#1947 partition archive

[iamadarshbadri]

Digitised Archival Sources on India and South Asia

The days when only members of the upper class of urban society had access to knowledge-producing sites (mostly archives) are long gone. Today, one may easily access digitised archival sources thanks to the internet on mobile phones. The growth of digital technology has also enabled a new arena of history-keeping. Publicly-owned digitised archival sources have gained popularity in recent years as…

[roco2808]

“If we say nothing about Israel’s brazen slaughter of Palestinians, even as it is livestreamed into the most private recesses of our personal lives, we are complicit in it.”

If we say nothing about Israel’s brazen slaughter of Palestinians, even as it is livestreamed into the most private recesses of our personal lives, we are complicit in it. Something in our moral selves will be altered forever. Are we going to simply stand by and watch while homes, hospitals, refugee camps, schools, universities, archives are bombed, a million people displaced, and dead children pulled out from under the rubble? The borders of Gaza are sealed. People have nowhere to go. They have no shelter, no food, no water. The United Nations says more than half the population is starving. And still they are being bombed relentlessly. Are we going to once again watch a whole people being dehumanised to the point where their annihilation does not matter?

The project of dehumanising Palestinians did not begin with Benyamin Netanyahu and his crew—it began decades ago.

In 2002, on the first anniversary of September 11 2001, I delivered a lecture called “Come September” in the United States in which I spoke about other anniversaries of September 11—the 1973 CIA-backed coup against President Salvador Allende in Chile on that auspicious date, and then the speech on September 11, 1990, of George W. Bush, Sr., then US President, to a joint session of Congress, announcing his government’s decision to go to war against Iraq. And then I spoke about Palestine. I will read this section out and you will see that if I hadn’t told you it was written 21 years ago, you’d think it was about today.

September 11th has a tragic resonance in the Middle East, too. On the 11th of September 1922, ignoring Arab outrage, the British government proclaimed a mandate in Palestine, a follow-up to the 1917 Balfour Declaration which imperial Britain issued, with its army massed outside the gates of Gaza. The Balfour Declaration promised European Zionists a national home for Jewish people. (At the time, the Empire on which the Sun Never Set was free to snatch and bequeath national homelands like a school bully distributes marbles.)

How carelessly imperial power vivisected ancient civilisations. Palestine and Kashmir are imperial Britain’s festering, blood-drenched gifts to the modern world. Both are fault lines in the raging international conflicts of today.

In 1937, Winston Churchill said of the Palestinians, I quote, “I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.” That set the trend for the Israeli State’s attitude towards the Palestinians.

In 1969, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said, “Palestinians do not exist.”

Her successor, Prime Minister Levi Eschol said, “What are Palestinians? When I came here (to Palestine), there were 250,000 non-Jews, mainly Arabs and Bedouins. It was a desert, more than underdeveloped. Nothing.” Prime Minister Menachem Begin called Palestinians “two-legged beasts”.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir called them “grasshoppers” who could be crushed. This is the language of Heads of State, not the words of ordinary people.

Thus began that terrible myth about the Land without a People for a People without a Land.

In 1947, the U.N. formally partitioned Palestine and allotted 55 per cent of Palestine’s land to the Zionists. Within a year, they had captured 76 per cent. On the 14th of May 1948 the State of Israel was declared. Minutes after the declaration, the United States recognized Israel. The West Bank was annexed by Jordan. The Gaza Strip came under Egyptian military control, and Palestine formally ceased to exist except in the minds and hearts of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people who became refugees.

In 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Over the decades there have been uprisings, wars, intifadas. Tens of thousands have lost their lives. Accords and treaties have been signed. Cease-fires declared and violated. But the bloodshed doesn’t end.

Palestine still remains illegally occupied. Its people live in inhuman conditions, in virtual Bantustans, where they are subjected to collective punishments, 24-hour curfews, where they are humiliated and brutalized on a daily basis. They never know when their homes will be demolished, when their children will be shot, when their precious trees will be cut, when their roads will be closed, when they will be allowed to walk down to the market to buy food and medicine. And when they will not. They live with no semblance of dignity. With not much hope in sight. They have no control over their lands, their security, their movement, their communication, their water supply. So when accords are signed, and words like “autonomy” and even “statehood” bandied about, it’s always worth asking: What sort of autonomy? What sort of State? What sort of rights will its citizens have? Young Palestinians who cannot control their anger turn themselves into human bombs and haunt Israel’s streets and public places, blowing themselves up, killing ordinary people, injecting terror into daily life, and eventually hardening both societies’ suspicion and mutual hatred of each other. Each bombing invites merciless reprisal and even more hardship on Palestinian people. But then suicide bombing is an act of individual despair, not a revolutionary tactic.

Although Palestinian attacks strike terror into Israeli citizens, they provide the perfect cover for the Israeli government’s daily incursions into Palestinian territory, the perfect excuse for old-fashioned, nineteenth-century colonialism, dressed up as a new-fashioned, 21st century “war”. Israel’s staunchest political and military ally is and always has been the US.

The US government has blocked, along with Israel, almost every UN resolution that sought a peaceful, equitable solution to the conflict. It has supported almost every war that Israel has fought. When Israel attacks Palestine, it is American missiles that smash through Palestinian homes. And every year Israel receives several billion dollars from the United States—taxpayers’ money.

Today every bomb that is dropped by Israel on the civilian population, every tank, and every bullet has the United States’ name on it. None of this would happen if the US wasn’t backing it wholeheartedly. All of us saw what happened at the meeting of the UN Security Council on December 8 when 13 member states voted for a ceasefire and the US voted against it. The disturbing video of the US Deputy Ambassador, a Black American, raising his hand to veto the resolution is burned into our brains. Some bitter commentators on the social media have called it Intersectional Imperialism.

Reading through the bureaucratese, what the US seemed to be saying is: Finish the Job. But Do it Kindly.

What lessons should we draw from this tragic conflict? Is it really impossible for Jewish people who suffered so cruelly themselves—more cruelly perhaps than any other people in history—to understand the vulnerability and the yearning of those whom they have displaced?

Does extreme suffering always kindle cruelty? What hope does this leave the human race with? What will happen to the Palestinian people in the event of a victory? When a nation without a state eventually proclaims a state, what kind of state will it be? What horrors will be perpetrated under its flag? Is it a separate state that we should be fighting for or, the rights to a life of liberty and dignity for everyone regardless of their ethnicity or religion?

Palestine was once a secular bulwark in the Middle East. But now the weak, undemocratic, by all accounts corrupt but avowedly nonsectarian PLO, is losing ground to Hamas, which espouses an overtly sectarian ideology and fights in the name of Islam. To quote from their manifesto: “we will be its soldiers and the firewood of its fire, which will burn the enemies”. The world is called upon to condemn suicide bombers. But can we ignore the long road they have journeyed on before they have arrived at this destination?

September 11, 1922 to September 11, 2002—80 years is a long time to have been waging war. Is there some advice the world can give the people of Palestine? Should they just take Golda Meir’s suggestion and make a real effort not to exist?”

The idea of the erasure, the annihilation, of Palestinians is being clearly articulated by Israeli political and military officials.

A US lawyer who has brought a case against the Biden administration for its “failure to prevent genocide”—which is a crime, too—spoke of how rare it is for genocidal intent to be so clearly and publicly articulated. Once they have achieved that goal, perhaps the plan is to have museums showcasing Palestinian culture and handicrafts, restaurants serving ethnic Palestinian food, maybe a Sound and Light show of how lively Old Gaza used to be—in the new Gaza Harbour at the head of the Ben Gurion canal project, which is supposedly being planned to rival the Suez Canal. Allegedly contracts for offshore drilling are already being signed.

Twenty-one years ago, when I delivered “Come September” in New Mexico, there was a kind of omertà in the US around Palestine. Those who spoke about it paid a huge price for doing so. Today the young are on the streets, led from the front by Jews as well as Palestinians, raging about what their government, the US government, is doing. Universities, including the most elite campuses, are on the boil. Capitalism is moving fast to shut them down. Donors are threatening to withhold funds, thereby deciding what American students may or may not say, and how they may or may not think. A shot to the heart of the foundational principles of a so-called liberal education.

