This past week I’ve focused in on doing some closer analysis of India Today. I’ve created posts for issues that I believe are significant because of an article’s topic, author, or the unique nature of the information included in a piece. When appropriate, I have uploaded a corresponding scanned image from the journal. I have paid special attention to India Today‘s editorial column, “As We See It,” which ran in every issue (except one) from January 1941 to September 1944. So far, I have created a table that includes the basic subject of each column as well as the column’s closing sentence, which quite often are very short and pointed. I’m hoping to quantify my analysis, but I’m still figuring out how to go about that process.

I’ve spent some time going further in depth on the leak of Phillips’ report to Drew Pearson. Almost every source I’ve looked at has a variant on who the leakers actually were, and so I’ve created a second timeline post about the affair. I’m planning to do more research on the multiple characters that are identified in the different testimonials, and how the Indian Lobby may have been connected. At this point, I’m thinking of focusing in on the leak for my paper and presentation this semester.  My research has exposed a fair amount of disagreement on the impact of this episode among historians, and I think it would be more engaging for my Common Hour audience to outline a snapshot of the India Lobby in action. Along this point, I’m thinking of outlining my table of contents by year because there is about one major event that I would like to explore from 1941-1945:

• 1941: Introduction: Atlantic Charter and U.S. entry into the war
• 1942: Cripps and Johnson missions; Quit India
• 1942-1943: Phillips mission
• 1944: Pearson leak
• 1945: Conclusion: Mme. Pandit and U.N. San Francisco Conference

This outline would give me chapters roughly 10 pages in length (which may or may not be an appropriate length?). Also, I like the idea of starting my paper with the Atlantic Charter and the ideological background to the Indian issue and U.S. involvement, while concluding with an examination of the “ultimate” Indian ambassador to the U.S. at this time–Mme. Pandit.

At this point, I’m still mulling over the central questions that I hope my project will address. Because I’ve been mostly working on a micro-scale of what the Lobby was actually doing during this time period, I’m not yet comfortable with what the broader, macro-meaning of their actions would be.

Although I was anticipating working with the NAACP microfilm that I had ordered from the Library of Congress this week, when I went to pick it up in the library, the item turned out to be the guide to the microfilm, which I already have access to. I’ve talked with the women in charge of inter-library loan, so hopefully this confusion is resolved and I will be able to look at the microfilm itself in the near future.

I’ve also done some basic reformatting of the blog.