Euroclio � PeaceWorks present An Initiative of The Seagull Foundation for the Arts

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A Study Visit

& Professional Enhancement Opportunity in

Calcutta

* Experience all the myriad colours, cultures, nuances and characteristics that make up Calcutta

* Witness perhaps one of the most dynamic and diverse education systems in the world

Located in the eastern part of India, Calcutta is the capital and administrative centre of the state of West Bengal. The former capital of British India, Calcutta is a veritable melting pot of cultures.

The diverse nature of the city is reflected in the education system. As with every state in India, there are schools in the city that are affiliated to the State Board and offer a syllabus designed for the state, by the state. The other boards of educa-tion are the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE). These three main boards of education differ from one another in terms of content, modes of examination and assessment.

The city of Calcutta also has around 300 state-recognized madrassas, or Islamic religious schools.

To add to this already fascinating mix, the language of instruction differs too. In some, it is Bengali, which is the pre-dominant language spoken in West Bengal, in some it is English and in some it is Urdu or Hindi. There is also a large non-formal school system that runs in tandem with the formal private and public schools.

The study visit will provide the opportunity to

* Attending the History for Peace Conference from 10–12 November 2016, which will host participants from all over India, Pakistan and Bangladesh

* A day trip to Visva Bharati University and the Patha Bhavana School, Santiniketan, the home to the Nobel Prize–winning poet Rabindranath Tagore. The university and the school offer an insight into the Gurukul system of education.

Special features of the study visit include

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6 NOVEMBER (Sunday)Arrival

7 NOVEMBER (Monday)

8.30 a.m. – 9.30 a.m. Visit to a madrassa. Participants experience a very different kind of education system, and are

able to interact with educators and students.

10 a.m. – 11.30 a.m. A visit to Akshar, the first inclusive school in Calcutta. Participants experience how history is

taught in an inclusive classroom.

12 p.m. – 1 p.m. A visit to Kailash Vidyamandir. A government-run school that is part of the Sarva Shiksha

Abhiyan scheme, it caters to both day scholars as well as boarders from low-income families. Participants witness a

class on history and get the opportunity to look at textbooks recommended by the state government.

LUNCH

2.30 p.m. - 4 p.m. Teacher Training Centre: Interactive session with trainees. This session gives participants an opportunity to have detailed discussions on pedagogy,

Evening Cultural programme

8 November (Tuesday)Day Trip to Santiniketan, a township located in the district of Birbhum, West Bengal. Approximately 3 hours from Calcutta

by road, this was the home of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Visva Bharati University and the Patha Bhavana School,

both founded by Tagore, offer an insight into the ancient Gurukul system of education with a strong emphasis on

languages, arts and culture.

10.30 a.m. – 1.30 p.m. Interaction with teachers and students at the Viswa Bharati University and Patha Bhavana

School.

1.30 p.m. – 2.30 p.m. Lunch at Bonolokkhi. Participants get a taste of the local cuisine.

3 p.m. Visit to a local handicrafts centre.

Back in the city by 8 p.m.

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9 November (Wednesday)7 a.m. – 10 a.m.

Discover and Explore Calcutta: Confluence of Cultures

The Melting-Pot Walk: Bow Barracks to Burrabazar

Calcutta has witnessed many more cultures in its past than most would in this globalized present. The Confluence of Cultures walk traces the origins and remains of the varied

communities that hung their boots and called Calcutta home. On this tour, participants discover why the Chinese breakfast

that still rules Tiretta Bazar, how the Parsis are dwindling in numbers with each passing day and how the Armenians gave the city its oldest surviving church. The walk takes one through the daily lives of the Anglo-Indian, the Muslim, the Marwari, the Bihari and many more communities that make this city a great

melting pot of cultures.

10 a.m. – 12 p.m.Sightseeing

Victoria Memorial, one of Calcutta’s best-known landmarks, was designed by William Emerson in the Indo-Saracenic

architectural style and constructed between 1906 and 1921. Concieved by Lord Curzon to celebrate the glory of British Empire in India, it was inaugurated in 1921 and dedicated to Queen Victoria. Today the monument houses a museum

with a notable collection of colonial-era weapons, sculptures, paintings, maps, coins, stamps, textiles and myriad artefacts.

St Paulʼs Cathedral is acknowledged as the first episcopal church of the eastern world. Besides being a religious site, the

cathedral is also an architectural marvel set amid extensive grounds, flanked by a number of ancient trees. The interior of

the church depicts the life and work of St Paul in pictures.

12.30 p.m. – 3 p.m. Visit to Delhi Public School, New Town, a state-of-the-art private school.

LUNCH AT THE SCHOOL

4.30 p.m. – 5.30 p.m. A visit to Nabadisha after-school centre set up by the Kolkata Police in order to give street and

slum children a safe place to continue their studies after school hours. Participants attend a social-science class and get an

idea of how this system works.

Evening free

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A PEACEWORkS—HiSTORy fOR PEACE iNiTiATiVEIn an increasingly polarized world where extremism and hatred are on the rise, public debate seems to be driven by emotions rather than facts, leading to curtailed opinion- making. Media, especially social media, adds fuel to this fire. In our education system, there is little room for any discourse outside the textbook. Contested issues and ideas are discussed outside the school.

