Within the UK today there are South Asian communities with connections to India (pre-Partition), these communities are largely unaware of how the Second World War affected women and how that period may have left a legacy on the South Asian community today.

When discussing military narratives, men’s stories are at the forefront while women’s stories often mentioned refer to experiences of nurses and widows. At this event Kiran Sahota will share how the nationally funded project Indian Women and War has been uncovering stories from the Second World War of Indian women’s involvement, contribution, and exploitation. The community-based project has aimed to bring the heritage of some of the UK’s minority groups to a wider audience.

The event will include screening of two short films and a ‘pop up’ exhibition of the project’s research.

Kiran Sahota (@bimcic) is a social historian, specialising in South Asian history through a female lens. In 2021 Kiran was awarded the Points of Light Award by the Prime Minister recognising her work covering Indian women’s history and Indian military history.

Dr Diva Gujral is a LSE Fellow in Twentieth-century Indian and Global Imperial History in the Department of International History. 

The British Library of Political and Economic Science (@LSELibrary) was founded in 1896, a year after the London School of Economics and Political Science. It has been based in the Lionel Robbins Building since 1978 and houses many world class collections, including The Women's Library.