Claiming Mt. Everest: How early postcolonial Indians saw themselves, the empire, and the world.
Welcome to the LNUC Concurrences Seminar Series in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies!
Lecturer
Gaurav C. Garg is a historian of modern South Asia, cities, mountains, and international development. He is currently working on two book projects. The first offers a fresh interpretation of urban political economy by exploring how business interests are spatialized and how the pursuit of such spatialized interests led to the divergent urban and economic fortunes of twentieth-century Calcutta and Bombay. The second is a global history of postwar urban crisis.
At Ashoka University, Gaurav offers courses on urban history and studies, South Asian economic and business history, international development, and a course on the history of mountains and mountaineers which he aims to develop into a full-length book project.
For more information about his research, publications, and teaching interests please visit his website: gauravcgarg.com
Title
Claiming Mt. Everest: How early postcolonial Indians saw themselves, the empire, and the world.
Abstract
The first ascent of Mt. Everest in 1953 by a New Zealander, Edmund Hillary, and a Sherpa, Tenzing Norgay, under a British expedition led by a Welshman, John Hunt became an occasion for competing narratives and imaginations between Britain, New Zealand, Nepal, and India. Among these four countries, India's claim over having anything to do with Everest was most tenuous. Her only links were the fact that Tenzing Norgay lived and worked in the hill town of Darjeeling and Sir John Hunt had served in the police near Calcutta in the 1930s. And yet, this did not stop the newly independent country from claiming Everest, which sat far away from its border, as its own.This talk will explore how Indians— elite and ordinary— claimed and understood this great mountaineering achievement. Such an exploration, I contend, can provide a fascinating window for making sense of how early postcolonial Indians imagined themselves, their place in the world, and their relationship with the British Empire.
Information
The seminar will be held in English.
Please register if you want to participate via Zoom.
Linnaeus University Centre for Concurrences in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies