10/3 ... From Field Notes to National Discourse
By A Draft Correspondent
A month after its limited offline digital release, author and legal commentator Gajanan Khergamker’s E-book 10/3: Exile, Empire And War In The Andamans has now been made publicly accessible online, marking a significant moment in what is being positioned as a long-term intellectual and research endeavour titled Project 10/3.
The work is rooted in Khergamker’s recent stay in the Andaman Islands alongside a diverse cohort of professionals including journalists, environmentalists, researchers, and legal experts. What has emerged is not merely a travel account or documentary narrative, but a textured exploration of the islands as sites of ecological sensitivity, historical depth, and contemporary contestation.
Over the past month, the e-book has travelled through lecture halls, seminar rooms, and discussion forums across India, drawing responses from academia, students, and policy observers. These interactions have shaped the public release, transforming the work into a participatory framework rather than a closed publication.
At its core, 10/3: Exile, Empire And War In The Andamans interrogates the tension between preservation and development. It situates the Andamans within broader national and global conversations on sustainability, indigenous rights, and environmental governance.
One passage reflects this tension starkly:
Development here is not an abstract policy ambition; it is a lived disruption. Every road, every structure, every intervention redraws equations that have existed for centuries.
Another excerpt captures the layered complexity of the islands’ identity:
To document the Andamans is to confront a paradox. The more one observes, the clearer it becomes that visibility itself alters the subject.
The e-book also revisits historical memory, urging readers to reconsider the islands beyond their colonial associations:
Memory in these islands does not rest in monuments alone. It lingers in landscapes, in silences, and in narratives that remain deliberately unrecorded.
With its public release, Project 10/3 now seeks to widen its ambit. The initiative is being positioned as a live, evolving platform that invites collaboration from researchers, institutions, and individuals interested in contributing to a deeper understanding of vulnerable geographies.
Khergamker and The Draft call upon readers not merely to consume the work but to engage with it critically and constructively. The emphasis, they maintain, is on participation over passive readership.
Researchers, institutions, practitioners, students and engaged individuals are called upon to read, question, critique, and contribute. The intent is not passive readership, it's participation.
As the project moves forward, it is expected to incorporate additional field studies, interdisciplinary inputs, and expanded documentation efforts. If the initial month of engagement is any indication, 10/3: Exile, Empire And War In The Andamans may well transition from a singular publication into a sustained intellectual movement.
For now, its online release opens the first public window into a narrative that insists on being revisited, reinterpreted, and collectively examined.
Click here to View/Download the PDF | Email contact@draftcraft.in for queries and to get involved
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