“Disobedient Subjects: Bombay 1930–31” Opens at CDS on October 30

Photography exhibition explores civil disobedience, anticolonial resistance and the power of visual documentation.

Graphic with two women marching in Bombay with independence flag.

 

Durham, NC – Duke Center for Documentary Studies (CDS), in collaboration with the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts in New Delhi, presents Disobedient Subjects: Bombay 1930–31, an exhibition of 55 photographs that transport viewers to the heart of India’s Civil Disobedience Movement against British colonial rule. 

The opening reception on Thursday, October 30, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at CDS, features remarks by curators Avrati Bhatnagar, instructor of history and international comparative studies at Duke, and Sumathi Ramaswamy, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of History, along with special guest Rahaab Allana, curator at the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts.

On view from October 30, 2025, through January 19, 2026, the show draws from the Alkazi Collection of Photography’s Collections of Photographs of Old Congress Party — K.L. Nursey. Prints of the album’s carefully preserved photographs, on display for the first time in the U.S., spotlight the contributions of everyday citizens and anticolonial activists in shaping India’s democratic future.
 

Historic photo of a street protest with women in the middle holding banners outside an ornate building.
Women leaders associated with the Indian National Congress, the party leading the charge against British colonial rule, demonstrate in Bombay outside Municipal Corporation Building. Image: K.L. Nursey album, The Alkazi Collection of Photography


“The Nursey Album is a visual testament of the transformation of colonial Bombay into a nationalist city,” says Bhatnagar. “A number of photographs in the album picture some of the most iconic buildings of Bombay, but you see these urban landscapes in a completely new light, you see them against a crowd of people who have descended upon the streets in support of the nationalist cause.”

“The Nursey Album is a visual testament of the transformation of colonial Bombay into a nationalist city.” 

The movement began in April 1930, when Mohandas K. Gandhi defied British law by collecting salt from the seashore — a simple but radical act that challenged the colonial monopoly on a vital resource and sparked mass protests across India. In Bombay, today’s Mumbai, thousands of citizens joined in parades, protests and processions, and in illicit salt-making along the seashore.
 

Historical photograph of a British colonial police officer arresting an Indian protester at a railway yard while other officers and onlookers stand nearby.
A British colonial police officer arrests a protestor for illegally making salt at Wadala, on the coast of Bombay. Image: K.L. Nursey album, The Alkazi Collection of Photography


The exhibition explores the role of women, particularly the desh sevikas (“handmaids of the nation”), who organized pickets of foreign cloth merchants and liquor shops and promoted khadi (homespun cotton cloth), while willingly facing arrests and police violence. The photographs capture these women in action — as strategic, courageous and unrelenting agents of change.

Ramaswamy reflects on the power of the medium itself, noting, “The camera was a very effective colonizing technology. It shored up conquest, and it was a technology that enabled command and also contributed to control of the people. So why did the British allow the camera to circulate widely and fall into the hands of the ‘native’?”

“Why did the British allow the camera to circulate widely and fall into the hands of the ‘native’?”

As the unknown photographer(s) of the Nursey Album documented the defiant activism of Bombay’s citizens and exposed the darker realities of the empire, notes Ramaswamy, the camera also becomes an anticolonial weapon.
 

Historical photograph of British colonial police using lathis (batons) to disperse a large crowd during a protest.
Colonial police use lathi blows to disperse crowds gathered on Garhwal Day. Image: K.L. Nursey album, The Alkazi Collection of Photography


Accompanying the exhibition is the release of a scholarly volume, 𝘗𝘩𝘰𝘵𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘊𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘭 𝘋𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘣𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦: 𝘉𝘰𝘮𝘣𝘢𝘺 1930–1931, edited by Bhatnagar and Ramaswamy, and published by the Alkazi Collection of Photography in association with Mapin Publishing (2025). The book, which will be on display, combines historical analysis and visual storytelling to reframe this critical chapter in India's struggle for freedom.

The exhibition launches with the public reception on October 30 at CDS, featuring curatorial insights and Bombay style street food from Lime & Lemon Indian Grill & Bar in Durham. It will close on January 19, 2026, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, with a one-day workshop bringing together scholars and artists to examine how visual practices — especially photography — shape, record and reimagine histories of anticolonial and antiauthoritarian resistance.

“These images made almost 100 years ago have a timely and deep resonance.”

Chris Sims, CDS Director and an associate professor of the practice at the Sanford School of Public Policy and in the Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies, says “CDS is honored to be the home in the United States for the first exhibition of this extraordinary collection of photographs. These images made almost 100 years ago have a timely and deep resonance, pointing us to an understanding of protest and disobedience as being both a local and a global act at the same time.”

All events are free and open to all. For more details, visit documentarystudies.duke.edu and the exhibition website.

Exhibition Sponsors and Partners

The exhibition is the result of a deeply interdisciplinary collaboration across Duke and beyond, bringing together historians, artists and scholars with support from:

  • The Alkazi Collection of Photography, New Delhi
  • The Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, New Delhi
  • The Arts and Sciences Council Committee on Faculty Research, Duke University
  • Department of History, Duke University
  • Duke Center for Documentary Studies
  • John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke University
  • The Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation Endowment Fund
  • Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, Duke University.

Additional partners: the Asia Pacific Studies Institute, the Department of African and African American Studies, the Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies, the Office of the Executive Provost, and the Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University.