Photographing Civil Disobedience
Mapin Publishing
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Photographing Civil Disobedience
Bombay 1930–1931
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“…its excellent companion volume Photographing Civil Disobedience: Bombay 1930-31 (Mapin Publishing), edited by Avrati Bhatnagar and Sumathi Ramaswamy.” —Vivek Menezes, Mumbai Mirror
Photographing Civil Disobedience: Bombay, 1930–31 brings together an interdisciplinary conversation around a rare collection of documentary photographs compiled in a historical album titled Collections of Photographs of Old Congress Party—K.L. Nursey, held in the Alkazi Collection of Photography, New Delhi. The album features 245 black-and-white images that capture the extraordinary history of the Civil Disobedience Movement in Bombay (now Mumbai), when the city’s cosmopolitan streets came alive with anticolonial protests, processions, and propaganda. The essays in the volume engage with this remarkable visual archive to analyze and make visible the varied historical processes that animated and informed disobedient action and nationalist politics in colonial Bombay in the 1930s—from the leading role played by the desh sevikas, members of a nationalist women’s organization, to the violent crackdown of police lathis on non-violent demonstrators.
Photographing Civil Disobedience shows that anticolonial action in the city was deeply embedded in its urbanized social, cultural, and economic milieu, and dictated by the politics of gender. Moving the lens of analysis away from prominent leaders of the movement, the essays focus on the sea of ordinary people participating in public events and turning the streets of Bombay into sites of anticolonial and nationalist assertion as captured on camera. This remarkable visual history of radical collective disobedience, resistance and revolution centered on the power of the photograph will be of interest to scholars of gender and women’s studies, urban studies, screen and visual studies, consumer history, as well as the material history of colonial India.
Published in association with The Alkazi Collection of Photography, New Delhi
Exhibition: ‘Disobedient Subjects:
Bombay, 1930-1931’
at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj
Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai,
from 12 Oct. 2025 to 14 Apr. 2026
Photographing Civil Disobedience shows that anticolonial action in the city was deeply embedded in its urbanized social, cultural, and economic milieu, and dictated by the politics of gender. Moving the lens of analysis away from prominent leaders of the movement, the essays focus on the sea of ordinary people participating in public events and turning the streets of Bombay into sites of anticolonial and nationalist assertion as captured on camera. This remarkable visual history of radical collective disobedience, resistance and revolution centered on the power of the photograph will be of interest to scholars of gender and women’s studies, urban studies, screen and visual studies, consumer history, as well as the material history of colonial India.
Published in association with The Alkazi Collection of Photography, New Delhi
Exhibition: ‘Disobedient Subjects:
Bombay, 1930-1931’
at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj
Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai,
from 12 Oct. 2025 to 14 Apr. 2026
Preeti Chopra is Professor of Modern Architecture, Urban History and Visual Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Debashree Mukherjee is Associate Professor, Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies and co-director of the Center for Comparative Media at Columbia University. Dinyar Patel is Associate Professor of History at the S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research in Mumbai. Murali Ranganathan is an unaffiliated scholar who researches 19th-century South Asia with a special focus on Mumbai and western India. Abigail McGowan is Professor of History at the University of Vermont. Kama Maclean holds the Chair of History in the South Asia Institute at the University of Heidelberg, Germany.
