More than 20,000 images, prints and documents from two decades following India’s Partition will be digitised through a new research initiative led by Coventry University in a unique UK-India collaborative project.
The remarkable collection, housed at Hamilton Studios in Mumbai, spans nearly 100 years of Indian history and encompasses more than 600,000 objects. The digitisation project focuses on the years 1947 to 1967, an important period following the Partition – one of the world’s most significant geopolitical events that ended nearly two centuries of British colonial rule and divided the Indian subcontinent into two separate nations of India and Pakistan.
Ben Kyneswood, Associate Professor of Digital Heritage and Culture at Coventry University’s Research Centre for Creative Economies, will collaborate as Project Lead with Hamilton Studios and the National Institute for Design (NID) in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, to digitise the Partition materials. Inspired by the success of Coventry Digital, an online repository of more than 70,000 local images, videos and documents, the project aims to ensure the survival of this endangered archive for community use and future historical research.
Kyneswood said: “The success of Coventry Digital has demonstrated the power of digital technology in preserving and sharing cultural narratives.
“I am eager to extend this legacy to the preservation of India's cultural heritage, ensuring that future generations have access to these invaluable historical records.”
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Funded by the Modern Endangered Archives Programme at the University of California, Los Angeles Library, the project aims to bridge historical divides, foster cultural preservation and illuminate how the Partition continues to shape the stories of India and its people. Many of the objects in the collection are passport photographs, reflecting the intention to travel from Bombay (now Mumbai) – India’s main port at the time.
Other digital assets include glass and celluloid negatives to produce high-quality reproductions of historical photographs; test prints and invoices to reveal photographic techniques and economic details; legal documents to shed light on legal frameworks; and products for advertisement to illustrate the marketing strategies and consumer culture of the time. Beyond migration narratives, the project captures a diverse range of experiences and stories from the era, including the lives of maharajas or kings of the era as well as weddings, celebrations, business tycoons, marketing endeavours, family and office groups and vibrant street scenes.
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Interns from Mumbai colleges and graduate students from the NID will not only participate and learn from the digitisation programme but also explore the archive, creating stories and exhibitions. This will engage and encourage young people to preserve and analyse their cultural heritage; a significant achievement for the project collaborators who aim to inspire a new generation of archivists and scholars.