Trip to National Museum and Sindh Archives, Karachi

November 15th, 2024: Students from the course Empire to Nation States, and some first-year students visited the National Museum and Sindh Archive. Before the trip, Mr. Akash Datwani from the Sindh Archives was emailed to set aside a selection of documents for the students on India and World War I, Criminal Tribes Act, and colonial laws on Sati.

At the National Museum Ms. Ramsha and Ms. Parmal, Lecturer, Department of SSLA, guided students through the different exhibits displaying objects from Mehrgarh, Indus Valley Civilization, Gandhara Civilization, and the gallery of Islamic manuscripts. Students asked questions about the importance of the objects (tools and pottery on display), their purpose, how they were dated, and how certain artifacts like Islamic coins changed overtime.

Afterwards, the students visited the Sindh Archives, where archivist Akash Datwani demonstrated the processes of documents preservation, binding, and storage. This included an examination of colonial maps of Karachi, which the students studied to identify areas and towns established during that period.

The visit concluded with a tour of the 'newsuem', which was a display of old newspaper and an exploration of the documents in the record room. This allowed students to gain insights into what an official archive is and the process of studying an archive material.