Historychatter Podcast

In the first part of the Durga puja special, we were talking about the history of the puja as a public festival. We were also looking at how the festival gave rise in recent years to a new kind of art and artists and how politics has always characterized the organization of public Durga Puja now more than ever. In part two of the Durga Puja special of HistoryChatter, we look more specifically and more contemporary issues. How are pujas in private households conducted these days? What is the nature of politics around the puja this time round? How is the Covid 19 scare going to affect footfall? Host, Dr. Anirban Bandyopadhyay asked these and a number of other questions to former CEO of Prasar Bharati, Mr. Jawhar Sircar, who is also an anthropologist of religion by training and published widely on contemporary politics in India and West Bengal. He shared a number of useful insights, such as how pujas have now become a site of entry into organized politics.He was quite dismissive of the Bengali sense of discretion and said many will step out enthusiastically, if necessary by ignoring health risks. Overall though, he was hopeful that the administration would not allow for the situation to get out of hand.   You can follow us and leave us feedback on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @eplogmedia, For partnerships/queries send you can send us an email at bonjour@eplog.media. If you like this show, please subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts, so other people can find us. You can also find us on https://www.eplog.media DISCLAIMER: The views expressed on all the shows produced and distributed by Ep.Log Media are personal to the host and the guest of the shows respectively and with no intention to harm the sentiments of any individual/organization.The said content is not obscene or blasphemous or defamatory of any event and/or person deceased or alive or in contempt of court or breach of contract or breach of privilege, or in violation of any provisions of the statute, nor hurt the sentiments of any religious groups/ person/government/non-government authorities and/or breach or be against any declared public policy of any nation or state.Further, the show is not meant to defame/denigrate any person, community, organisation, institution, political party, politician, or any class of persons, gender, caste or religion, in any manner. The subject matter of this show may be sensitive in nature and hence listeners are advised to exercise discretion as appropriate.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

HistoryChatter in this special episode recalls a history of the Durga Puja festival. It has seen a number of shifts in its public career since the 16th century. This episode looks at these shifts. Initially, the puja would be organized by private households of wealthy landlords.More recently the puja is now organized by neighbourhood voluntary associations. Meanwhile, there have been changes in the design of the icon and the venues too. It has subsequently given rise to a new kind of public art. Finally, politics has always had a role to play in the organization of pujas as a community festival, but in recent years the state intervenes much more directly.This special episode of HistoryChatter revolves around these three axes: history, art and politics around the Durga Puja. Hosted by Dr. Anirban Bandyopadhyay Let us know what you thought about this episode... You can follow us and leave us feedback on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @eplogmedia, For partnerships/queries send you can send us an email at bonjour@eplog.media. If you like this show, please subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts, so other people can find us. You can also find us on https://www.eplog.media DISCLAIMER: The views expressed on all the shows produced and distributed by Ep.Log Media are personal to the host and the guest of the shows respectively and with no intention to harm the sentiments of any individual/organization.The said content is not obscene or blasphemous or defamatory of any event and/or person deceased or alive or in contempt of court or breach of contract or breach of privilege, or in violation of any provisions of the statute, nor hurt the sentiments of any religious groups/ person/government/non-government authorities and/or breach or be against any declared public policy of any nation or state.Further, the show is not meant to defame/denigrate any person, community, organisation, institution, political party, politician, or any class of persons, gender, caste or religion, in any manner. The subject matter of this show may be sensitive in nature and hence listeners are advised to exercise discretion as appropriate.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Football is probably the most popular sport in the world. Yet, serious academic research on football did not begin until the 1960s. That was a full hundred years after standard rules were introduced for the game. This episode of HistoryChatter recalls the pioneering research of E G Dunning on the history of football. It is the first part of a two-part series. In this part, football in England is recalled since the first written reference to it in the twelfth century. It was a rough and unruly pastime of the lower classes for nearly 600 years. It had no rules and often enough looked liked like a bloody fight. It would be regularly deplored as a lowly game and banned. I recall some of the instances of this early life of football before it would be ‘civilized’ by the 1850s. That part will be addressed in the next episode. Hosted by Dr. Anirban Bandyopadhyay Let us know what you thought about this episode... You can follow us and leave us feedback on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @eplogmedia, For