About the lecture

In this module, we look at the group of soldiers, ayahs and lascars. In particular, we look at the key questions: (i) How did the lascars, Indian sailors who worked on British merchant ships, contribute to the formation of early Asian communities in Britain?; (ii) What role did Ayas, the Indian nursemaids, play in British households, and how did their employment and sometimes abandonment in Britain reflect the dynamics of Indian-British relations during that period?; (iii) How did the use of Indian soldiers in the British army during World War I reflect the broader implications of colonialism and race relations at the time?; (iv) In what ways did the presence of Indian migrants such as lascars, Ayas, and soldiers influence British perceptions of India and its people during the 19th and early 20th centuries?; and (v) How did missionaries and social organisations contribute to the support of distressed Indian migrants, such as the lascars and Ayas, in Britain during this period?

About the lecturer

Faisal Devji is a Professor of Indian History at the University of Oxford. He specialises in the intellectual history and political thought of modern South Asia as well as in the emergence of Islam as a global category. With this in mind, he has published widely including Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea (Harvard, 2013) and The Impossible Indian: Gandhi and the Temptation of Violence (Harvard, 2012).