Can we bring the discourse of relevant issues into spaces that traditionally have no room for them?

The PeaceWorks–History for Peace project endeavours to do precisely that.

Thing is that there is always a window. A frame. In varying shapes and sizes. And made of different material. Wood. Metal. Glass. Something that helps us see. Focus. Contem-plate. Sometimes even meditate. On what is outside. Or appears to be. What is inside. Or appears to be.

And that which is beyond. Often misted over. Hidden from hindsight. And therefore harder to comprehend. We cannot deny its existence. On the contrary. We must continue to seek it. Relentlessly.

Often the seeking will be enough.

NAVEEN KISHORE

In this year’s History for Peace annual conference we look at one of the most contested ideas of the twenty-first century: Nationalism—a concept that has seen wide scholarship in terms of method, depth, scale and quantity.

What is a Nation?

What is Nationalism? What is the Construct of Nationalism?

History of Nationalism

The Ideas of Nationhood, Citizenship, Patriotism

Nationalism and Identity

Nationalism and the School Curriculum

The Left-Wing Model of Nationalism

Nationalism and Borders

Nationalism and Media / Social Media

Nationalism, Religion and Iconography

Bringing together historians, scholars, educators and arts practioners, these are some of the issues the conference will explore, aiming to inspire educators to take the discourse and its understanding into schools.

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International Conference On Teaching History

kEyNOTE ADDRESS

The Idea of NationalismPanel discussion with historians/scholars from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh on the idea of Nationalism to set the context of the three-day conference.

PANELiSTSDr. yasmin Saikia (Ph.D, University of Wisconsin–Madison) is the Hardt-Nickachos Chair in Peace Studies and Professor of History at the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Arizona State University. Her research and teaching interests straddle peace studies, history and religion with a focus on gender issues, conflict transformation and Islamic values. She is the author of three monographs,

Anushay Malik holds a Ph.D in History from University of London and is currently Assistant Professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. Anushay teaches a course on violence and nationalism in South Asia. Her published articles include ‘Alternative Politics and Dominant Nar-ratives: Communists and the Pakistani State in the Early 1950s’ and ‘Narrow-ing Politics: The Labour Movemnet in Lahore, 1947–1974’.

Nationalism and the School CurriculumPanel discussion on the education sys-tem / textbooks in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh

10 November 2016.DAY 1

one edited volume and numerous articles. Her book Fragmented Memories: Struggling to Be Tai-Ahom in Assam won the Srikanta Datta Best Book Award from the Nehru Museum and Library, New Delhi (2005), and her recent book Women, War and the Making of Bangladesh: Remembering 1971 (2011) won the Oral History Association Biennial Book Award (2013). She is currently writing a new book on the subject of freedom and human dignity in Muslim imagination in British India and is conducting a multi-country longitudinal research on how children learn peace and violence. Prior to joining ASU in 2010, she taught at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and Carleton College, Minnesota. She has strong ties with the academic community in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Malaysia. She hails from Assam, India.

PANELiSTSProf. Anil Sethi is Professor of History and History Education at the Azim Premji University, Bangalore where one of the courses that he teaches is ‘Discourses of Nationalism’. He was earlier Professor of History at the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), New Delhi. He has taught at various universities; Delhi University, Osaka University of Foreign Studies, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, University of North London, and as Visiting Professor at the School of Planning and Architechture, New Delhi. His interests include the social and religious history of modern South Asia, the history of the Indian National Movement, and Social Science Education. Prof Sethi has helped develop various history textbooks published by NCERT. He has written

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for the current textbooks of history for Classes VIII, XI and XII of the NCERT. His publications include School, Society, Nation: Popular Essays in Education that he co-edited with Rajni Kumar and Shalini Sikka.

Prof. Nilanjana Gupta is fascinated by the ways in which people create, read and use texts in their every-day life. Perhaps that is why she has specialised in popular literature and culture. Professor Gupta has been teaching in the Department of En-glish, Jadavpur University since 1991 and served as Director, School of Media Communication & Culture till 2010 when she was elected Dean of the Faculty of Arts, a position she held till 2012.Nilanjana Gupta’s publications include Switching Channels: Ideologies of Television in India (OUP: 1998) the first academic study of television in the country. Her latest book Reading with Allah: Madrasas in West Bengal (Rout-ledge: 2009) was based on extensive field studies and surveys and raised questions about the role of education in a fast –changing society.

11 November DAY 2

and Narrowing politics: The Labour Movement in Lahore, 1947-1974

Tikender Panwar Deputy Mayor of Shimla

Meher Ali is a Fulbright research scholar from Brown University, where she completed her BA with honors in History. Her senior thesis, entitled ‘The Hidden Left: Communist Activity in Pakistan, 1948–1951’, received the Distinguished Senior Thesis Award as well as the Marjorie Harris Weiss Memorial Prize and the Samuel Lamport award for Promoting International Understanding. At Brown, she was was involved with the Brown-India Initiative and the Ivy Film Festival, and was an editor at the Brown Journal of History. She is currently affiliated with the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, on a Fulbright grant, studying the history of radical student politics in 1960s Calcutta. She is interested in oral history work and public history forms, especially film, and is planning to pursue a Ph.D in modern South Asian history after completing her project in India.

