events & Program

Saturday, 27 September 2025

11:00–11:50 AM Eastern Time

Room 1005, FedEx Global Education Center, UNC-Chapel Hill 

Historians Avrati Bhatnagar and Sumathi Ramaswamy revisit colonial Bombay at the height of the Civil Disobedience Movement (1930-31), when the city’s streets teemed with nationalist action. Drawing on a rare photographic album from the Alkazi Collection of Photography in New Delhi, their forthcoming exhibit at Duke and in Mumbai shows how ordinary citizens challenged the might of the British empire as they marched, protested, made illicit salt, and gathered in public squares against the backdrop of the city’s colonial landmarks. This session explores the efficacy of civil disobedience and Gandhian nonviolence against imperial forces, while considering the ways photography both illuminates and obscures history.