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lem of locating/generating new evidence. In this context, the workshop
also introduced to scholars in Britain the rich holdings of various
archives in Berlin on South Asian (combatant as well as non-combatant)
prisoners of war in Germany during First World War, which
contain numerous unique sound recordings.
After an introduction to the workshop by Ravi Ahuja (SOAS,
London), Heike Liebau (ZMO, Berlin) drew on the findings of Ger -
man research to talk about the way in which South Asian prisoners
of war have been documented in German archives and museums.
Gajendra Singh (Edinburgh) spoke of the experience of the Indian
National Army’s interrogating chamber between 1941 and 1947. The
session was chaired by Andreas Gestrich (GHI, London).
In the pre-lunch session, chaired by Yasmin Khan (Royal
Holloway, London), Franziska Roy (Warwick) dwelt on the Indian
civilians’ experience of the First World War. Samiksha Sehrawat
(Strathclyde) analysed the architectural specificity of war hospitals
for Indian troops on the Western Front to show how perceptions of
ethnicity influenced the style of such hospitals. Santanu Das (Queen
Mary, London) focused on the writings of various groups of Indian
actors in the First World War to draw out what he called an ‘intimate
history’ of wartime experience.
The post-lunch session, chaired by Elleke Boehmer (Oxford),
focused on representations of both war and Indian sepoys in various
genres. Christian Koller (Bangor) spoke on the representations of
Indians in German propaganda in the First World War. Talat Ahmed
(Goldsmiths, London) argued convincingly in favour of using literary
works as historical sources for the reconstruction of wartime
experience. Amarjit Chandan (London) used Punjabi folk songs
dwelling on the First World War to show how songs and poetry from
the traditional catchment areas of the sepoys, which have rarely been
touched on in academic research, can be extremely fruitful sources of
information about how war was experienced by soldiers and the
families that they left behind.
The penultimate session, chaired by Indra Sengupta (GHI,
London), was dedicated to exploring the material contained in the
Berlin Sound Archives. With the help of recordings from the archives
Jürgen Mahrenholz (Lautarchiv, Berlin) spoke of the holdings of the
archives that were relevant for the theme of the workshop and future
research in the field.
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