Gone is any pretense of post-colonialism, multiculturalism, international law, the Geneva Conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Gone is any pretence of Free Speech or public morality. A “war” that lawyers and scholars of international law say meets all the legal criterion of a genocide is taking place in which the perpetrators have cast themselves as victims, the colonisers who run an apartheid state have cast themselves as the oppressed. In the US, to question this is to be charged with anti-Semitism, even if those questioning it are Jewish themselves.

It’s mind-bending. Even Israel—where dissident Israeli citizens like Gideon Levy are the most knowledgeable and incisive critics of Israeli actions—does not police speech in the way the US does (although that is rapidly changing, too). In the US, to speak of Intifada—uprising, resistance—in this case against genocide, against your own erasure—is considered to be a call for the genocide of Jews.

The only moral thing Palestinian civilians can do apparently is to die. The only legal thing the rest of us can do is to watch them die. And be silent. If not, we risk our scholarships, grants, lecture fees and livelihoods.”

Arundhati Roy

[noctomania]

"The Palestinian People Do Have Rights" Publication date: 1979

Presenting the Arab perspective on Palestine, includes archival footage, maps, current film of refugee camps, and interviews with individuals who reveal the Palestinian viewpoint. Traces events from 1947 when the U.N. recommended a partition of the region

[hummussexual]

Why Palestinians protest every May 15

Around the time that Israelis celebrate Independence Day, Palestinians commemorate “The Nakba,” or “The Catastrophe.” The Nakba was a series of events, centered around 1948, that expelled hundreds of thousands Palestinians from their homeland and killed thousands. The Nakba isn’t the beginning of the story, but it’s a key part of Palestinian history — and the root of Israel’s creation. Prior to the Nakba, Palestine had a thriving population — largely made up of Arabs — that had lived and worked the land for centuries. But with the founding of Zionism, years of British meddling, and a British pledge to help create a Jewish state in Palestine — things began to change drastically. By 1947, with increasing tensions between Jewish settlers and Palestinian Arabs — the British left Palestine, and the UN stepped in with a plan to partition the land into two states. What followed was known as Plan Dalet: operations by Israeli paramilitary groups that violently uprooted Palestinians. An estimated 15,000 Palestinians were killed, more than 500 villages were decimated, and roughly 750,000 Palestinians displaced. Most who were expelled from their homes couldn’t return to historic Palestine. And today, millions of their descendants live in refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank and surrounding countries. The history of the Nakba has been deliberately concealed and often ignored in western narratives around the creation of Israel. In this episode of Missing Chapter, we break down how the Nakba happened — and how it defined the future of Palestine. 

Sources: Check out the documentary “1948: Creation & Catastrophe” by Ahlam Muhtaseb and Andy Trimlett for more information about the events around the Nakba - https://tubitv.com/movies/513674/1948... All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 was a great resource in helping us understand the Nakba - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... For our maps, we relied heavily on these organizations: Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, Institute for Middle Eastern Understanding, Palestine Remembered and Zochrot http://www.passia.org/maps/view/2 https://imeu.org/topic/category/maps https://www.palestineremembered.com/M... https://www.zochrot.org/ 

This report by Ilan Pappe helped us understand how Zionist forces planned to destroy villages - https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/... 

For our population breakdowns, we mainly used Australian National University’s Palestine Census reports archive - https://users.cecs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/ya... 

[xtruss]

The Nakba and ‘Forever Palestine 🇵🇸’ Refugees | Institute For Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Questions and Answers

Palestine refugees load their belongings onto a truck fleeing Al-Falouja village during the Nakba. © 1949 UN Archives Photographer Unknown. Photo used with permission.

What Is the Nakba?

Nakba is an Arabic word meaning “catastrophe” and refers to Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine, its exiling of Palestinians and making them into refugees, its dispossession of Palestinian property, its destruction of Palestinian cities, towns, and villages, and its attempt to erase the existence of the Palestinian people from its homeland in 1948.

Before, during, and after the establishment of Israel in May 1948, first Zionist militias and later the Israeli military used terrorism and committed massacres and other atrocities to drive Palestinians from their homes. Zionist militias and the Israeli military also systematically looted and demolished Palestinian property. By the time Israel signed armistice agreements with neighboring Arab states in 1949, there were an estimated 750,000 Palestinian refugees (approximately 75 percent of the Palestinian population of that lived on land that became Israel). Israel demolished between 400 and 500 Palestinian villages, town, and cities.

The Nakba is not only a historical event; Israel’s ongoing dispossession of Palestinians and colonization of Palestinian land means that the Nakba is ongoing and accurately defines Palestinian life under Israeli military occupation, apartheid, and settler-colonialism.

What Was Life Like in ‘Forever Palestine 🇵🇸’ Before the Nakba?

Palestinians enjoyed a thriving and multi-religious society in Palestine long before Zionism began in the 1880s. Before World War I, Palestinian Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived together in Palestine with equal citizenship rights and religious autonomy under the Ottoman Empire. Palestinians ran for elections to the Ottoman Parliament and represented their Palestinian constituencies there. The indigenous Palestinian economy was self-sustaining and also integrated into regional and global economic trade networks. Before and after World War I, Palestinian identity formed the basis for a modern-day Palestinian nationalism, expressed through newspapers, magazines, civil society organizations, and political parties.

After World War I, Great Britain was given a “mandate” over Palestine by the League of Nations. Mandates were supposed to provide for the self-determination and independence of indigenous populations. However, the Palestine Mandate was different from all other mandates in that it committed Great Britain to promoting the establishment of a vaguely defined Jewish National Home in Palestine. Throughout the mandate (1922-1948), Great Britain privileged the establishment of Zionist political institutions to the detriment of the indigenous majority Palestinian population.

Why Did Palestinians Not Accept the UN 🇺🇳 Partition Plan?

At the time of the UN Partition Plan, which was recommended by the General Assembly in November 1947, the Zionist movement owned just 7 percent of the land of Palestine and Jewish people constituted only one-third of the total population. Despite this, the partition plan called for the establishment of a Jewish State in more than 55 percent of Palestine. Even within the proposed borders of the Jewish State, there would have been only a tiny majority of Jewish residents (498,000 to 497,000 Palestinians).

Palestinian political bodies, led by the Arab Higher Committee (AHC), rejected the partition plan as a violation of the principle of self-determination and majority rights. Instead, the AHC proposed that Palestine remain a unitary, democratic state with strong minority rights, including proportional representation for Palestine’s Jewish citizens in the legislature, and Jewish communal autonomy in some spheres.

Even though the United States voted in support of the partition plan, the Truman administration quickly realized that the partition plan could not be implemented and instead threw itself behind a proposal to place Palestine under a UN trusteeship until a political resolution could be found. The Truman administration reversed itself again by recognizing Israel.

Was Illegal Isra-ll’s Ethnic Cleansing of ‘Forever Palestine 🇵🇸’ Planned?

Yes. In March 1948, Zionist leaders headed by David Ben Gurion, who would become Israel’s first prime minister, approved Plan Dalet (D), which called for the “Destruction of villages (setting fire to, blowing up, and planting mines in the debris)...In the event of resistance, the armed force must be wiped out and the population must be expelled outside the borders of the state.”

The implementation of this plan began before Israel’s establishment in May 1948. By that time, there were already between 250,000-300,000 Palestinian refugees who were expelled or fled from their homes often after attacks by Zionist militias on major Palestinian cities–Jerusalem, Haifa, Jaffa, Tiberias–and villages, bombing campaigns targeting civilians, and massacres at villages such as Deir Yassin.

This ethnic cleansing campaign accelerated and intensified after the establishment of Israel, making an estimated 750,000 Palestinians into refugees by the time armistice agreements were signed with neighboring Arab states in 1949. Even after the armistice agreements, Israel continued to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their homes. For example, Israel continued deporting Palestinians from their homes in al-Majdal (known today as the city of Ashkelon) to the Gaza Strip until October 1950.