partnerships/queries send you can send us an email at bonjour@eplog.media. If you like this show, please subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts, so other people can find us. You can also find us on https://www.eplog.media The views expressed on all the shows produced and distributed by Ep.Log Media are personal to the host and the guest of the shows respectively and with no intention to harm the sentiments of any individual/organisation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Several verses of Sufi saint Baba Farid are found in the holy book of the Sikhs. These are called Farid Bani. This episode of HistoryChatter deals with some questions around this surprising convergence of Islam and Sikhism. Who was Baba Farid? Did he himself write the verses attributed to him? Who admitted those verses into the Granth Sahib and why? Is their language more important than which religious tradition they belong to? What do historians think about these questions? We conclude that anomalies such as this show that religions were not strictly bounded in terms of doctrinal of ritual exclusivity until the late nineteenth century in India.   Hosted by Dr. Anirban Bandyopadhyay Let us know what you thought about this episode... You can follow us and leave us feedback on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @eplogmedia, For partnerships/queries send you can send us an email at bonjour@eplog.media. If you like this show, please subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts, so other people can find us. You can also find us on https://www.eplog.media The views expressed on all the shows produced and distributed by Ep.Log Media are personal to the host and the guest of the shows respectively and with no intention to harm the sentiments of any individual/organisation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Gandhi would be 151 years old today. This episode focuses on his writings and speeches during the last few months of his life. Partition and violence had filled his mind with a sense of failure. He understood that the people of India did not take to non-violence and human kindness as an article of faith. They used it only as a convenient tactical choice when it suited them. He was not yet ready to admit defeat. He believed it was a failure of his teaching, but not of those principles themselves. He believed he could once again start from scratch. He launched another campaign. He probably wanted to call it Do or Die, part 2. He used that phrase several times while talking about his work during those last months. This time, he had a simple and straight agenda. Everyone who has lost a home or has been made to flee from it in fear, Hindu, Muslim or Sikh, had to be reinstated. It was ethically wrong to rob anyone of his or her home. He was uncompromising. This time he failed and was murdered. This was probably the most glorious moment of his life too. He was soldiering alone, like a real hero, committed only to his faith in the cult of human kindness, beyond popular approval or disapproval. Hosted by Dr. Anirban Bandyopadhyay  Let us know what you thought about this episode... You can follow us and leave us feedback on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @eplogmedia, For partnerships/queries send you can send us an email at bonjour@eplog.media. If you like this show, please subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts, so other people can find us. You can also find us on https://www.eplog.media The views expressed on all the shows produced and distributed by Ep.Log Media are personal to the host and the guest of the shows respectively and with no intention to harm the sentiments of any individual/organisation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode of history chatter looks at the early history of film censorship in India. It shows that the Indian state did not know much about the cinema industry until the 1920s. The first attempt to coordinate censorship at the all India level did not begin until 1927. Interestingly enough, the primary objective of film censorship in India was not aesthetic but commercial. The primary objective was to prevent Hollywood or American films from flooding the Indian market. Excessive emphasis on depictions of the women’s body of physical intimacy in those films was then held up as a major reason to reject them as a harmful influence on public morality. Censorship of films India was a result of both commercial and aesthetic concerns. Eventually, when a majority of films shown in India were made in India, the earlier commercial history was quietly forgotten. HistoryChatter examines the report of first all India commission of enquiry on films, the Indian Cinematograph Committee Report of 1927-28. Through a close reading of various chapters of the report, it recovers this forgotten commercial history of film censorship in India. Hosted by Dr Anirban Bandyopadhyay  You can follow us and leave us feedback on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @eplogmedia, For partnerships/queries send you can send us an email at bonjour@eplog.media. If you like this show, please subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts, so other people can find us. You can also find us on https://www.eplog.media The views expressed on all the shows produced and distributed by Ep.Log Media are personal to the host and the guest of the shows respectively and with no intention to harm the sentiments of any individual/organisation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode of HistoryChatter takes the audience to India and South East Asia during the Second World War. It explores the production of a series of films through which British soldiers were found sending warm private messages to their families at home, called Old Blighty films, they were commissioned by the British government agencies, as a means to boost the sagging morale of the isolated British soldiers at the Burma front. Yet, these films rarely consider the fact that a majority of soldiers of the Fourteenth Army were Indians. Indeed, Indians or soldiers from elsewhere were sometimes used as lifeless props. Historian Steve Hawley, while researching these films, arranged for a reckoning with such memories and silences. HistoryChatter concludes that this is how History is to be read and engaged with. It will always deliver significant but incomplete messages, and the reader and the listener must pay keen attention to what it leaves out.  