Past Imperfect Episode 19: Amrita Shah on Ancestral Journeys Across the Indian Ocean

Past Imperfect Episode 19 features SPJIMR Prof. Dinyar Patel in conversation with Amrita Shah, author of The Other Mohan in Britain’s Indian Ocean Empire. What does Mohanlal Killavala have in common with Mahatma Gandhi? Both men migrated to South Africa. Both men were Gujarati professionals who smarted at racial prejudice in the British Empire, protested against unjust laws, and spent time in jail. There were important dissimilarities, as well—dissimilarities which add nuance to the story of the Indian diaspora. Amrita Shah’s The Other Mohan traces the story of her great-grandfather, Killavala, as he joined thousands of other Indians seeking better opportunities abroad in the early twentieth century. While reconstructing Killavala’s travels, she also tells a much more complex story of how the Indian Ocean knit together so many different people through bonds of labor, political activity, and marriage.