Who Are Palestinian Refugees Today?

From an original estimated population of 750,000 in 1948, today there are more than 7 million Palestinian refugees worldwide, 5.7 million of whom are refugees registered with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), a specialized UN agency established in 1949 to provide social services to refugees.

In addition, there are estimated to be more than 400,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel who are classified as internally displaced persons (IDPs). These Palestinians were driven from their homes and dispossessed of their properties, too. Although they remained within the borders of what became Israel and received citizenship in the state, Israel has never allowed them to return to their lands and properties.

What Are Palestinian Refguees’ Rights?

Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”

In addition, UN General Assembly Resolution 194, adopted in December 1948, resolved that Palestinian “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible”.

In addition to international law recognizing refugees’ right of return, refugee status is also automatically conferred on the descendants of refugees. According to the UN, “Palestine refugees are not distinct from other protracted refugee situations such as those from Afghanistan or Somalia, where there are multiple generations of refugees, considered by UNHCR as refugees and supported as such. Protracted refugee situations are the result of the failure to find political solutions to their underlying political crises.”

The Palestinian refugee crisis has persisted for nearly 75 years because Israel refuses to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties in violation of international law.

What Is ‘War Criminal US’ Policy on the Nakba and ‘Forever Palestine 🇵🇸’ Refugee Crisis?

The United States voted both for UN General Assembly Resolution 194 in 1948, reaffirming Palestinian refugees’ right of return, and for the establishment of UNRWA in 1949. Except for a few years during the Trump administration, the United States has consistently supported UNRWA, contributing more than $6 billion to its budget since 1950.

The United States, through its chairing of the Palestine Conciliation Commission, originally pushed Israel to accept the repatriation of a significant number of Palestinian refugees; however, this commitment proved to be short-lived as the United States began favoring schemes to resettle Palestinian refugees in other countries as early as 1949.

The fate of Palestinian refugees was hardly addressed at all by the United States again until permanent status negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis began at Camp David in 2000. Shortly before his term ended, President Clinton issued “parameters” for Palestinian-Israeli peace that undermined Palestinian refugee rights. His parameters stated that “One should not expect Israel to acknowledge an unlimited right of return to present-day Israel,” and that repatriation of Palestinian refugees to Israel would be subject to its “sovereign decisions”.

In the most recent round of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations in 2013-2014, then Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly put forward a figure of only 80,000 Palestinian refugees who would be allowed to return to their homes–less than two percent of registered refugees at that time.

How Is Congress Undermining ‘Forever Palestine 🇵🇸’ Refugees’ Rights?

Congress has also taken steps to undermine Palestinian refugee rights. Senate Report 112-172 to the 2013 Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations bill directed the Department of State to issue a report to Congress detailing “the approximate number of people who, in the past year, have received UNRWA services: (1) whose place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948 and who were displaced as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict; and (2) who are descendants of persons described in subparagraph (1).” This reporting requirement attempts to differentiate between the refugee status of original refugees and their descendants, which is contrary to international law.

The intent of Members of Congress to utilize this report to try to extinguish the rights of Palestinian refugees is evident from a 2020 Dear Colleague letter, led by Rep. Doug Lamborn, pressing for the declassification of this report. The letter attempts to erase Palestinian refugees by claiming that their rights are a “fiction”.

Instead of passing legislation to try to negate Palestinian refugee rights, Congress and the Biden administration must center the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes as part of any principled effort to establish a just peace. Any attempt by the United States to broker Palestinian-Israeli peace that is not based on principles of international law and justice is bound to fail.

[cocotanglikescars]

Blog 2 : Week 7

Balfour, A. J. (1917, November 2). The Balfour Declaration. British National Archives. - A letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, expressing the British government's support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine.

2. Palestine Royal Commission. (1937, July). The Peel Commission Report. London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office. - A report by a British commission led by Lord Peel, recommending the partition of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states.

3. Morris, B. (1988). The birth of the Palestinian refugee problem, 1947–1949. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. -A comprehensive historical analysis examining the causes and circumstances that led to the displacement of Palestinian Arabs during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

4. Pappé, I. (2006). The ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Oxford: Oneworld Publications. - Pappé's work argues that the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 was a deliberate and systematic process.

i think these documents provides crucial insights into the historical events that have shaped the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict. the mian thing i noticed was they underscore the importance of historical context in analyzing current events, and the challenges in reconciling divergent historical interpretations.

[garudabluffs]

“But our country, which once was a true friend of colonised people, is silent today. Most of the public intellectuals and writers, all but a very few, are also silent today,” she rued, while stating that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the siege of Gaza is a crime against humanity."

8:30 if we say nothing about Israel's Brazen

8:33 Slaughter of Palestinians even at is as

8:36 it is Liv streamed into the most private

8:40 recesses of our personal lives we have

8:43 complicit in it something in our moral

8:46 selves will be altered forever are we

8:50 going to Simply Stand By and Watch while

8:53 homes hospitals refugee camps schools

8:58 universities archives are bombed a

9:01 million people displaced and dead

9:04 children in their thousands pulled from

9:06 the r the borders of Gaza are sealed

9:10 people have nowhere to go they have no

9:12 shelter no food no water the United

9:16 Nations says that more than half the

9:19 population is starving and still they

9:22 are being bomed delightly are we going

9:25 to once again watch a whole people being

9:28 dehumanized

9:29 to the point where the inhilation it

9:32 doesn't matter the project of

9:34 dehumanizing Palestinians did not

9:37 beginning with Benjamin Nan yahu and his

9:40 crew it began decades ago in 2002 on the

9:45 first anniversary of September 11th 2001

9:49 I delivered a lecture called come

9:52 September in the United States in which

9:55 I spoke about the other anniversaries of

9:58 September 11th

9:59 the

10:00 1973 CIA backed coup against President

10:04 Salvador aende in Chile on that

10:07 auspicious date and then the speech on

10:10 September 11th 1990 of George W bush

10:14 senior then US president to a joint

10:17 session of Congress announcing this

10:20 government's decision to go to war

10:22 against

10:23 Iraq and then I spoke about palestin I'm

10:27 going to read this section to you and

10:29 you will see that if I hadn't told you

10:33 that I wrote this 21 years ago you think

10:37 that I was talking about today

in

13:24 1947 the UN formerly partitioned

13:27 Palestine and allotted

13:29 55% of palestine's land to the zionists

13:33 within a year they have captured

13:35 76% on the 4th of May 1948 the state of

13:39 Israel was declared minutes after the

13:43 Declaration the United States recognized

13:46 Israel the West Bank was annexed by

13:48 Jordan the Gaza Strip came under

13:51 Egyptian Military control and formerly

13:54 Palestine ceased to ex exist except in

13:57 the minds and hearts of the hundreds of

13:59 thousands of Palestinian people who

14:02 became refugees

[histoirededire]

Captain America : l'Histoire comme socle

Quand on évoque la place de l’histoire dans le Marvel Cinematic Universe ou MCU, on ne voit pas forcément de lien ou de références directes. Cela dit, en tant que fan de cet univers et en tant qu’historienne, je vais vous présenter une série d’articles sur la place de l’histoire dans le MCU, en ne parlant pas des comics.

Au cours des années et les nombreux projets, Marvel Studios a incorporé plus ou moins clairement des véritables évènements historiques liés à l’histoire des Etats-Unis. Pourtant le MCU ne s’est pas cantonné uniquement à ce pays. Comme nous le verrons au fur et à mesure des articles publiés ici, le MCU a tenté de présenter d’autres récits historiques tels que les mythes égyptiens ou la Partition de l’Inde en 1947.  Pour commencer cette série d’articles, je voulais débuter notre analyse par le rôle qu’a l’Histoire que je vais appeler "réelle" dans cet univers ponctué de super-héros.

