In November 2019 we completed 31 oral history interviews, and added more recordings to our collection. All of these are now on the Swadhinata Trust website, along with summaries of the interviews and recordings, and list of topics covered.
Our collection has been submitted to the BLSA, where various delays, including due to Covid, have meant we are still waiting for everything to be catalogued.
We are now in the process of submitting an application for an event next year at the British Library for the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Bangladesh and celebration of our project.
Earlier in the year we wrote an article about our project that was published in May in Volume 1 of Displaced Voices: A Journal of Migration, Archives and Cultural Heritage. This is a new online journal produced by the Living Refugee Archive.
Ansar has also written articles for Bangla Mirror and Shottobani about two of our younger generation interviewees, Anvita Gupta and Ina Khan.
Due to the lockdown, activity has been quiet over the summer. However, we have recently met with Budhaditya Bhattacharyya, a PhD student at Durham University, who is writing his thesis on the History of Bengali Music in the UK. We look forward very much to further work with him.
Val Harding and Julie Begum
August 2020
