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Paper short abstract

In this presentation, I examine how the emergence and promotion of prison museums across India are instrumentalised by contemporary political regimes, such that they align with and contribute towards the larger populist and nationalist discourses in their respective geographies.

Paper long abstract

Over the past two decades, India has witnessed a renewed engagement with multiple colonial-era prisons in various parts of the country, which, after being decommissioned, have been developed and/or renovated as public memorials to India’s freedom fighters and as heritage monuments of national significance. In this presentation, I examine how the emergence and promotion of these sites are instrumentalised by contemporary political regimes at the levels of the states and at the centre, such that they align with and contribute towards the larger populist and nationalist discourses in their respective geographies.

In the paper, I particularly pay close attention to the infrastructures of these former prisons and their restoration and renovation initiatives. I also equally attend to the objects set out on display at these prison museums, the iconography and the art that is installed, and the overall ambience that is created within these spaces, all of which are aimed towards (re)producing and amplifying powerful political messaging. And, I reflect on citizens' engagement with these sites, their artefacts, and the narratives they disseminate.

This presentation emerges from a work-in-progress project, and my findings are based on short-term preliminary fieldwork conducted at four former prison sites in the cities of Bengaluru, Ranchi, Port Blair, and Kolkata. For this presentation, I pair participant observation conducted at these sites with a close reading of prison memoirs, diaries, letters, auto/biographies, etc. of India’s freedom fighters who were once incarcerated in these prisons by the British Raj, and now have been iconified at these sites.