3 Must-Follow South Asian History Accounts

This week on #Trending, I thought I'd try something different and tell you about 3 Instagram accounts you have to FOLLOW to stay woke

I grew up in Poland, so most of the history I learned was about Europe and I would hear stories from my grandparents and parents about partition, or about some of the historical figures. Which basically means I have a sense of familiarity, but I could never tell you about a specific period of South Asian history. Not to mention that the history that I've read up on in some shape or form is probably whitewashed.

To initially educate myself, I did what a Gen Z would do - decided to look for content on social media - which is what this week’s piece is inspired by. So without further ado, let me tell you about 3 Must-Follow South Asian history accounts:

Brownhistory

Brownhistory is one of the most followed South Asian history accounts (455K followers) created by Ahsun Zafar. Ahsun runs the account himself and focuses on "South Asian history retold by the vanquished.” The page also has a podcast with the same name that focuses on stories that concentrate on trade, migration, war, slavery, colonization, and more.

Queerbrownhistory

History was taught to us and remembered in a way to reinforce ideas of “in” groups and “out” groups, which means that a lot of community were majorly underrepresented. That’s why I had to give Queerbrownhistory a shoutout! Queerbrownhistory, as the name suggests, is an account that focuses on the curation of South-Asian LGBTQIA+ histories. They also have an amazing highlights section with books, activists, films, and magazines that are LGBTQIA+ linked.

Southafricanindianhistory

As of 2015, South Africa is home to 1.3 million Indians, however, only recently we’ve seen them embrace their history more openly and discuss their origins. Southafricanindianhistory was set up to give an insight into the history of South Africans of Indian origin, which ameliorates that this community's history is so much more than it's association with figures like Mahatma Gandhi.

I was about to wrap up this piece, but then I came across more accounts, which I felt deserved a shout-out so here’s some bonus content if you made it till the end:

Historyofpak

Tales_of_india

1947partition

If you enjoy South Asian history content, here's a piece written by our Feminism Coordinator, Zarina, on South Asian Feminists from History.

That's it for me this week! Join us again next week for some more #Trending content to come out of the diaspora. Here are some links below to keep up-to-date with Pardesi:

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