University to digitise India’s post-partition heritage

More than 20,000 objects from a collection in Mumbai, India will be digitised

A university is set to preserve digitally more than 20,000 pictures, prints and documents from the post-partition period in India.

Led by Coventry University, two decades of India's history, from 1947, will be digitised from a collection housed at Hamilton Studios in Mumbai.

The collection contains more than 600,000 objects from nearly a 100 years of Indian heritage - including partition, which ended two centuries of British colonial rule and divided the subcontinent into two separate nations: India and Pakistan.

The project will specifically preserve items - including passport photographs and invoices - for the period up to 1967.

The collection will focus on the two decades in India post-partition

The collection also includes film negatives, test prints, and legal documents.

The project was inspired by Coventry Digital - an online archive of the city containing more than 70,000 local images, videos and documents.

Ben Kyneswood, professor at Coventry University’s Research Centre for Creative Economies, will collaborate with Hamilton Studios to digitise the images.

He said: "The success of Coventry Digital has demonstrated the power of digital technology in preserving and sharing cultural narratives.

"I am eager to extend this legacy to the preservation of India's cultural heritage, ensuring that future generations have access to these invaluable historical records."

A university spokesperson said the archive will aim to capture migration stories to "bridge historical divides, foster cultural preservation and illuminate how the partition continues to shape the stories of India and its people."