PaRChA: Pamphlet Repository for Changing Activism

The PaRChA project started to answer a simple question. How to understand Indian activism, its history, and the language their actors developed in last decades without having a close look to their everyday writings? Well, it’s impossible. The initiative, accessible upon free registration is therefore progressively setting up a platform for referencing material on different protest movements in the country. This digital library offers full searchable content to scholars, concerned individuals and activists. The first database released in September 2015 to the general public gathers pamphlets, posters, leaflets, manifestos, reports, letters and press releases produced by students’ organisations in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. The 72430 items (95% published by now) cover the period 1975-2015 and are indexed according to their author (organisational or institutional) and approximate year of release. The idea behind the project is to collect, enlarge, and offer quantitative and qualitative tools of analysis for this printed material through associating scanned images with their related text.