Pint of View Kolkata (Lecture #4): The Partition India Forgot
Pint of View Kolkata (Lecture #4): The Partition India Forgot
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About the event
Pint of View is in Kolkata at last. 🍺
For months, Pint of View has been taking big ideas out of auditoriums and into pubs, creating a space where difficult questions, fascinating stories, and curious people can meet over a drink.
About the Lecture
The overlooked and forgotten partition of India and Burma
Partition in the subcontinent has been synonymous with the India-Pakistan border. The images that usually flash before our eyes are of trains, bloodshed, and hastily drawn lines.
But there was another partition, quieter and long forgotten, between India and Burma. For decades, movement across the Bay of Bengal had been driven by traders, moneylenders, labour contractors, and kinship networks. That changed with the 1941 Indo-Burmese Immigration Agreement, when passports and visas replaced open passage, and governments decided who could cross the new boundaries.
This is the history of how a free, informal world of movement was captured and regulated by the state, laying the very foundations of national borders we take for granted today. As Burmese nationalism rose and riots spread, British and native leaders alike began asking who truly belonged and more importantly, who didn't.
This talk uncovers how open colonial borders hardened into national ones, and how the very idea of India and Burma as separate nations was built by deciding who could no longer move between them.
About the Speaker
Dr. Udayan Das is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, St. Xavier's College, Kolkata.
He is a Visiting Fellow with Asian Confluence, Shillong.
Udayan was awarded PhD in International Relations from Jadavpur University, Kolkata in 2024. His research interests and writings are on India’s foreign policy and South Asian affairs.
Event Details
📅 Wednesday, 9 September
🕓 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
📍 Conversation Room, Chowringhee Road, Kolkata
🍻 Enjoy a complimentary Geist beer on the house
Seating strictly on first come first served basis.
About Pint of View
Pint of View is India's Largest Lecture Community. We brought the lecture in bar format to India and are now expanding across the globe with chapters in 14 cities worldwide. Here, big ideas meet intimate spaces, and you walk in curious and walk out with a sharper lens on the world.
Book now and develop your own pint of view. 🍻
Location
Conversation Room, Chowringee Road, Elgin, Kolkata, West Bengal, IndiaFAQ
One Geist beer included. Additional food & beverages can be ordered on à la carte basis. Feel free to arrive around 6:30 pm to meet fellow attendees and grab a drink or a snack. Tickets are non refundable but transferable. You can sell or pass your ticket to someone else. Seating will be on first come, first served basis. Kids (under 18 year olds) are not allowed at the bar post 6 pm.