The presentation will focus on two of Professor Lakshmi Subramanian's recent writings on music, one focusing on Gandhi and his use of music as a means to augmenting personal discipline for the satyagrahi and to deploying it as a powerful symbol for national imagination, and the other on the active production of music to forge a collective sense of identity by diasporic Indians in South Africa under conditions of Apartheid. In elaborating the arguments put forward in the two books, she will examine the idea of sonic nationalism and its salience for developing a method to study the larger story of sound, music and identity articulations in contemporary times.

Professor Lakshmi Subramanian, Retired Professor of History, CSSSC, Kolkata and BITS Pilani, Goa, has had a long and distinguished research and teaching career. She has worked extensively on India's maritime history as well as business communities. She also writes on Music, Performance and Nationalism and is well known for her 2020 work on Singing Gandhi: Music and Sonic nationalism in India.  Her latest work is India Before the Ambanis: A History of Indian Business, Money, and Economy (Penguin, 2025). She is currently Scholar in Residence, Godrej Archives and continues to teach and research extensively. 

 This talk is mandatory for ARTS340 and ARTS305