Hosted by Dr. Anirban Bandyopadhyay  You can follow us and leave us feedback on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @eplogmedia, For partnerships/queries send you can send us an email at bonjour@eplog.media. If you like this show, please subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts, so other people can find us. You can also find us on https://www.eplog.media The views expressed on all the shows produced and distributed by Ep.Log Media are personal to the host and the guest of the shows respectively and with no intention to harm the sentiments of any individual/organisation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode of HistoryChatter takes the audience to India and South East Asia during the Second World War. It explores the production of a series of films through which British soldiers were found sending warm private messages to their families at home, called Old Blighty films, they were commissioned by the British government agencies, as a means to boost the sagging morale of the isolated British soldiers at the Burma front. Yet, these films rarely consider the fact that a majority of soldiers of the Fourteenth Army were Indians. Indeed, Indians or soldiers from elsewhere were sometimes used as lifeless props. Historian Steve Hawley, while researching these films, arranged for a reckoning with such memories and silences. HistoryChatter concludes that this is how History is to be read and engaged with. It will always deliver significant but incomplete messages, and the reader and the listener must pay keen attention to what it leaves out.  Hosted by Dr. Anirban Bandyopadhyay  You can follow us and leave us feedback on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @eplogmedia, For partnerships/queries send you can send us an email at bonjour@eplog.media. If you like this show, please subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts, so other people can find us. You can also find us on https://www.eplog.media The views expressed on all the shows produced and distributed by Ep.Log Media are personal to the host and the guest of the shows respectively and with no intention to harm the sentiments of any individual/organisation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

History often appears as a resource to manufacture pride or embarrassment for people. That is the most common use to which ordinary individuals or groups put their pasts. The past either appears as a matter of glory or shame. It is either highlighted or hidden, emphasized, or underplayed, remembered, or ignored. This episode wonders why history is so often used by people either as an ingredient for celebration or for guilt generation. The episode suggests that it has something to do with the obsessive interest of the state to control its circulation. It makes the point with two examples from the recent history of India, though it also includes instances from outside India. It also offers a perspective on how to verify facts in history. It concludes that it is necessary to understand how history is made and circulated. That understanding is useful to make sense of how history can be an effective tool with which to reason. Hosted by Dr. Anirban Bandyopadhyay  You can follow us and leave us feedback on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @eplogmedia, For partnerships/queries send you can send us an email at bonjour@eplog.media. If you like this show, please subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts, so other people can find us. You can also find us on https://www.eplog.media The views expressed on all the shows produced and distributed by Ep.Log Media are personal to the host and the guest of the shows respectively and with no intention to harm the sentiments of any individual/organisation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Seventy years ago, ethnic Muslims in China suddenly lost their homeland. They had set up an independent republic since 1944. Communists in 1949 practically forced the leaders of that independent republic to flee. One of them came to Kashmir with about a thousand followers. This episode of HistoryChatter recalls that perilous journey. It tracks their fortunes in India, up to the present day. Many of them became Kashmiris and Indians. Yet, their dream to set up an independent nation-state was broken into pieces. It was never to be fulfilled. Episode 2 of HistoryChatter explores these unfulfilled dreams and painful struggles of a group of people and a nation that never became a state. Hosted by Dr. Anirban Bandyopadhyay  You can follow us and leave us feedback on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @eplogmedia, For partnerships/queries send you can send us an email at bonjour@eplog.media. If you like this show, please subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts, so other people can find us. You can also find us on https://www.eplog.media The views expressed on all the shows produced and distributed by Ep.Log Media are personal to the host and the guest of the shows respectively and with no intention to harm the sentiments of any individual/organisation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.