Ma première réflexion s’axe sur Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) et sa relation à la Seconde Guerre mondiale, qui a fortement impacté le personnage. Ce film prend racine lors de cette guerre qui sert de contexte historique et visuel. 

La motivation première du personnage incarné par Chris Evans est de rejoindre l’effort américain pour vaincre les Nazis. Le film traite de la volonté et de la détermination pour aider l’armée américaine. Au-delà du symbolisme patriotique de ces représentations de la guerre, je voulais évoquer le personnage principal qui change au cours du récit. Steve Rogers a tenté de se porter volontaire à maintes reprises dans des postes de recrutement. En revanche, à cause de ses problèmes de santé, il est rejeté à chaque fois. Steve est trop petit, pas assez fort et paraît trop fragile. Cela montre l’effet qu’a eu la propagande aux Etats-Unis, notamment sur les jeunes hommes.

Steve Rogers à un poste de recrutement de l'armée, on peut lire "Il est illégal de falsifier votre formulaire d'enrôlement".

Se porter volontaire pour rejoindre les rangs de l’armée est profondément ancré cette génération. Peut être sont-ils en quête de reconnaissance ? Lors de la Première Guerre mondiale, ces vagues de recrutement chez les mineurs ont profondément marqué l'Angleterre et sa jeunesse. La violence meurtrière du conflit était telle que les recruteurs ne tenaient pas compte de l'âge des volontaires. L'armée avait besoin d'hommes au plus vite.

Visuellement, cette propagande aux Etats-Unis peut être remarquée par les affiches réalisées à l’époque de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Elles mettaient avant les Etats-Unis et leur position de force dans ce conflit mondial. Pour un coup d’œil sur une exposition numérique disponible par National Archives c’est ici: https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers-of-persuasion  

Après s'être fait repéré par un scientifique, Steve Rogers devient le sujet d'une expérience de l'armée. Son but? Créer un super soldat capable de combattre les forces ennemies. Il obtient une puissance physique surhumaine et problèmes de santé disparaissent. De plus, c’est son cœur qui lui donne toute sa grandeur et le caractérise. Pour paraphraser le scientifique ayant réalisé le sérum : un homme bon devient un homme meilleur, et son contraire est vrai : un homme mauvais devient violent. Comme Steve Rogers lui explique : "Je n'ai envie de tuer personne. Je déteste les brutes, quelle que soit leur origine." Son pouvoir est donc utilisé non pour tuer, mais simplement pour contribuer à l'effort collectif.

Cet aspect du personnage est essentiel. C’est sa bonté originelle qui le place en tant que cobaye idéal pour le sérum. Même s'il est un peu lisse et manque parfois de profondeur, ces changements se remarquent dans la manière dont les personnages qui l'entourent le considère. Le spectateur en est témoin au travers des parallèles du films, dont voici quelques exemples :

A gauche : Steve Rogers se place devant une affiche de recrutement. Etant trop petit, son reflet ne rentre pas dans le soldat.

A droite : Steve Rogers fait le salut militaire à son supérieur après avoir sauvé des soldats capturés.

A gauche : Steve Rogers en tant que Captain America dans un studio avec des faux soldats.

A droite : Steve Rogers menant un groupe de soldats qu'il a sauvé d'une base ennemie.

Continuons sur quelques éléments de contexte. Hydra, le programme scientifique secret d’Hitler, prend son indépendance. Il suit la route des mythes et utilise un artefact appelé le "Tesseract" pour gagner en puissance. La magie a une grande part dans le Marvel Cinematic Universe. Elle permet d’explorer l’Histoire de façon plus détachée et permet d'emprunter des sujets tels que la guerre, les conflits mondiaux. Ces éléments font partie des fils rouges que l'on peut retrouver dans le récit global du MCU. Ils permettent de lier des histoires situées dans des époques, villes ou planètes différentes sans que les personnages se croisent régulièrement. 

Un autre de ces fils rouge, c’est le sérum du super-soldat. Il en existe plusieurs versions, qui sont plus ou moins empreintes de réussite. Créer des humains aux capacités physiques développées est présent dans des projets tels que Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D (2013-2020), Agent Carter (2015-2016), The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021), What If... (2021) ou encore Black Widow (2021). Steve Roger est le seul ayant pu recevoir sans encombre le sérum original. Cela souligne le fait qu’il est le représentant idéal des super-héros en Amérique du Nord. Ce reconnaissance lui permet d’obtenir une crédibilité de poids. Les autres personnages (ci-dessous) ayant reçu une dose du sérum modifié ont eu des symptômes différents.

De gauche à droite : Steve Rogers après avoir reçu le sérum; Johann Schmidt s'injectant une dose de sérum; Daisy Johnson avec une fiole du sérum retravaillé.

De gauche à droite : Red Guardian, le super-héro du programme soviétique; John Walker, le Captain America du gouvernement américain face à une fiole; Peggy Carter après l'expérience.

Steve Rogers ne devient pas directement un grand héros et il n’est pas considéré comme tel après l'expérience. Il est recruté par la branche de communication de l’armée. Il la figure de Captain America, un symbole patriotique et divertissant, Steve Rogers se transforme en symbole de l’effort de guerre par l’achat de bons et de donations pour les soldats. En tournée dans le pays puis en Europe, Captain America devient la vitrine des Etats-Unis et de ses valeurs pour le plaisir des enfants et de ses supérieurs.

A gauche : Captain America signe un autographe à un jeune garçon avant de monter sur scène.

A droite : Captain America devant des affiches d'achats de bons et porte un bébé.

Une scène du film met en avant le spectacle réalisés par l'armée pour soutenir les soldats américains et l’économie du pays.  On y voit aussi la popularité du Captain. Pour la visionner, c'est juste ici : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtSrWn7eYbU&ab_channel=TopMovieClips 

La séquence dans son entièreté nous aide à mieux comprendre la place de Steve Rogers dans la propagande de l’armée américaine qui rencontre un certain succès. Sa prestation est fait salle comble et le public est au rendez-vous. 

On peut revenir à l’exposition en ligne des archives nationales des Etats-Unis qui présente une chanson de propagande intitulée “Any Bonds Today ?” (lien pour l’écoutér ici: https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers_of_persuasion/audio/any_bonds_today.wav ) 

Ce genre de chanson était écrite et circulait pour constituer et cristalliser un sentiment patriotique à travers le pays. C'était un moyen d’évoquer la guerre d’une manière différente. Au delà des chants et musiques louant le pays et ses valeurs nobles, l’industrie musicale américaine et la musique populaire ont pris leur envol de façon exponentielle comme le souligne Anastasiia Gordeeva dans un article.

La seconde séquence de l’extrait évoque le succès commercial de Captain America. On vend des comics relatant ses aventures fictives auprès des jeunes et des soldats. La séquence est un exemple de l’illustration des films de propagande. De nombreux exemples sont consultables sur Internet, donc celui-ci: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzDHEJoE1ao&ab_channel=PeriscopeFilm 

Dans le film, la communication sur la guerre est relayée au public au cinéma. Ces films représentent Captain America en studio et ne montrent pas de vrais soldats sur le champ de bataille.

Capture d'écran avec Captain America au centre, entourée de soldats. Au premier plan, on devine une équipe de tournage.

Plus tard dans le film, le spectacle de Captain America se fait dans une base militaire en Italie. La scène est en contraste de par l’utilisation des couleurs. Là où les couleurs étaient dans les tons chauds (rouge, orange, bleu), le spectateur est confronté à des tons plus ternes. Le ciel, la boue, les uniformes reflètent le moral des soldats et la difficulté de la situation en Europe. C’est le moment de l’histoire qui cristallise la frustration du personnage principal. Faire face à la difficulté des soldats le pousse à revenir à ses idéaux de liberté et à son envie de participer à l’effort global. Juste après cette scène il dit : "Depuis toujours mon rêve le plus cher, c’était de venir ici, en Europe, en première ligne pour servir mon pays. Et voilà, j’ai eu ce que je voulais. Et je porte des collants."

