The 91亚色 Centre for Asian Research is pleased to host Lalit Vachani to present his new documentary 鈥淧risoner No. 626710 is Present鈥�. The documentary will be screened on Feb 12, 2025 at 2.30pm at 91亚色, Keele campus, as part of YCAR鈥檚 South Asia lecture series, 鈥淒emos, democracy and democratization鈥�. This will be followed by a Q&A with the director. Prior registration is required to attend the event. Please register using this . The event is co-sponsored by聽the Jarislowsky Democracy Chair, Toronto Metropolitan University.

This documentary film is about Umar Khalid, a student union activist leader in India鈥檚 prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. In 2020, Khalid was arrested under the draconian UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act) 鈥� a law that designates individuals as terrorists and allows the Indian State to imprison people without due process. The film explores Khalid's journey and his continued struggles against State repression. In the film, two of Khalid鈥檚 friends, Banojyotsna Lahiri and Shuddhabrata Sengupta, reconstruct the events that led to his arrest and talk about the role played by the right-wing media in framing Khalid. They highlight the challenges they continue to face in the Indian judicial system. The documentary engages with the important question of what human resilience looks like in the face of authoritarianism. 

Lalit Vachani is a documentary filmmaker, lecturer and research scholar at CeMIS (the Centre for Modern Indian Studies) at the University of G枚ttingen. Some of his other documentaries include In Search of Gandhi (2007) and The Salt Stories (2009) which follow the trail of Gandhi's salt march in Narendra's Modi's Gujarat; The Play Goes On (2005) on the leftist street theatre group, Jana Natya Manch; An Ordinary Election (2015), an in-depth study of an Indian election campaign by a new political party 鈥� the AAP (Aam Aadmi Party); and The Boy in the Branch (1993) and The Men in the Tree (2002) which document the ideology and the growth of the RSS and Hindu nationalism.

The film won SiGNS Cinema of Resistance Award in 2024. It has been officially selected in the Long Documentary Competition and International Documentary Film Festival. Please watch the trailer .

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The 18 September panel will focus on the massive student-led movement that ended the 15-year authoritarian rule of Bangladesh's former Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina.

This is the first of six in-person events in Demos, Democracy, Democratization , a South Asia Lecture series, which is organized in 2024鈥�25 by Director Shubhra Gururani (Anthropology) and Shreyashi Ganguly (Sociology).

Rukmini Barua (History, 91亚色) will speak on deindustrialization, urban politics and emotions in 20th century Ahmedabad on 23 October 2024 talk. Mona Bhan (Syracuse University) will give the final talk of the semester on 13 November 2024; she will the focus to the realities of hydropower in Kashmir.

In Winter 2025, Chris Balcom (91亚色) will give a talk in January 2025 and Lalit Vachani鈥檚 (University of G枚ttingen) film, Prisoner No. 626710 is Present, will be screened on 12 February 2025. The event on 12 March 2025 is to be confirmed.

All are welcome to the series鈥� events, which will take place on 91亚色鈥檚 Keele Campus.

Full series details can be found at this link.

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With Faculty Associate (Design), Dr Chu is recipient of a YCAR Research Collaboration Fellowship. The duo is co-editing a book project, A Hong Kong Comics Studies Reader.

On 1 February, Dr Chu gave a public lecture titled 鈥溾�� The lecture examines the depiction of nostalgia for 1980s and 1990s Hong Kong in three graphic memoirs: How Blue Was My Valley (2006) by Hok-tak Yeung, Sheung Ha Wo Che (2009) by Rainbow Leung and Fu Chong Chok Lok (2011) by Ko Sing. Hong Kong nostalgia encapsulates a poignant longing for bygone eras characterized by the city's distinctive urban landscape, much of which has undergone profound transformation in the continual process of urban development. Drawing from the analysis, Dr Chu illustrates how the personal childhood narratives and depiction of communal spaces evoke the collective memories of shared experiences. Bridging the realms of autobiographical reflection and communal remembrance, graphic memoirs play a pivotal role in shaping our understanding of Hong Kong鈥檚 cultural memories amidst ongoing transforming urban landscape.

Dr Chu will be at YCAR until 25 February 2024.

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