Department of History & Ethnography

      The department was established in July 2002 as one of the five new post-graduate departments in the university. The department started functioning effectively from 22 July 2002. The department offers courses leading to MA, M.Phil, and PhD Degrees.
      The MA in History covers the major geographical and chronological fields in the discipline ranging from world prehistory to the contemporary period; at the same time emphasis is being laid on Modern Indian History to enable them to demonstrate an understanding of the broad context of human experience as well as a systematic and analytical comprehension of one area of historical concentration. Throughout the two-year M.A. programme, students are comprehensively introduced to the varied themes and methods of reading, writing and interpreting history, and in the final semester, they get to experience a practical approach to history by undertaking individual and group projects.
      The M.Phil/PhD Programme in History aims to train applicants for careers at the highest levels of the historical profession, such as college and university teaching and research. The Programme is aimed to impart research scholars the theories, methods, and techniques of conducting historical research. It also introduces recurring themes and issues in historical writing in time and space which will be invaluable for understanding the multidisciplinary nature of an academic research.

Programmes offered: 

• MA, MPhil, PhD in History
• MA in Tribal Studies and Ethnomedicine

Course structure and syllabus:

• MA in History
• Mphil / PhD in History

1. LCD Projector in classrooms
2. Smart TV in classrooms
3. Book Bank / Students’ reading Room
4. Archives
5. Museum
6. Public History Workshop
7. ICT Room

Gallery

Public history@ Mizoram University

            The introduction of public history as a subject in Mizoram University was informed by the necessity to:

• to create an awareness on preserving and conserving Mizoram’s rich archaeological and documentary heritage;
• to draw various stakeholders together for a meaningful dialogue and engagement;
• to inform government agencies towards the maintenance and implementation of international standards and quality in conservation efforts;
• to draw the public’s interest in the various media of representing the past, and
• to engage people in a constructive, productive, and balanced representation of the past.

      Introduced in 2012, public history has been one of the key course components of the two-year MA Programme in the Department of History and Ethnography, Mizoram University. In fact, the department has the unique distinction of being the first in the country among higher educational institutions to teach public history as a subject(Introduction to Public History in III Semester) with equal emphasis on the conceptual, methodological and practical aspects of the discipline.

     In 2016, the department hosted the world-renowned author on public history Prof. Paul Ashton, University of Technology Sydney as an international faculty in the MHRD-sponsored GIAN programme for a two-week lecture on the methods and techniques of public history.

      In 2017, two courses related to public history were introduced in the MA syllabus, i.e., Project Assignment in Public History and Heritage.

      Together, all the three courses combine theory and practice in the field of public history which is ever more popular and increasingly international in its scope and outlook.

Public history projects and initiatives in the department can be presented as under:           

Fig. 3
Students’ project on Recordkeeping and Maintenance studied the following offices:

1. Directorate of Election, Govt. of Mizoram
2. Directorate of Social Welfare Department(SWD), Aizawl
3. Office of the Directorate, Fire and Emergency Services, Aizawl
4. Fire and Emergency Department, Siaha
5. Civil Hospital, Aizawl
6. Aizawl Theological College Archives

      As indicated above, public history initiatives coming from Mizoram University have largely concentrated on presenting local and community history, heritage, museums, archaeology and archives through TV documentaries, exhibitions, awareness programmes, poster presentations, and workshops. Since 2012, public history has been a huge success looking at students’ interests and reviews of the courses. Having no out-of-classroom and hands-on experience anywhere before, students believed that  history could be ‘done’ with practical methods just like their counterparts in the science departments do in their laboratories. Apart from theoretical trainings, public history courses in Mizoram University have enabled students to enhance their skills through the routine engagement in collaborative work with local communities, stakeholders in the government and NGOs, and media personnel. 

 Public engagement with the past / uses of the past

     In Mizoram, there exists a vibrant culture of public engagement with the past.  The Christian church, local and state-wide social organizations, the electronic and print media, associations and organizations, and interested individuals actively pursue  the past for various reasons. Oral traditions aside, history-writing by the public sometimes takes the form of souvenirs celebrating jubilees – a village or locality turns 100 years from its founding and local leaders or knowledgeable persons would write a book about the history of the place. Similarly, local churches celebrate their jubilees usually by producing a souvenir  that highlight the origin and history of their churches. Such sources provide important information on local and community history.

                Major issues that have actively engaged people and captured the public imagination of the past in Mizoram include narratives of the Rambuai period(20 years of insurgency between 1966 and 1986) and myths, legends, and theories surrounding the Mizos’ historical origins. A big corpus of literature by academics and non-academics alike has spawned on discussions and debates surrounding these issues. The collective memory of people who experienced the tumultuous years of the Rambuai have now become a rich source of history and a site for contentious public history as well. 

        There is yet no university or college in India offering an MA/PhD in public history. Educational training leading to PG Diplomas or Master’s degrees in the broad areas of public history, however, is offered in many institutes. These include archival studies, heritage management, museology, media studies, conservation and preservation, and so on. The ascent of memory studies in the last two decades of the twentieth century has also resulted in a burgeoning of oral history and memory studies in history departments all over the country.

        Historical training in academia in the country still lacks any attempt to engage with the public, although a vast range of media for this purpose now exists. The nature of instructions and research in higher educational institutes still does not allow any room for students, teachers  and researchers to actively participate and engage with others outside of the academy. Traditional(otherwise rigid) educational settings and environment and the lack of disciplinary collaborations in the social sciences and humanities may be a factor. While these infrastructural and institutional deficiency may be cited, at the same time, the lack of acceptance of the subject by historians could also be the deciding force.

     In an ever-increasing interconnected world and in the midst of a digital revolution which has shaped the way we access, write, and represent history, public history has changed the way history is presented and interpreted. It has seen historical communication move away from the nineteenth–century focus on history as a tool for education to transmit new historical knowledge and professional theories to the public.  The ascendancy of social media as public space for communication and sharing information has created a necessity whereby the privileged knowledge of historians or public historians are sought after. With the increasing internationalization of the discipline and its adoption worldwide, the practice of history and the production of historical knowledge are being shaped by the community and the public. The expansion of public history practice in the West has influenced the production and consumption of history.

        History as a subject in India, whether at the national, regional, or local level is often a site of violence and political manoeuvers. It is constantly fraught with discontentment and disparate interpretation, often at the expense of the public. It is in this context that public history education and training needs to be initiated and embraced by the Indian higher education landscape. Public history, thus, can become a site for mediation and wherein a better representation of the past is possible.

• Targets and Achievement: April 2018-Dec 2019