Remembering Air India

The Art of Public Mourning

Edited by Chandrima Chakraborty, Amber Dean, Angela Failler
Contributions by Cassel Busse, Rita Kaur Dhamoon, Teresa Hubel, Suvir Kaul, Elan Marchinko, Uma Parameswaran, Sherene Razack, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Maya Seshia, Karen Sharma, and Padma Viswanathan
Categories: Literature & Language Studies, Literary Criticism, Social Sciences, Race & Ethnicity, Racism & Discrimination, Art & Performance Studies, Art
Publisher: University of Alberta Press
Paperback : 9781772122596, 360 pages, June 2017
Ebook (PDF) : 9781772123111, 320 pages, June 2017
Ebook (EPUB) : 9781772126495, 320 pages, September 2022
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Table of contents

Acknowledgements

The Art of Public Mourning / An Introduction // CHANDRIMA CHAKRABORTY, AMBER DEAN & ANGELA FAILLER

Remembering in Relation
Remembering in Relation: The Air India and Komagata Maru Disasters // AMBER DEAN
On the Shores of the Irish Sea // UMA PARAMESWARAN
The Ever After of Ashwin Rao (excerpt) // PADMA VISWANATHAN
Remembering across Place and Time: The Komagata Maru and Air India // RITA KAUR DHAMOON

A Nation Outside of History
From Foreign to Canadian: Air India and the Ongoing Denial of Racism // MAYA SESHIA
The Impact of Systemic Racism on Canada’s Pre-Bombing Threat Assessment and Post-Bombing Response to the Air India Bombings // SHERENE H . RAZACK
Courtroom 1 from the Flight 182 Series // DEON VENTER
In the Vestibule of the Nation // SHERENE H . RAZACK

The Political Apology
Politics of (Im)moderation: The Production of South Asian Identities in the Canadian Apology for Air India Flight // CASSEL BUSSE
Statement by the Prime Minister of Canada at the Commemoration Ceremony for the 25th Anniversary of the Air India Flight 182 Atrocity // PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA
The Canadian Government’s Apology to the Victims and Families of Air India Flight 182 // KAREN SHARMA

Creative Archive
Mediating Memories of the 1985 Air India Bombings: A Critical Dance with Lata Pada’s Revealed by Fire // ELAN MARCHINKO
Revealed by Fire: Artist Statement // LATA PADA
An Invocation Dance for Lata // UMA PARAMESWARAN
An Ethics of Remembering: Air India 182 and Its Creative Archive // TERE SAHUBEL

Personal Loss, Collective Grief
Model Mourning, Multiculturalism, and the Air India Tragedy // CHANDRIMA CHAKRABORTY
The Management of Grief // BHARATI MUKHERJEE
Desperately Seeking Helen: Film Synopsis // EISHA MARJARA
air india, unsent / letters from the archive // RENÉE SAROJINI SAKLIKAR
“Courting Aphasia, We Travel” // SUVIR KAUL

Contributors
Index

Description

On June 23, 1985, the bombing of Air India Flight 182 killed 329 people, most of them Canadians. Today this pivotal event in Canada’s history is hazily remembered, yet certain interests have shaped how the tragedy is woven into public memory, and even exploited to advance a strategic national narrative. Remembering Air India insists that we “remember Air India otherwise.” This collection investigates the Air India bombing and its implications for current debates about racism, terrorism, and citizenship. Drawing together academic analysis, testimony, visual arts, and creative writing, this innovative volume tenders a new public record of the bombing, one that shows how important creative responses are for deepening our understanding of the event and its aftermath.

Contributions by: Cassel Busse, Chandrima Chakraborty, Amber Dean, Rita Kaur Dhamoon, Angela Failler, Teresa Hubel, Suvir Kaul, Elan Marchinko, Eisha Marjara, Bharati Mukherjee, Lata Pada, Uma Parameswaran, Sherene H. Razack, Renée Sarojini Saklikar, Maya Seshia, Karen Sharma, Deon Venter, Padma Viswanathan

Awards

  • Alcuin Society Awards for Excellence in Book Design in Canada (Second, Prose Nonfiction) 2018
  • Winner, AUP Book, Jacket & Journal Show, Book – Scholarly Typographic 2018

Reviews

"[Remembering Air India] is an important book. It explores, through a number of essays, poems and excerpts from the public record, a question that should haunt us all still: why has this terrible disaster been relegated to the very margins of public memory?... The focus of this book is not just on a failure of surveillance, policing, intelligence or the court system. Its theme is a wider, and painful, reality: the failure to embrace the Air India bombing and its aftermath as our own....” [Full review at http://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2017/06/a-tragedy-of-our-own/]

- Bob Rae

"Remembering Air India underscores the profound need for acknowledgement, especially after trauma... This acknowledgement, the book suggests, involves open-endedness rather than quick resolution, a commitment to memory as 'difficult return,' and a willingness to see rather than cover up histories of racism."

- Tracy Whalen, TOPIA, September 2021

"As a testimony to how the cultural landscape of the world is constantly in flux, Remembering Air India shows how no act of terrorism exists in isolation and may have consequences even after decades have passed. [This collection reclaims] an incident that was neglected from public conversation for the longest time."

- Shraddha A. Singh

"Another standout for its typography, which is pleasing at a glance and impressive on closer inspection. The complex content is demanding, and the solutions are elegant, displaying sensitivity to the subject and cohesiveness while connecting the many structural elements of the page."

- Jury Comments

"When 329 people, mostly Canadians, perished at sea in the 1985 Air India bombing, there was ... no mass public mourning. The only memorial was in County Cork, Ireland, near the spot where Flight 182 took whole families to their death. Few Canadians recall the year this mass murder occurred. The victims were modest people of ordinary means and little public profile. Would it have been different if 329 bankers died, or 329 tennis players? Of course. Would it have been different if 329 white Christians died? Remembering Air India answers this last, jarring question.... Remembering Air India is a poignant postmortem on memory and culture." [Full article at https://www.blacklocks.ca/review-329-hearts/]

- Holly Doan