Representations of 1857: Recovering the Indian Voice

There are contemporary pictures and a few photographs of the uprising of 1857 made by the British. Such visual material represents the events in a certain way. By and large, in the triumphal British writings on the rebellion and its suppression the heroes and villains are depicted from the point of view of the victors, and the same perception is reflected in the pictorial representation of what happened. Is there any way we can reverse the gaze?

Many sketches and paintings of 1857 from British hands were reproduced by the British printing press in journals and albums and these have been preserved with care in museums and archives, including those Indian tax-payers paid for. While there is a multitude of such pictures there is none by Indians of those times, none identified as authentically contemporary. The Indian voice of those times can be heard only in the surviving texts of proclamations and letters and orders and the like, as well as rare first person narratives in the form of memoirs and depositions at trials of the rebels. That alone can help us overcome the silence of the defeated.

The exhibition planned by the Indian Council of Historical Research tries to recover the Indian voice hundred and fifty years before our times in this exhibition. The pictorial representation from British hands is undoubtedly of historical value as the pictures are authentic artifacts of those times. The texts from Indian hands are also authenticated statements of a different way of looking at those times. These two different kinds of documents have been assembled in the exhibition entitled Representations of 1857: Recovering the Indian Voice.

We are happy that the India International Centre has hosted this exhibition and has included it in their regular programme of activities.

Sabyasachi Bhattacharya
Chairman,
ICHR

To view the Photogallery - click here

Other I.C.H.R. Programmes on 1857:

Research and Publication:

1. Proclamations and statements of the Rebel Leaders of 1857, collected from archival sources and translated.
2. Extracts from Indian language newspapers of 1857, specially Delhi Urdu Akhbar.
3. Publication of selected research papers presented by experts at ICHR conferences on 1857. Scholarly Conferences:
1. National Conference on 1857 at Delhi in December 2006 (proceedings in press) and International Conference in December 2007 at Delhi.
2. Regional conferences funded by ICHR at 17 universities in different parts of the country.
3. Conferences at the ICHR Southern Regional Centre at Bangalore and Eastern Centre at Guwahati and popular lectures at ICHR, commencing with Symposium on 1857 on 2May 2007 at India International Centre.

Out-Reach Programme:

1. Exhibition on 1857 at Delhi and traveling exhibitions in six other cities.
2. An album of pictorial representations of the Uprising of 1857.
3. Prize of Rs. 50,000 for writing a work of popular history on the Uprising of 1857, to be selected by a panel of juries and to be published by the ICHR.

All these programmes are funded by the Ministry of Human Resource Development and guided by an Advisory Committee of experts and some members of the Council of the ICHR.

Sabyasachi Bhattacharya
Indian Council of Historical Research