Dr Markus Daechsel of Royal Holloway, London, investigates urban development work in Pakistan in the 1950s and 1960s.

Rohit De of Cambridge University's Centre for History and Economics examines the constitutional contest between officials of the Indian state, welfare workers and prostitutes in the 1950s and 1960s.

Dr Pippa Virdee of De Montfort University, charts aspects of the recent history of Pakistan by examining the attitudes, culture and fortunes of the national airline.

Louise Tillin, from King's College, London, examines the relationship between politics and the provision of welfare in two Indian states.

Professor Robinson investigates the expansion and globalisation of the Muslim world by examining folk tales, astrology, astronomy, commodities and trade and the increasing interaction of the Muslim world with modernity.

Justin Jones discusses the role of Islamic courts in the 1920s and 1930s, examining the ways in which the courts maintained their relevance and influence in the face of the growing importance of the state courts in the national legal system. He argues that Islamic courts were able, contrary to established belief, to remain important in personal law, offering Muslim Indians, and particularly women, options when facing a personal legal dispute.

Dr Kumarasingham presented a paper detailing the different discussions between the British government and the soon-to-be-independent South Asian colonies, and how practical considerations led South Asian countries to seek Dominion status as an important stepping stone on the way to full independence.

Professor Kwon spoke of the often-neglected links between South Asia and South East Asia, in relation to the Cold War and post-colonial periods, arguing how we must understand the Cold War within a global history.

In the first South Asian Studies Seminar paper of Michaelmas 2013, Dr Harald Fischer-Tiné of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, presented a paper which illuminated the life of the ‘unknown patriot’, whose legacy, and exile in London, Paris and Geneva from 1897 until 1930, has been re-examined and venerated in recent years, with various political and regionalist motivations. Dr Fischer-Tiné spoke of the emergence of transnational anti-colonial networks, and of Krishnavarma’s distinctly un-Gandhian approach to the freedom struggle, which has recently been memorialised in Gujarat with a remarkable, full-size replica of ‘India House’ – the Victorian North London townhouse which served as a hostel for patriotic Indian students in the early 20th century.

Behroze Gandhy, independent film-maker and critic, presents a discussion and screening of films by three Indian artists: M.F. Hussain, Tyeb Mehta and Akbar Padamsee. The sections of the seminar where the films were being screened have been removed from this audio file.