World wars and world views. Arabic and Indian experiences of the World Wars between local interpretations and propaganda
Ravi Ahuja
Katharina Lange
Heike Liebau
This joint project is concerned with both Arabic and Indian perception
and experience of the two World Wars. How were multiple and divergent
perceptions consolidated into common experience in a field of
competing patterns of meaning and practice? How did this experience
shape the self-image, world views and orientation of agents in
the various societies concerned? These are the main questions
to be explored by the project.
In a continuation of earlier research at the CMO on ‘World
Wars and world views. Arab perceptions of World War I and World
War II’, the present project aims at transcending the Eurocentric
boundaries in current writings on the cultural history of the
‘Age of World Wars’. It focuses on the translocal
and transterritorial context of non-European World War experience,
where conflicting propagandist interventions met with self-willed,
local efforts to confer meaning on experiences and perceptions.
Extending the regional and social scope of the investigation also
opens up new and complementary perspectives: whereas the earlier
project examined the perceptions of Arabic combatants and intellectuals,
we now extend our view to include Arabic civilians and Indian
intellectuals and prisoners of war.
Images of war. Arab civilian experience of the World Wars
Dr. Katharina
Lange
Building on the previous project Images of War. Arab participants’
experiences [i.e.: the experiences of Arab participants in the
two world wars] of World War I and World War II, but now
focusing on the civilian population in Syria and Jordan, this
project looks at Arabic experiences and perceptions of the two
World Wars. The research concentrates on the effects of the Second
World War on everyday life in Syria and Jordan. By evaluating
written and oral sources, it investigates individual perceptions,
strategies and spaces of action, and the resultant experiences
of war. Local perceptions of and interactions with European actors,
as well as European norms and interpretations of the World Wars
and their consequences are another focus of the project.
Contested Meanings of World War I. The Case of South Asian Prisoners
of War in Germany
Dr. Ravi Ahuja
This part of the project focuses on the experiences of Indian
PoWs interned in German prison camps during World War I. It examines
how World War experience was endowed with meaning, translated
into patterns of social agency, and transported back to South
Asia. Meaning was generated in a transterritorial production process
that was both structured and conflictual as a result of the various
and disparate interests involved. Military, government and academic
circles of the warring states, as well as exiled intellectuals
from South Asia found themselves confronted in their efforts with
flexible and often countervailing patterns of interpretation –
patterns that were derived by prisoners of war from their mainly
rural context of origin. The project aims at identifying the categories
(such as religion, ethnicity, nation, Empire, and class), topoi,
and contradictions pertaining to this process of making sense
of World War I.
The First World War in Indian public spheres: from perception
of war to the reconfiguration of identities, world views and world
orders
Dr. Heike
Liebau
Concentrating on the Indian perception and experience of World
War I, the project investigates their representation and interpretation
in different public spheres. It focuses on the two central aspects
of how the implications of war events influenced Indian views
of the British Empire world order and “Western Civilization”;
and how these processes changed religious, cultural and political
self-perceptions among a wide spectrum of educated Indians. The
position of Indian intellectuals from different social and political
backgrounds is the key research interest. The project aims to
contrast the debate among the English-speaking elite with the
treatment of war events in the Hindi-speaking public sphere, which
was shaped by “secondary elites” from middle and lower-class
social groups. Another revealing perspective is the analysis of
the war discourse among Indians in North America and Europe. The
research is based on documents produced by the anglicized political
elite as well as on the English mainstream press. Hindi media
used by “secondary elites” and publications by Indian
nationalists exiled in Europe and North America are also investigated.
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