Traces of South Asia

Michele Benazzo is a PhD candidate in International History at the Graduate Institute of Geneva, Switzerland. He came to explore our archives of Peter Shore MP. “The London East End is not only home to the biggest Bangladeshi community in Britain but also to Peter Shore’s political heritage. Indeed, the personal life of the second and the story of the first crisscrossed in the streets of Tower Hamlets. I approached the South Asia collectiosn at LSE Library precisely by following the paper trail left by Bangladeshi activists on the archival shelves of the East End, where Peter Shore’s name peeped out continuously.”

Michele wrote a post about his research for the South Asia @ LSE blog.

Bangladesh Association-Souvenir Brochure-1973-pp.44-47, LSE/SHORE/21/13-British Bangladesh Society

Sanjay Prasad, a Senior Executive for an India HQ Technology company based in New York, got in touch to see if we had any records relating to his father Dinanath Prasad, who studied at LSE in the 1950s. We found a fascinating file that included some 80 pages relating to his father’s time at LSE.

My father’s story of a young boy growing up in remote village in Bihar (amongst the most underdeveloped states in India) and working his way to LSE is a reminder of the boundless human spirit. Going from Bihar (a place which still did not have electricity or running water) to Holborn was a big change! 

His going to LSE has changed the lives of an entire generation and the second generation. Seeing his student file has bought my family a deluge of happiness; we can’t wipe our tears enough. Our Mom wants to touch these pages. 

Read more about Sanjay and his father: The mighty leap from Lakhnaura to London: the story of LSE alumnus Dinanath Prasad. 

When an institution becomes the custodians of an archive, the archivist is faced with the difficult task of describing these contents in a catalogue so that researchers can discover them. Since describing everything that appears in those documents is not practically possible, the archivist will select and emphasise materials that they consider are of significance, according to a particular frame of reference. By doing so a description always misses something. What is missing might be of importance to somebody else who has a different frame of reference. 

For example, a description of an organisation’s minutes could not describe everything that is discussed in those meetings, and will often describe general subjects discussed, or even just the dates that are covered in those meetings. Yet perhaps there is an unexpected story in those minutes that relates to a researcher’s very specific interests? Therefore when somebody is looking for archives relevant to their topic, the researcher finds themselves needing to pay attention to not just what a description says, but also to what it doesn’t say. This new and ongoing project is an attempt to help with this process.

Our archives and special collections focus on modern British political and economic history and the development of social sciences in Britain. Despite the British focus of these collections, there are many items, distributed across many collections, that are relevant to the history of South Asia. Since the Library’s founding, there has been a strong connection with South Asia. William Beveridge, the School’s Director 1919 to 1937, was born in Rangpur (now Bangladesh). Founders of the LSE, Beatrice and Sidney Webb, both travelled extensively across what was then British India. The Library houses official publications from Governments across South Asia, and thousands of students and staff from South Asia have studied our collections and gone on to shape the world. We have chosen South Asia as a starting point.

Whilst we have begun this project with some online exhibitions curated by colleagues in the Library, we are particularly interested to hear from the LSE community (both students and staff) who are interested in looking at our archives in these areas from a critical perspective and collaborating with us to grow this page as a resource. If you’re interested or would like to find out more, or if you are working on a project that you think could fit this scope, we would love to hear from you.