A gauche : Captain America lors de son spectacle sur scène.

A droite : La scène de Captain America dans une base en Italie, à 8km du front.

Ce moment charnière lance Steve Rogers au cœur d'une action, ce qui va le propulser en tant que leader naturel d'une escouade composée de personnes de confiance.

Après toutes ces évolutions et moments phares dans les origines du héros patriotique du MCU, le film se termine sur une séquence forte. Steve Rogers, devenu un véritable capitaine, se sacrifie pour sauver des millions de personnes. Par une suite d'évènements indescriptibles en quelques mots, il se fait congeler pendant plusieurs décennies. Sa disparition met en place la création de son mythe. Cet élément scénaristique permet de justifier sa présence dans les années 2010.

Le prochain article de cette série évoquera le travail historique dans le MCU au cours de la phase 4. 

Article écrit par Chloé Schaeffer, publié le 24/01/2023.

[ninja-in-skirts]

Memories of Partition and Life today

Memories of Partition and Life today

My passion to interview and record my first story with a willing intervieweeon behalf of the 1947 Partition Archive finally came true on 19th December,2022 when Mr. Debnath, a resident of Shyamnagar, West Bengal came forward toshare his story. Originally, born in Bangladesh he had migrated while themarsh-country was embroiled in inter-communal riots in 1946. At present, anoctogenarian recalls how…

[catdotjpeg]

Today on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, we honor and celebrate the rich legacy of global solidarity with Palestine, past and present.

In 1977, on the 30th anniversary of the 1947 UN partition plan and in commemoration of the ongoing colonization and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, the UN marked November 29th “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.” While UN resolution 194 (passed December 1948) guaranteed the right of return to all Palestinian refugees who were displaced during the Nakba, 73 years later we are still fighting for our right to return home.

As we reflect on all of the UN resolutions and broken promises to Palestinians on the international stage for generations, we also ground ourselves in the uncompromising support that we have received, and continue to receive, from oppressed and colonized people around the world.

This collage that we made last year features artwork by Palestinian painter Ismail Shammout, posters from the archives of the Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America, Malcolm X’s 1964 meeting with the PLO, and signs that our Mexican, [Caribbean] and Filipino comrades have brought to our protests here in New York City.

While the zionist entity and their reactionary partners seek to normalize the ongoing annexation of Palestinian land and genocide of the Palestinian people, the masses of the world stand with Palestine, and will continue to struggle alongside us until we have achieved liberation within our lifetime.

- Within Our Lifetime, 29 Nov 2021

[mybeingthere]

Waseem Ahmed, Untitled, 2011, pigment colours, silver leaf on archival wasli paper, 37.3 x 17.8 cm, Collection Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.

Waseem Ahmed was born in Hyderabad, Pakistan, in 1976. He grew up in a Muhajir (immigrant) family who, because they were Muslim, had migrated from India after Partition in 1947 to settle in the newly independent state of Pakistan.Ahmed is a key player in the contemporary miniature painting scene. Combining traditional miniature techniques, such as gouache and gold and silver leaf on wasli paper, with genuine experimental techniques, Ahmed creates finely rendered small and large scale works that address various social, political and cultural issues. Ahmed joins a number of South Asian artists that use tradition as a means towards innovation. The miniature is not treated solely as a historical heritage, but emphasized in its theoretical potential as a contemporary art form. 

Crossing cultural borders, Ahmed’s rich vocabulary borrows elements from Asian and European art history and mythology. His eclectic repertoire of images composed by animal shapes, bearded men, blood splattered surfaces, burkas, letters from the Arabic-Farsi-Urdu alphabet, often suggesting religious rhetoric, guns, rosaries, suicide-jackets or forms derived from prominent ancient sculptures, creates multiple layers of meaning. Ahmed’s thought-provoking works depict the turbulent time, characterized by conflict, violence and displacement faced today by both Eastern and Western societies.

http://www.gowencontemporary.com/time-braden/wasseem-ahmed/

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

I witness pro-Israeli arguments online every day – and one of the things that always depresses me is when I see those defending Israel get stuck down pointless rabbit holes. Anti-Israel activists are only interested in the present ‘what’ – as in ‘the prisoner’, ‘the checkpoint’, ‘the wall’ – and they do this because this is where they are comfortable. These propagandists deliberately avoid the ‘why’ because the truth is quicksand for them. Such as why the ‘wall’ was built in the first place. And why on earth would anyone argue over a ‘settlement’ like Ariel – if the person you are arguing with thinks that Tel Aviv is an ‘illegal settlement’ too. This cannot be stressed often enough – it is simply foolish to fight on their turf.

Nowhere is this more visible that in discussion over what they call the ‘Nakba’ – the Arab defeat in a war that they wanted, started and lost. A war in which they sought to annihilate the Jews. Arguing from within their narrative is like bitterly arguing over the size of the thrones in the Narnian Capital ‘Cair Paravel’.

A recent comment piece in the Jewish Chronicle provides a perfect example. One of our naive and privileged youth wrote a piece bemoaning the fact that she wasn’t prepared by her Jewish school to fight for Israel on campus – because as she sees it – ‘we do not talk about the Palestinian narrative in a meaningful way’. Her answer includes introducing ‘Israel-critical’ groups like Yachad into schools and to teach our children about the ‘Nakba’. This is an absurd and submissive response to the problem. Her suggested solution would send an entire generation down the rabbit hole.

The Nakba narrative is a lie. Should the UK have taught children Soviet propaganda so that they would have been better prepared to defend the UK at uni too? Yes campus is hostile. Some places have adopted a far darker and more Islamist vision. I know it is deeply uncomfortable for young Zionists, but submission is not the way forward. If we Jews do not defend ourselves – then who will defend us? Adopting the lies of our enemies onto our own platforms will only lead to self destruction.

The Nakba – as it is described by our enemies – never happened. They have taken isolated incidents, such as the disputed events of Deir Yassin or what took place in Lod – and built an entire fairytale around them. The truth of 1948 – the foundation of everything that followed – is very simple and we should never lose sight of it – nor stop teaching it to our children. The truth can sometimes be really unpopular – but it does not stop being the truth.

What follows is a list of pillars and myths. The pillars are the foundations of the self inflicted distaster that was to befall the Arab population. The myths are the lies upon which the history is being rewritten.

SEVEN OF THE PILLARS THAT LED TO A SELF INFLICTED DISASTER

Pillar 1. The pillar of Arab violence

Conventional wisdom has it that the ‘civil war’ followed sporadic Arab violence in reaction to the partition vote in November 1947. In some ways this is misleading. The Arab massacres of Jews in 1920, 1921, 1929, 1936 and 1938 all occurred before 1947. And between each of these major events were lots of little ones – many of them never properly advertised because the British wanted to protect the image of ‘successful control’. The truth is that by the 1920s there was organised violence against Jewish communities and by the 1930s it had spread throughout the area of the British Mandate.

In the early days, armed local Arab gangs saw the Jews as a soft target and frequently attacked them. The British were often uninterested in robustly defending Jewish communities from these attacks. This Telegram from the High Commissioner provides an example from Jerusalem in Nov 1921 (British archives – file CO 733/7).

“A disturbance took place in Jerusalem this morning when a small crowd of Arab roughs appeared in the Jaffa Road. They were dispersed by police but soon after gathered for an attack on the Jewish Quarter… A bomb was thrown and a few cases of knifing occurred. Four Jews and one Arab was killed and fifteen persons were wounded”.

This consistent problem led to the creation of the Jewish Defense Force – the ‘Haganah’. But the violence against Jews was a growing feature – and became a regular and vastly under-reported feature of Jewish life in the Mandate.

[girlactionfigure]

This Day In Jewish History

1936: In Atlanta, GA,  social worker Arlene (Fox) Uhry and “furniture designer and artist” Ralph K. Uhry gave birth to Brown University alum Alfred Fox Uhry, who “received an Academy Award, two Tony Awards and the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for dramatic writing for Driving Miss Daisy.”

