May Day webinar

On 29th April 2023, a webinar was organised by the Department of History, The Bhawanipur Education Society College on May Day and its present context at 2 PM in room no. 547. The lecture was delivered by Prof. Prabhu Prasad Mohapatra, Professor, Department of History, University of Delhi. Prof. Mohapatra has been teaching in the University of Delhi since the last ten years. He specialises in labour history, transnational history, ecological history and has taught courses on economic  history of India, slavery, coolies, and labour in World etc.

The lecture delivered was titled “May Day and it’s history in the present context”. Prof. Debjani Ganguly, the Vice-Principal of Arts department inaugurated the session. She introduced the department and the speaker.

Prof. Mohapatra talked extensively on the dual role played by the nature and industry in laying the foundation of civilization and how the day which is otherwise called the red day, can also be termed as Green Day as it originally was a day that celebrated the change of season and advent of spring. He then went on to talk about the historical significance of the workers ’ protest regarding reduced work hours and better working conditions. Further, he also contextualised May Day and the importance of studying labour history in present Indian context.

The lecture went on for around one and a half hours. It was followed by a question and answer session where four questions were asked to him. The discussion that followed harped on important themes regarding relationship between gender and labour and present internatio nal context of Labour Day.

Around 56 students and 8 faculty members of History department and other faculties from other departments joined the seminar. It was a very interactive webinar.

In the end, Prof. Piu Chatterjee concluded the webinar with the final vote of thanks.