X
Acknowledgements and Dedication
Preface
Rahaab Allana
Introduction: Words of Light in Disobedient Bombay Avrati Bhatnagar and Sumathi Ramaswamy
The Stages of a Disobedient Bombay
Preeti Chopra
Visualizing the Urban Crowd: Political Spectatorship in the Age of Cinema
Debashree Mukherjee
From Profits and Patriotism to Gandhian Austerity: Transformations in Bombay’s Swadeshi Landscape
Dinyar Patel
Salt of the City
Sumathi Ramaswamy
The Suburban Congresswoman
Murali Ranganathan
Boycotting Women: The Street Politics of Consumer Activism in Bombay, 1930–1931
Abigail McGowan
Patrolling the Streets of Disobedience in Bombay
Avrati Bhatnagar
“Noisy” Photographs: Listening to Images from the Civil Disobedience Movement in Bombay
Kama Maclean
For Further Reading
Preface
Rahaab Allana
Introduction: Words of Light in Disobedient Bombay Avrati Bhatnagar and Sumathi Ramaswamy
The Stages of a Disobedient Bombay
Preeti Chopra
Visualizing the Urban Crowd: Political Spectatorship in the Age of Cinema
Debashree Mukherjee
From Profits and Patriotism to Gandhian Austerity: Transformations in Bombay’s Swadeshi Landscape
Dinyar Patel
Salt of the City
Sumathi Ramaswamy
The Suburban Congresswoman
Murali Ranganathan
Boycotting Women: The Street Politics of Consumer Activism in Bombay, 1930–1931
Abigail McGowan
Patrolling the Streets of Disobedience in Bombay
Avrati Bhatnagar
“Noisy” Photographs: Listening to Images from the Civil Disobedience Movement in Bombay
Kama Maclean
For Further Reading
| ISBN | 9789394501959 |
| Pages | 264 |
| Number of illustrations | 150 |
| Size | 8.2 x 10.5” (208 x 267 mm) |
| Date of Publishing | 15/10/2025 |
| Language(s) | English |
| Co-publisher(s) | Mapin Publishing |
| Rights Available | World rights |
“... a new book, Photographing Civil Disobedience: Bombay 1930-1931 (Mapin Publishing), edited by scholars and historians Sumathi Ramaswamy and Avrati Bhatnagar, tells a different story: that it was in fact the people of Bombay, who animated the movement which, in turn,made Gandhi globally famous.” —Jane Borges, Mumbai Mirror
“In tandem with the exhibition, it (Photographing Civil Disobedience) offers a unique perspective on the average Mumbai citizen as a disruptor for positive change. An inspirational legacy that remains relevant today.” —Priya Pathiyan, India Today
"...approaching the colonial metropolis as a dynamic catalyst of nationalist campaigns, the book helps us rethink the spatial and social dimensions of anticolonial politics in urban settings, making it essential reading for scholars and enthusiasts of Indian history, visual culture, and urban and gender studies." —Robert Rahman Raman, The India Forum
“This book is a precious tribute both by an unknown character KL Nursey whose persona remains a mystery and the Alkazi Collection of Photography, towards the memorializing of a very important chapter of India’s Independence movement. It serves as an important document to the academic as well as the aficionado looking into the image culture of India’s Independence movement.” —Sohail Akbar, Book Review
“These images chronicle marches, arrests, and moments of collective defiance that animated India’s struggle for freedom. Beyond their historical resonance, the photographs reveal how visual storytelling itself became an act of resistance.” —Reader’s Digest
"A remarkable visual archive shines a spotlight on the extraordinary history of the Civil Disobedience Movement in Bombay" —Tribune
“In tandem with the exhibition, it (Photographing Civil Disobedience) offers a unique perspective on the average Mumbai citizen as a disruptor for positive change. An inspirational legacy that remains relevant today.” —Priya Pathiyan, India Today
"...approaching the colonial metropolis as a dynamic catalyst of nationalist campaigns, the book helps us rethink the spatial and social dimensions of anticolonial politics in urban settings, making it essential reading for scholars and enthusiasts of Indian history, visual culture, and urban and gender studies." —Robert Rahman Raman, The India Forum
“This book is a precious tribute both by an unknown character KL Nursey whose persona remains a mystery and the Alkazi Collection of Photography, towards the memorializing of a very important chapter of India’s Independence movement. It serves as an important document to the academic as well as the aficionado looking into the image culture of India’s Independence movement.” —Sohail Akbar, Book Review
“These images chronicle marches, arrests, and moments of collective defiance that animated India’s struggle for freedom. Beyond their historical resonance, the photographs reveal how visual storytelling itself became an act of resistance.” —Reader’s Digest
"A remarkable visual archive shines a spotlight on the extraordinary history of the Civil Disobedience Movement in Bombay" —Tribune