1937: Birthdate of British attorney and businessman Stephen Rubin. The founder of Pentland, he struck it rich with Reebok and Adidas.

1937: The Palestine Post reported that a large police unit accompanied by a detachment of Transjordanian Frontier Force, scoured Galilee in pursuit of Arab terrorists that had murdered two Arab policemen and apparently sought to escape to Syria. In London, Major C.S. Jarvis, the former British governor of Sinai, said that after he had seen what the Jewish settlers had done in various arid areas of Palestine, he would strongly recommend a large Jewish settlement of the entire Negev, which ought to be included in the Jewish state in any partition negotiations.

1937: The Palestine Post reported that the total official population of Palestine was given at the end of September 1937 as 811,347 Moslems, 389,504 Jews, 108,433 Christians and 11,588 others.

1938: The German government decrees that all Jewish industries, shops, and businesses must be forcibly "Aryanized."

1938: At the Ambassador Theatre, the curtain came down on “You Can't Take It with You” a comedic play in three acts by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart that won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Drama after 838 performances.

1939: In Brooklyn, “Jack and Sylvia Israel” gave birth to Leonore Carol Israel who gained fame as forger Lee Israel.

1939: Among the patents issued this week was one issued to Rudoph Feige of Tel Aviv for “a tropical hat with a crown separated from the brim to provide and air circulating slot around the hat…”

1940: Heads of educational institutions and other prominent persons were among the 3,000 attending a funeral service for Rabbi Bernard (Dov) Revel, one of the founders of Yeshiva College which became Yeshiva University.

1940:  Debut of Bugs Bunny with the voice supplied by Mel Blanc. Bugs Bunny was not Jewish but Mel was.

1941: Amidst the misery of the Lodz Ghetto, a newly arrived Viennese Pianist, Leopold Birkenfeld held a concert for his fellow Jews. He played Shubert, Liszt and Beethoven brilliantly.

1942(24th of Kislev, 5703): In the evening, kindle the first Chanukah candle.

1942(24th of Kislev, 5703): The Nazis shot three young girls who had escaped from Poznan labor camp

1942(24th of Kislev, 5703): One thousand Jews from Plonsk, Poland, are killed at Auschwitz.

1942(24th of Kislev, 5703): Salomon Malkes, an official of the Lódz Ghetto, commits suicide after becoming despondent over the deportation of his mother.

1942: Herbert Henry Lehman completed his service as the 45thGovernor of New York.

1942: An unknown photographer took a picture of Jews in the Drancy assembly and detention camp which was the departure point for sending French Jews to Auschwitz.  The picture is part of the Yad Vashem Photo Archives.

1943: At a meeting with the German ambassador Francisco Franco said, “’Thank God a clear appreciation of dangers caused by Jews led our catholic Kings to insure ‘we have for centuries been relieved of that nauseating burden.’” Oddly enough, Franco actually protected that ‘nauseating burden’ from the clutches of the Final Solution.

1943: Popular American singer Dinah Shore (Frances Rose Shore) the graduate of Vanderbilt University where she was a member of AEPhi, the Jewish sorority, married her first husband today.

1944: Hungarian death march of Jews ends

1944: Beginning of the Greek Civil War in which pro-Soviet Communist forces attempt to destroy the pro-Western government.

1945: Abdul Azzam Bey, Arab League secretary general, announces that member states will boycott all Jewish-produced goods from Palestine beginning January 1, 1946.

1946: Today “The Joint Committee of Jewish Organizations, whose membership includes representatives of nine groups, praised the adoption of clauses by the Council of Foreign Ministers insuring restoration of rights and restitution of property to Jews in Hungary and Rumania in the proposed peace treaties.”

1947(20th of Kislev, 5708): While Jewish workers were evacuating undamaged goods from the Centre a group of Arabs attacked them, killing Yitzhak Penzo,

1947: Broadway Premiere of “A Streetcar Named Desire” which would be revived in London in 1974 with Claire Bloom playing “Blanche DuBois” – a portrayal that led the play’s author to state “I declare myself absolutely wild about Claire Bloom.”

1947: Arab violence continues with an attack on a synagogue in the Old City. Following threats by Arab gangs to burn their dwellings, “Eight Jews living in a house in the Musrara Quarter outside the Damascus Gate were forced to leave their homes”

A lot more: Here

[architectuul]

FOMA 40: Demolished Masterpieces Of India

The status of architectural heritage in India is either demolished, dilapidated, or being fought for, by concerned citizens, architects and conservationist but the definitions remain blurry and more and more buildings are being taken off the heritage list each day to make room for new development projects.

The Hall of Nations by Raj Rewal (1972) | Photo via livinspaces

From the government initiated social housing projects, which answered the massive housing crisis in post-independence Indian cities, to the WHO Headquarters in Delhi (1962) and the Hall of Nations (1972) that was built to celebrate 25 years of India’s independence from the British Raj, are just a few examples of such great loss. 

Correa's Tube House prototype for the Gujarat Housing Board's low cost housing competition in 1960. | Photo via Charles Correa Archive

In 1960, the Gujarat Housing Board initiated an open competition to gather new ideas in the realm of low-cost/affordable housing. Inspired by the ‘windscoop’ houses of Iran or Alhambra in Spain, Indian architect Charles Correa developed a low rise, high density layout with at most attention to climate and comfort. The Tube house unit with its sloping roof and adjustable louvers used the conventional airflow to naturally ventilate the house. An open floor plan with raised levels created privacy. This unit was the only one built by the housing board as a prototype. Built at the height of the Indian socialist movement, the Tube House cemented Correa's position in housing design in the country and allowed him to try out many of the theories of low rise-high density clustered incremental housing that he developed further in Belapur housing, Mumbai and PREVI Experimental housing project, Lima. The Tube House was demolished in 1995.

Drawings of the Tube House explaining different space for different activities and users. | Photo via Charles Correa Archive

Cluster of Tube houses with ‘wind-scoops’ for ventilation and community central courtyards. | Photo via Charles Correa Archive

Based on the spatial, material and climatic methodologies developed during the Tube House, Correa went on to try them in an another of his houses, the Ramakrishna House built for a mill owner in Ahmadabad. Whether it was low-cost social housing or a house for a wealthy mill owner, Correa was able to elegantly merge local materials and traditional building techniques while maintaining a modern aesthetic. Placed at the northern end of the plot to maximize on the garden, the house is a series of load bearing walls punctuated by interior courtyards and windscooping canons. Victim to the real estate boom, the Ramakrishna House was sold to a developer and the building was demolished in 1996 to make room for a commercial building.

Ramakrishna House | Photo © Peter Serenyi, MIT Libraries

Next on the list of recently demolished is the WHO Headquarters in Delhi. Built by architect Habib Rahman, who was one of the pioneers of Modernism in India. His life long career in government and public works department has given Delhi and Calcutta some of its most iconic buildings. The WHO headquarters was a three-year long project, completed in 1962. Rahman was a senior architect with the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) at the time. The building was inaugurated by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

The building remained a city landmark for Fifty seven years, before the six-storeyed structure was pulled down by the National Buildings Construction Corporation in July of 2019. The NBCC claimed that the building was old and fell under a seismic zone. The corporation will construct a new building for the WHO that will have around 17 floors.

Demolished WHO building in Delhi. | Photo via Habib Rahman Archives

Another one amongst Rahman's masterpieces being forgotten and razed are the 'Rahman Type Flats' in Netaji Nagar, Delhi (1954-56). After taking cabin in 1947, Nehru went on a massive building and infrastructure spree. Housing had to be built for the new government employees that were migrating to Delhi, and also to rehabilitate the huge number of people that had been displaced during the partition of the country. Besides housing also markets, cultural centers, cinemas and office buildings were built at that time. At this point Rahman’s Gropius and Bauhaus training came in handy. Rahman was asked to organize the International Exhibition on Low Cost Housing in 1954. The exhibition got architects and engineers from all over the country to take part in building sample prototypes and publishing detailed drawings, estimates and materials. Rahman's bright, well ventilated, simple two story and two room houses became a prototype for government staff housing. They came to be known as "Rahman Type Flats" and were repeated in thousands across the country. One such example of it was the government staff quarters in R.K.Puram, New Delhi completed in 1959. It housed government employees and their families for decades before they were finally demolished in 2018 to make way for high rises, which would trade public land to private entities. 

