2026-06-27 –, Room 302 (Seats 48)
In the wake of the Nationalist Movement in India at the beginning of the 20th century, Japan emerged as a source of inspiration for Indian freedom activists. However, India’s nationalist struggle for independence in relation to Japan is often understood in terms of overarching and contested globalised ambitions of Pan-Asianism and the political mobilisations under Subhash Chandra Bose. This paper aims to de-centralise the ideological prevalence of Pan-Asianism and reorient emphasis on local correspondences between people of the two nations. By locating microhistorical actors whose visit to Japan reflected their political consciousness and comparative analysis, I have studied under-represented individuals who proved to be influential in the development of infrastructure and educational projects in India, which functioned with the objective of posing a challenge to British intellectual and political hegemony. Through the reading of various overlooked players such as individual travelers, students, women and intellectuals, this study will attempt to develop a profound understanding of transregional encounters in spaces overlooked either by charismatic transnational representatives such as Subhash Chandra Bose or neo-imperialist convergences like Pan-Asianism. At its core, the paper will offer an insight into India and Japan’s discovery of one another as geographical embodiments of anti-imperial forces outside their own territorial boundaries through the eyes of unknown actors. Japan, being a source of inspiration for Indian nationalists resulted in not only inspiring intellectual motivations but provided the impetus for Bengal’s aspirations for a sovereign political conscience as well as industrial growth. Moreover, the presence of lesser known Indian travellers in Indo-Japan political networks suggest strong human to human interactions between non-state agencies as well as the development of independent political consciousness, connecting micro-historical figures in a global network of interactions and solidarity.
Aisheedyuti Roy is a Second Year PhD student in the Department of History at UH Manoa, y in the transnational history of between India and Japan with reference to extraneous influences on the Indian Nationalist Movement. She had completed her Bachelors in History from Loreto College, University of Calcutta, graduating in 2019. After that, she went on to pursue a Masters in History from the University of Delhi, graduating in 2021. Before coming to UH Manoa, she briefly worked as a Social Studies teacher at a school in India. At present, her research interests include transnational history, Indian Nationalist Movement, and transnational Asian pop culture.