‘An act of struggle in the present’: History, education and political campaigning by South Asian anti-imperialist activists in Britain

This chapter will explore the importance that South Asian campaigning organisations in Britain placed on understanding the history of anti-racist and anti-imperialist struggle, in developing their organisations and mobilising supporters. It will explore two distinct case studies. First, it will look at the way Asian Youth Movements in cities such as Bradford, Manchester and Sheffield educated their members and supporters about past and ongoing activism both in the UK and abroad during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The second case study will examine the work of the 1857 Committee, established in 2006 to counteract the hegemonic narratives in the UK and India on the 150th anniversary of the 1857 uprising in South Asia. Through these two moments we will reflect on the forms of action that were taken during differing political moments to consider how history has been a) harnessed as a tool through which contemporary campaigns were bolstered and supported; and b) how in moments which appeared quite bleak and in which campaigning work was limited, interrogating and challenging hegemonic histories served as a fulcrum around which progressive South Asian activists rearticulated ideas which challenged religious communal understandings of the past, reaffirmed the value of solidarity between the oppressed and through this process were able to offer a challenge to contemporary imperialist analyses of global events.