On October 17, 2013, the Centre for Indo-Canadian Studies at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada, is holding a conference to commemorate the centennial of the founding of the Ghadar Party in 1913 — a movement that was based in North America to challenge British colonial rule of India.

Entitled “Interpreting Ghadar: Echoes of Voices Past“, the conference is inviting papers under the following topics:

• “Ghadar Literature and Revolution”
• “Colonialism and Social Justice”
• “Negotiating Transnational Historiographies”

Paper proposals are due on June 15. Full papers are due on September 30. For more details, see the full call for papers below, or visit the Centre for Indo-Canadian Studies website.

Ghadar Centennial Conference 1913
Interpreting Ghadar: Echoes of Voices Past
University of the Fraser Valley, Centre for Indo Canadian Studies, Abbotsford BC, Canada
Fall 2013, October 17, 2013
http://www.ufv.ca/cics/ghadar

CALL FOR PAPERS

Ghadar Literature and Revolution
Research papers are welcome that explore the area of literature created and dedicated to the nationalist revolutionary movement of the Ghadar in Canada and the US at the turn of the last century. Papers that analyze both the propaganda machine of the colonial powers specific to Ghadar, and/or the revolutionary voices of the Ghadarite aspirations of a free India are welcome. Studies of pro-Indian independence materials include newspapers, pamphlets, correspondence, photographs, and transcripts of interviews, posters, letters, handbills, magazine articles, lectures, theses, bibliographies, court documents and revolutionary poems are welcome. We will also accept papers on responses to literature written on the Ghadar.

Colonialism and Social Justice
Papers are welcome that explore the support given to the Ghadar revolutionary movement in the west (e.g. by the Irish and Germans) and in the east (e.g., in Japan, China, Singapore, etc.) and the impact of this support on the British raj in India. As a movement of social justice, the Ghadar was an anomaly as it also demanded transnational social and cultural transformation in these countries. This transnational movement took its egalitarian and secular struggle to India – hoping to transform both the colonial powers and India’s segregated communities, resulting in martyrdom, prison and exile for many.

Negotiating transnational historiographies
Papers are welcome on the historiographies of transnational movements related to the Ghadar outside India and North America (e.g., Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Manila, Berlin, Panama, etc.). Many local and global sites of resistance against the colonists (e.g. in Abbotsford, Astoria, San Francisco, Punjab, Hong Kong, Vancouver, etc.) informed the development of this transnational movement’s genesis in exile, yet it impacted India until partition.

Call for Papers Deadlines
Paper proposals    June 15    300 words
Final Papers    Sept 30    4,000 – 5000 words

Please send proposals to: satwinder.bains@ufv.ca or for more information 604-854-4547.

Papers are invited from University faculty, post-doctoral researchers, doctoral students and community researchers. Papers must be original works that have not been published elsewhere and papers will be published in a Special Topics Journal of UFV Research Review.