Habib Rahman CPWD housing 1954 | Photo via Habib Rahman Archive

Demolition of “Rahman Type Flats” photographed by Habib Rahman's son Ram Rahman on 28th June 2018. | Photo via architexturez

And lastly the one for which the world cried. From Pompidou Centre to MoMA in New York to the entire architecture community in India raised opposition to the demolition of The Hall of Nations in Delhi. In the 1970, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi called for entries to design a large exhibition complex which would exhibit airplanes and satellites to commemorate 25 years of India's Independence. Young architect Raj Rewal's entry not only got him the project but also curiosity and appreciation from the world. Rewal recalls the time when Buckminster Fuller came to the site and was stunned by Rewal's massive space frames in concrete making the fabric of the exhibition hall. Inspired by the traditional Indian Jaali (perforated screens), his space frame education in Europe and Le Corbusier's sun breakers as an extension to his building façades in Chandigarh, Rewal here let the space frames itself become the walls and the roof of the exhibition halls. Engineer Mahindra Raj explains how space frames everywhere were being done in steel at the time but India did not have the quality and the fabricators for steel sections for a project of that scale and importing steel sections from abroad to build this symbol of India's growth and progress was not an option. 45 years later in 2017, the Hall of Nations was pulled down by half a dozen bulldozers that worked overnight to demolish this masterpiece of post-independence architecture in India making way for a "new state-of-the-art convention centre and exhibition centre."

Architect Raj Rewal and structural engineer Mahindra Raj created the Hall of Nations in 1972. | Photo via livinspaces

The significance of Hall of Nations from "Indian Modernity" by Manu Rewal.

In conversation with the Quint after the demolition,  Rewal explains, "In 1972, the Hall of Nations and Industries was symbolic of an achievement by young architects in a newly-independent India, creating a style, which could be constructed with limited means, yet be uniquely Indian."

Architecture Live quoted Rewal: "[[Hall of Nations]] was a great feat of art and architecture… it was a symbol of what very ordinary people can do. 500 families worked on the site; there were no canteens, no crèches, no helmets, and the work went on for a very long time. The structure was built from hand-poured concrete, and was labour intensive; the credit does not only belong to the architects and the engineers, but also to these people – because it was their achievement, to have created something through such simple methods.” 

These statements of Rewal aren't only true in case of the Hall of Nation but for all of India's modern heritage that is slowly disappearing along with its history.

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FOMA 40: Zahara Chhapra

Zahara Chhapra is an architect and researcher from Mumbai, India. Having recently completed her Masters in Design Research from the Bauhaus in Dessau, Zahara now resides in Berlin and is a researcher and editor with Architectuul. Her interests lie in the spatial and political agency of architectural and urban actors in the everyday life of the city.

[comparatist]

Okay, so, here goes the original work regarding Homai Vyarawalla. Will be updating Prem Mathur soon.

Homai Vyarawalla: The First Indian Woman To Be A Photo Journalist

It was the time when India was undergoing structural changes finally preparing herself to draw a line to the 200 years of British Raj. It was only a few decades into the 20th century. Women were still shackled within the restrictions of the public and private and often discouraged available luxury of being educated. Though the participation of women picking down the barriers of discrimination, in the freedom struggle of India was extremely noteworthy, it was something, the male writers are narrators of Indian history have always somewhat omitted both knowingly or without intention, hence the amount of sacrifice and contribution to the freedom fight however did little in knocking down the walls of the existing social norms binding moment in the post independence era. The arena of photojournalism was then a male dominated sphere. Homai Vyarawalla was the first woman who dared to challenge the patriarchal nature of the domain, being the first woman behind the lens.

• Early Life:

Homai was born to a Parsi family staying in Navsari, Gujarat on 9th December 1913. Her initial years were spent in a Vyara near Surat. Then her family resolved to move to tardio, Mumbai and she completed her education with an Honors Degree from Bombay University. Homai valued the importance of education in her life and was always ready to dodge every bullet of social discrimination, often subjected towards woman, to continue her education. She was the only girl to complete her Matriculation among 36 students. Her parents, Dossabhai and Soonabhai Hathiram weren’t well educated, however left no stone unturned to encourage her to learn English thereby enrolling her in the grant Rd high school in Tardeo. Her attempts to receive proper education were often obstructed by social regulations imposed upon women. Due to her economy condition, she often had to move in and out of houses and travel long ways in order to reach the school. The stigma around the subject of menstruation used toasting her the most owing to her parsi roots. After completion of her Matriculation Homai pursued a degree in Economics from St. Xavier's College.

• Introduction To Her Profession: Homai met Maneckshaw Vyarawalla in 1926, the man who inaugurated the magical world of photography in her life at a railway station, who thereby continued to be an inspiration in our works of art. Homai primarily received mentorship from Maneckshaw to pick up the skills for photography. She also underwent a formal training and completed a diploma from the J.J School of Arts. They shared the Rolliflex of Maneckshaw, to develop their films in a dark bathroom. In 1941 Homai tied the knot with Maneckshaw, being fully aware of his mother’s displeasure regarding the current situation.

“In those days, Orthodox people did not want college educated girls for their sons. Especially those who had studied with boys,” she said.

• Career As A Photo Journalist:

All Homai started assisting Maneckshaw, who was working with The Illustrated Weekly of India and the Bombay Chronicle at that point. Some of her works even got recognition under the name of Maneckshaw Vyarawalla, as woman weren’t approved to be professional photographers then. The day to day activities of urban woman in Bombay where the foundations of our initial works. Her art captured there seems like no one.

In the wake of the Second World War and the events that followed by, Homai got to grab several opportunities to showcase her talent by capturing the political consequences of the war in India. The crisis had laid the participation of women in public domains, being the flag bearers of change, particularly in the era of post- independence. Both Parsi and British women in their public avatar were seen getting featured through her works.

The war also gave her a chance to permanently move out from Bombay. In 1942, the couple moved to Delhi. It was on outstanding move as it represented the initiation of her public life as a photo journalist. Homai and Maneckshaw began to work with the British High Commission which accelerated the success in Homai's career, for her familiarity the then Authoritiy, made her a regular at all events, irrespective of the nature. This was the start of the golden period in her career as a photo journalist.

• Golden Period:

Events that would later determine the history of the 20th century were on their way of happening when Homai had reached the zenith of her profession. The context on which she supported her artwork is therefore extremely significant for tracing her contribution to the Indian History. Always draped in a sari, accompanied by her Rolliflex camera, Homai was present at every significant event, archiving historical happenings and capturing renowned personalities like Jacqueline Kennedy, Queen Elizabeth, Eisenhower etc. Her penchant, however was for capturing India’s first Prime Minister Jwaharlal Nehru, a man, she considered to be extremely photogenic. Her favourite area of work was chronicling some of the greatest moments of Nehru's career and personal life including his initiation to the position of power, parties at the Delhi Gymkhana Club, the period when the Non-Alignment movement had picked up the heat among the masses and the 1955 Bandung Conference. Homai never lay the backdrop over public engagements turn out to be her definition. She kept distance between the public and private affairs. She went outdoors outdoors and utilised her outgoing nature for the sake of her creation. Her effortless display of her works in a series of black and white an order she's particularly enthusiastic about chose to be her medium of expression.

Some of the most important moments of her career consist of snaps of the Reception hosted by Lord Mountbatten at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on August 15th 1947, the meeting of Congress leading to the Third Plan, the decision of Partition, the flag hoisting at the Red Fort for the first time, funeral of Mahatma Gandhi, Dalai Lama entering India for the first time through Sikkim in 1956.

