Mar 11 2025 to Mar 14 2025 6:30 p.m.

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

At moments when ‘the world turns upside down’, the lives and actions of ordinary people are illumined in a flash, to reveal the history of those who may have otherwise left few archival traces.

This Masterclass comprising four sessions, focuses on four emblematic figures of 19th and 20th century Princely Mysore: the insurgent peasant, the reformed Devadasi, the defiant miner of Kolar Gold Field, and the nationalist rebel. Whether their actions were successful or ended in failure, the unparalleled richness of the legal records, police accounts, or the administrative enquiry, in their ‘incitement to speech’, gave voice to those who involuntarily collided with the law.

How did these ‘peoples without history’ question the structures of which they were a part, and shape the course of Mysore’s past? What were their modes of communication, and what forms did their resistance take? These Masterclasses explore such ‘histories from below’ as they rewrite the better-known narratives of progressive, Modern Mysore.

Mar 11 | The Insurgent Peasant of 1830-31 | 6:30pm

In 1830, the peasants of the Nagara Division rose unexpectedly in revolt against the Mysore administration of Krishna Raja Wodeyar III. The insurgency quickly spread to other districts, even reaching Bangalore, and extended to British India as well, continuing until 1837. Before it was finally ‘tranquillised’ by forces of the East India Company, which came to the aid of the Rajah, the Nagara insurrection revealed as much about the hostility and anger of the peasants against their local oppressors, as of their hopes and dreams for another future. In some ways, the Nagara insurrection was an important precursor to the rebellion of 1857.

Mar 12 | The Abolition of the Devadasi and her Dance | 6:30pm

In the late 19th century, there was growing public embarrassment in Mysore about the patronage by temples and the Mysore court of the Devadasi and her dance. Mysore became one of the earliest regions of southern India to break this link, and abolish such patronage through administrative fiat. In an age when women (and children) were increasingly becoming the objects of reform, what consequences did this have on the cultural and social life of Mysore? How did it reset dance and music practice thereafter? The determined assault on the Devadasi and her dance, accompanied by the reform focus on child-wife also signaled emerging definitions of licit and illicit gender and sexual relations.

Mar 13 | The Defiant Worker of Kolar Gold Field, 1930 | 6:30pm

In April 1930, more than 18,000 miners at Kolar Gold Field began deserting their workplace, to journey back to their native villages. What prompted this mass action, among many who had spent two generations working in the mines?  The strike, moreover, appeared to have no identifiable leaders, making it difficult for both the state and the Company officials to bring it to an end. Despite this, workers forged a remarkable solidarity, gained a reversal of the decisions which threatened their dignity and self-worth, while drawing attention to the bleak conditions of life and labour in one of Mysore’s most prestigious enterprises.

Mar 14 | The Nationalist Rebels of Isoor, 1942 | 6:30pm

In response to M.K.Gandhi’s ‘Quit India’ call of August 1942, the little village of Isoor, in Shikaripur Taluk, declared ‘Independence’ and set up an alternative administration in September.  Leadership of this nationalist protest was provided by the leading landlords and sahukars of the village, who appointed two child surrogates as ‘Amaldar’ and ‘Sub Inspector’. The Gandhian call for non-violent protest was quickly transformed into its opposite, leading to the mob lynching of two officials of the Mysore State.  Whether this was considered a crime or a political act depended on who would remember and judge those fateful three days, which ended in death by hanging of five peasant rebels, and imprisonment of several others.

Speaker

Janaki Nair
Historian and Author
Janaki Nair was Professor of History at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University until retirement in 2020. Her books include Women and law in Colonial India (1996, Second Revised and Updated Edition, 2025), Miners and Millhands: Work Culture and Politics in Princely Mysore, (1998) and The Promise of the Metropolis: Bangalore’s Twentieth Century (2005, which won the New India Foundation Book Prize) and Mysore Modern: Rethinking the Region under Princely Rule (2011/2012). She has published widely in national and international journals, and has served on the editorial boards of Journal of Women’s History, and Urban History. She also writes for newspapers and journals on contemporary developments in Karnataka. She has held Visiting Appointments at the University of California, Berkeley;  University of Wuerzburg, Germany;  German Historical Institute, London;  National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, and Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. She currently serves on the Advisory Committee of the Karnataka State Education Commission, and is a member of the Kerala Urban Policy Commission.