Nationalism and Identity Film screening and discussion – Bani Abidi, Pakistani artist.

kEyNOTE ADDRESS

Nationalism and the Left Talk/Panel Discussion on The Idea of Civic Nationalism of the late 20th and early 21st century. Who is the ‘Anti National’? The Naxal Movement and Islamic revival in Bangladesh.

PANELiSTSAnushay Malik holds a Ph.D in History from University of London and is currently Assistant Professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. Anushay teaches a course on Violence and Nationalism in South Asia. Her published articles include Alternative politics and dominant narratives: communists and the Pakistani state in the early 1950’s

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Cecil Shane Chowdhury, Executive Director, National Commission of Justice and Peace, Pakistan. NCJP is a human rights church based body established by the Pakistan Catholic Bishops’ Conference in 1985. Since 2006 NCJP has been engaged in research covering and highlighting four major areas from the curricula—Distorted History, Religious Biased Material, Religious Hate and Institutionalized discrimination of minorities.

LUNCH

Workshop

Prof. Anil Sethi, Azim Premji University will conduct a workshop on ‘How History is Done’ and talk about the growth of Indian Nationalism. The session will be interactive in order to bring the perspectives of all nations present into the conversation.

Two expatriate Pakistani and Indian women sit and eat mangoes together and reminisce about their childhood. An otherwise touching encounter turns sour when they start comparing the range of mangoes grown in either country, a comment on the height-ened sense of nostalgia and national-ism that exists in the Indian and Paki-stani Diaspora. Both the women are played by the artist, stressing the idea of a shared history.

LUNCH

Nationalism and Borders EXTRACTS FROM ROMiLA THAPAR’S SPEECH AT AMBEDKAR UNIVERSITY Rethinking Civilization as History followed by a discussion moderated by Abeer Gupta

The limits of geographical boundaries versus ideas of nationalism/patriotism Ethnicity, Conflict and Nationalism—Kargil, Kashmir and North East: Voices from the ground – Looking at Oral His-tory and Graphic novel. Panel discus-sion. Moderated by Abeer Gupta

PANELiSTS:KARGIL. Zainab Akhter is a Re-search Officer with the Centre for Internal and Regional Security at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Stud-

Middle Class: History, Masculinity and the Amar Chitra Katha which is a social and political analysis which tries to see logic behind mythology as a pop culture.Deepa has a postgraduate in Jour-nalism and mass communication, and M.Phil. and Ph.D (submitted) from the School of International Studies, Jawa-harlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has worked with the Institute of Peace and Conflict studies (IPCS) as Research Officer during which she organised conferences, seminars and published articles. She is Member of International Association of Ladakh studies (IALS) and member of the edi-torial team of the IALS Journal.

BOLLyWOOD AS NATiONAL(iST) CiNEMAWinner of the Windham-Campbell Prize 2016, Jerry Pinto is a Mum-bai-based Indian writer of poetry, prose and children’s fiction, as well as a journalist.

LUNCH

World Café/Workshop led by Euroclio Study Visit Group.

12 November DAY 3

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kEyNOTE ADDRESS

Nationalism, Religion and IconographyYousuf Saeed on Muslim Devotion-al Art in India-Visual Presentation

Yousuf Saeed is a filmmaker, author and archivist of random ephemera based in Delhi, India.

Nationalism and the media/ social media/Popular Culture MEDiA/SOCiAL MEDiAWorkshop on the role of media in influencing young minds

POPULAR CULTURE:Deepa Srinivas will present her thesis on Indian history and comics based on her book Sculpting the

ies. She has completed her M.Phil in Diplomacy and Disarmament from Jawaharlal Nehru University and M.A in Mass Communication & Journal-ism from Kashmir University. She has worked as a reporter with Hindustan Times. She has been awarded the Ladakh Women Writers Award for the year 2008 by Charkha, a Delhi based NGO. She is currently a Ph.D scholar in the Centre for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament (CI-POD), School of International Studies (SIS), Jawaharlal Nehru University.

NORTH EAST. Parismita Singh’s work has appeared in various publi-cations including Time Out, the Sarai Reader and Katha Prize Stories 13. She was shortlisted for The Little Magazine New Writing award, 2006. She also works in the field of education.

kASHMiR. Malik Sajad was born in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-occupied Kashmir, in 1987. Munnu: A Boy From Kashmir is his first book-length graphic novel. The book is a coming-of-age narrative, a personal account as much as it is the story of what Sajad calls the ‘conflict generation’—women and men who have only known conflict, or the lulling of conflict, but never a full season of peace. From the pages of the book, it emerges that in Kashmir curfews, crackdowns, disappearances, mass graves and concertina wire are both internalized in the ordinariness of dai-ly language and inescapable elements of the landscape.