However, the earth below the pillars upholding India's structure was still volatile, so was homai's struggle for consistency in the male dominated environment. Her work was often overlooked for her male contemporaries got more credits for the prevalent patriarchal views in the society. In 1930, when Bombay chronicles published her first shot in of picnic party of the members of Women’s Club in Bombay, it was done under the name of her husband.

• The End of an Era:

Maneckshaw Vyarawalla had been a great influence on Homai’s career choices and their bonding lasted for 40 years. It was probably because of the heartfelt connecion the duo shared, Homai left her job behind with Maneckshaw's demise in 1969 and went to lead a life of seclusion and anonymity in Pilani with son Farouq. Her life there, adored simplicity of doing things, she did not have the opportunity to go for earlier. She enjoyed her life accompanied by women, something she didn’t go through earlier, due to her lack of connection with them.

“I was afraid of being with women. I only heard them talk about maid-servants, jewellery and make-up that I could never relate to. My world was so different. It was in Pilani that I understood woman can be good friends too and I shouldn’t be afraid of them.”

Homai Vyarawalla made sure she documented history through her lens. She had been giving several recognitions and awards including the second high civilian honour in India, the Padma Vibhushan in 2011. She passed away on 15 Jan, 2012. Her prized possessions are now in the Alkazi Fouundation for Arts and the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi.

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Engineering education in India starts after class 12 and is imparted through colleges and universities

training in India begins after class 12 and is bestowed through schools and colleges marked as building universities. India is one of the biggest pool for engineers on the planet. Instruction in Engineering offers a wide scope of profession openings. Lacs of understudies apply for B.Tech and BE confirmations in building schools in India, yet the affirmation cycle is repetitive. Understudies need to set themselves up during eleventh and twelfth class and afterward take up state and public level placement tests.

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and National Institutes of Technology (NITs) are viewed as the best in the nation and consequently the alumni from IITs and NITs acquire considerably more when contrasted with the alumni of other designing foundations as architects from IITs and NITs are actually better gifted and more inventive.

Aside from these there are another right around 3000 building schools in India offering undergrad, postgraduate and doctoral courses in Engineering. 330 of these are Government building Colleges; rest right around 2700 are private designing schools. A ton of them are old and calm acclaimed. Among the top Private designing schools in India are BITS Pillani, Vellore organization of Technology (VIT), Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT), Thapar University at Patiala , PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, and numerous others. In this way building schools in India are in abundance.

College classes for building are Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) and Bachelor of Engineering (BE). The Course length is four years including 8 semesters of a half year each with a college test toward the finish of every semester. One needs to breeze through all the tests before degree is presented. Positions are generally led in the fourth year of the course.

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) were arrangement in mid fifties to encourage building and specialized advanced education in India after autonomy and are 23 in number today.

They have been proclaimed as Institutes of National Importance by the Parliament of India. The IITs were framed with the point of building up a gifted workforce to help the monetary and social advancement of India after freedom in 1947.

Each IIT is an independent college, administered by a typical IIT Council, which directs their organization. They have a typical confirmation measure for undergrad affirmations, utilizing the Joint Entrance Examination called JEE Advanced to choose around 8,200 undergrad up-and-comers a year. Postgraduate confirmations are done based on the GATE, JMET, JAM and CEED.The IITs are among the Top Engineering universities of India and are acclaimed for their undergrad and postgraduate building courses. Aside from numerous courses in Engineering including Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering and some more, IITs additionally offer courses in plan and business the executives. IITs likewise offer Post Doctoral and coordinated coursesThese are another arrangement of 31 universities, additionally called NITs, which offer undergrad building courses in India. NIT board is the administering body everything being equal and they all offer courses in designing, engineering, the executives and science.

NIT Tirchy, NIT Warangal, NIT Patna, NIT Rourkela, NIT Durgapur, NIT Kurukshetra, NIT Silchar are a portion of the well known NITs across India. Out of the aggregate, 21 NITs are among the best 100 building universities of India.

Courses offered in NITs

NITs offer both B.Tech and M.Tech degrees across India just as offer 5 years double degree programs in different fields. NIT Trichy, NIT Allahabad and NIT Rourkela have the executives schools offering BBA or potentially MBA. 5 years incorporated courses like BArch and long term BSc degrees are likewise instructed in a portion of the NITs. Courses are offered in Civil Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering and numerous others.These are a gathering of universities of advanced education in India, which offer course in Information Technology. A large number of the courses offered are as B.Tech. Five of these were built up by Ministry of Human Resources; rest have been set up on Public Private Partnership model. There are 23 altogether all through India. Admissions to undergrad programs at IIITs are led through the NEET Mains and afterward advising is finished by Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JOSAA) There are right around 4000 seats in these 23 colleges.How does one get entrance into designing in India? How to join BTech in India? The two most regular inquiries posed. Noting them is a touch troublesome as there are part of affirmation measures for picking up passage into a designing school in India. As of late there has been an endeavor by the Supreme court to achieve a consistency in the confirmation cycle, however the objective has not yet been accomplished. Applicant more likely than not breezed through 10+2 or identical assessment with Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and English as independent subject with a normal of 50-60 % in PCM joined. A base 50 % in English either in class 10 or 12 standard is required for all the up-and-comers. The models will differ from one spot to the next yet these are the fundamental rules around which the confirmations rotate.

Technique for affirmation:

Admissions to Engineering schools in India are directed at public and state level. A few foundations like VIT and SRM lead their own organization explicit selection test. Lone ranger of Technology (B.Tech) course is a long term proficient degree course, partitioned into eight semesters. The course is established by a blend of homeroom contemplates which incorporates addresses, workshops, practicals, ventures/research work and mechanical preparing. The primary year of study is basic for all BTech understudies. In the rest of the years understudies study subjects according to their picked of specialization and in the last year of study understudies are given a decision of elective subjects just as given chances to modern preparing.

B.Tech Entrance test Process:

When an understudy has chosen which test to show up for, at that point the plan and related data of every test must be contemplated, confirmation structures to be topped off, required expenses for structures must be paid and afterward the placement test must be taken. The application cycle is primarily online nowadays. The tests could be on the web or disconnected mode. When the outcomes are proclaimed, at that point the understudy needs to again top off the guiding structures as indicated by qualification for different universities and sit tight for the legitimacy rundown and designation to be reported. Normally advising is led in numerous rounds. When a seat is apportioned, understudy will show the fundamental archives, pay the semester expenses and afterward get admission to the designing school.

Timetables and significant dates:

Following is the BTech and BE affirmation control for competitors wishing to seek after building courses across top schools and colleges in India.

IITs:

Joint Entrance Exam JEE (Advanced) is a typical affirmation test for up-and-comers wishing to apply confirmation in IIT. So as to be qualified up-and-comers are first needed to clear JEE (Main) test. JEE (fundamental) is led by NTA while JEE Advanced is led by IIT's on a rotational premise every year. It is typically held in the period of June and the best 1,50,000 scorers in the mains test are allowed qualification for the serious test. The paper is objective in nature with subjects of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics and span of three years each for each paper.

NITs:

Competitors who have qualified the JEE Main test are qualified to apply for B.Tech confirmation in NIT. The Central Seat Allocation Board is given the obligation of confirmation in IIT. Affirmation is led based on JEE principle test rank.

Pieces Pilani:

BITSAT, undergrad level selection test is led for B.Tech confirmation in BITS Pilani and its partner organizations. Up-and-comers who have made sure about a base total of 75 percent marks with subjects of Physics, Chemistry and Maths in class 12 test are qualified to apply for confirmation. Board or state clinchers can apply for affirmation straightforwardly. There are chosen on merit standard. Determination for different up-and-comers depends on BITSAT score and class 12 imprints.

Aligarh Muslim University:

Aligarh Muslim college leads a typical selection test for B.tech confirmation in AMU. The base qualification for competitors is class 12 with subjects of Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and English and least level of 50% imprints.

Anna University:

Admission to B.Tech course in Anna college depends on the imprints acquired in subjects of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics in class 12 test.