The case of falling walls politics of demolition and preservation in Rampur
The city that merits immediate attention of the Uttar Pradesh Urban Development and Minority Affairs Minister Azam Khan is his own hometown and constituency, Rampur. Alas, this has not been the case; instead we see newspaper headlines about Khan’s plans to demolish walls of the historic Rampur fort (Times News Network: 2013). The erstwhile cultural centre of the city now lies in a deeply neglected condition and deserves conservation, not demolition. Any plans of “beautification” should be centred on preservation of the historic character of the city.
Place of Knowledge: Education and Urban History in Rampur
This paper examines the educational and urban history of Muslims in Rampur from its princely past to its post-colonial present as it moved from the centre to the margin. The paper examines the intertwined histories of the transformation of education and urban inequality and also highlights alternative histories from the ‘Muslim ghetto’, providing an entry point into ‘marginal’ archives and histories. It does so by focusing on trajectories of madrasa education and Urdu print culture and mapping them onto the histories of education and urban inequality in contemporary Rampur.
Continents of Liberty: Emerson and Gerald Vizenor’s Chair of Tears
Ralph Waldo Emerson protested what came to be known as the Trail of Tears in a public letter to President Martin Van Buren in 1838. Th e Cherokee Nation, he argued, had been cheated by a “sham treaty” (Emerson, “Letter” 50), the will of the people ignored, and a false acquiescence to removal written into law. In making a passionate appeal to the highest “chair” of the land, Emerson underscored the great political and moral stakes involved: