SASNET post-doctoral researcher Isha Dubey delivered the valedictory address at the International Conference on Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s Birth Centenary (1920-2020). The Conference – Bangabandhu, His Times and Legacy: Society, Economy and State Formation in Retrospect was – was jointly organised by the Department of History and Civilization, Barisal University and the Dhaka based research collective Jana-Itihas Charcha Kendra (Centre for People’s History). It was hosted by Barisal University, Bangladesh over two days from February 27-28 2020.

Dr. Dubey’s talk, “Constructing and contesting the ‘national memory’ of 1947 and 1971 in India and Bangladesh” focused on the memorial cultures surrounding the Partition and the Liberation War in India and Bangladesh respectively and the importance of and politics inherent in acknowledging or forgetting collective histories of both triumph and trauma in post-colonial South Asia.