lawyers, and filmmakers in their own right.

Among her many books are Social Dimensions of Early Buddhism (Oxford University Press, 1987), Gendering Caste through a Feminist Lens (Stree, 2002), The Dying Lineage: The Crisis of Political Power in the Mahabharata (Primus, 2024). 

Her documentary films include Darbar e watan, A Quiet Little Entry, Fragments of a Past, Ek Inquilab Aur Aaya: Lucknow 1920-1949, Prison Diaries, and Ye Lo Bayan Humare.

Du Saraswathi
Theatre Artiste & Writer
Du. Saraswathi is a renowned theatre artiste and writer who has been deeply involved in the feminist and Dalit movements in Karnataka for over five decades. She was a core member and editor of Manasa, one of the earliest Kannada feminist magazines, published in the 1980s. Manasa played a pivotal role in shaping young sensibilities on feminism and gender justice.

Apart from her short stories, poetry and numerous columns in Kannada dailies, she has also translated  Aamhihi Itihaas Ghadavlaa (We Also Made History, Zubaan) by Urmila Pawar and Meenakshi Moon as Naavu Itihasa Kattidevu in Kannada. The book documents the participation of women in the Dalit movement led by Ambedkar and highlights other significant Dalit struggles of the early 20th century.

V Geetha
Historian, Publisher & Playwright
V. Geetha is a Chennai-based historian, publisher, and playwright known for her extensive work on gender, caste, labour, and politics in India. She has been deeply engaged in anti-caste thought and activism, drawing from the intellectual traditions of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, Periyar, and other social reformers.

As a publisher and editorial director at Tara Books, she has championed independent and socially conscious publishing. Her writings traverse diverse fields, including feminist theory, caste politics, Tamil history, and literary criticism.

She is the author of several influential books, including Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar and the Question of Socialism in India (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), Undoing Impunity: Speech After Sexual Violence (Zubaan, 2016), Another History of the Children’s Picture Book (with Giedrė Jankevičiūtė. Tara Books, 2017) and Towards a Non-Brahmin Millennium: From Iyothee Thass to Periyar (with S.V. Rajadurai. Bhatkal and Sen, 1998).

Diya Deviah
Curator, Maps of Memory Exhibition
Diya Deviah is the curator of the Maps of Memory Exhibition. She teaches Law at the National Law School of India University, and is Co-Director of The Writing Centre at NLSIU.

Ammel Sharon
Professor, National Law School of India University
Ammel Sharon teaches Social Sciences at the National Law School of India University. She is Co-Director at The Writing Centre and NLS Archives In-Charge at NLSIU.