Christopher Moffat (Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism, LSE)
Creating a 'Ché for India': Transnational Libraries and Post-Colonial Trajectories in the Prison Diary of Bhagat Singh
In 1981, the historian Leonid Mitrokhin set out to trace the global reverberations of Bolshevism and found himself in the manicured gardens of Teen Murti House, New Delhi. Here, in the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Mitrokhin would unearth the prison diary of Bhagat Singh, the famous Indian revolutionary executed by colonial authorities in 1931. Mitrokhin's interest was piqued by the diary's scattered references to Lenin and Trotsky, but his discovery was to have significance far beyond the provision of textual fragments. This paper will demonstrate the diary's transformation into the foundational text for an interventionist project of historical emendation, one guided by a group of historians and politicians in India seeking to 'rescue' Bhagat Singh from a discourse of sentimental, heroic nationalism. The document has been appropriated as a lens to critique the post-colonial state and is cited to suggest that Bhagat Singh, a young Punjabi prominent in the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association, had formulated an alternate framework of governance for an independent India. It is a vision distinct from the Congress-orchestrated state and, its proponents argue, one better equipped to deal with post-colonial challenges. This paper will illuminate how Bhagat Singh has been contested as a symbolic resource in India, focusing on the role of documents in the struggle to frame his legacy and the importance of the archive as a site sourcing movements of 'national regeneration'. The continued vitality of the diary exemplifies the long-term resonance of anti-colonial activism and the often-unexpected consequences of historical research in the contested terrain that is 'the nation'.
Christopher Moffat is a Fellow, Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism, LSE, and a recent graduate of the LSE's 'History of Nationalism' program. He is interested in the role of transnational convergence in the history and development of anti-colonial thought. Christopher has completed research on the historical resonance of anti-colonialism in postcolonial South Asia, with a specific focus on the life and legacy of revolutionaries in 1920s India.
Christopher Moffat is a Fellow, Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism, LSE, and a recent graduate of the LSE's 'History of Nationalism' program. He is interested in the role of transnational convergence in the history and development of anti-colonial thought. Christopher has completed research on the historical resonance of anti-colonialism in postcolonial South Asia, with a specific focus on the life and legacy of revolutionaries in 1920s India.
