Mobilizing History and the Creation of an Iconic Figure

Processes of (re)-discovering and (re)-evaluating historical figures in contemporary India are part of a continuous struggle over the value of the past. Memory politics and practices are often combined with conflictual debates about who deserves to be included in the nation-wide narrative of freedom fighters. Among the controversially discussed historical figures are also several South Asian political activists of the first half of the 20th century who had spent most of their life in political exile outside of India. At the center of my talk is the making, utilization, and impact of a collective role model based on the biography of Chempakaraman Pillai (1891-1934), who spent nearly three decades in Europe, engaged in anti-colonial networks, while maintaining strong ties to nationalist and German völkisch circles.

Heike Liebau is Senior Research Fellow at ZMO, Berlin and head of the ZMO research unit State and Society. She holds a diploma in Indian languages and literature from Tashkent State University, and a PhD in South Asian Studies from the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. Her research and writing broadly focuses on aspects of the social history of colonial India, translocal history, history of science and knowledge, as well as biographical studies. Her current research project deals with Historical Icons and Representations of the Past. She is the co-editor of: The Politics of Authenticity and Populist Discourses. Media and Education in Brazil, India and Ukraine, (co-edited with Achim Saupe, Barbara Christophe and Christoph Kohl, Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, Switzerland, 2021).