Kavita Puri in conversation with Prof. John Gabriel

As part of the Oral History Society’s In-Dialogue Series, BBC broadcaster Kavita Puri will be discussing challenges and controversies in making the multi-award-winning radio series ‘Three Million’ about the 1943 Bengal Famine.

Date: Tuesday 9 December 2025

Time: 6pm – 7.30pm (Timezone: London, UK)

Location: In person and online

In person at London Metropolitan University, 160-220 Holloway Road, London N7 8DB (TM 3-03 Roding Building)

Online by Zoom video call

Booking information:

This event is free to join but places must be booked in advance by completing this form. Online joining instructions will be distributed before the event by email.

Speakers

Kavita Puri is a multi-award winning journalist, executive producer and author. She has held senior editorial positions in BBC current affairs, and has also presented landmark Radio 4 series including Three Million which won the Best New Podcast at the British Podcast Awards, and was a Times and Guardian Podcast of the Year. She is the author of “Partition Voices” which was based on her Radio 4 series, and was adapted at the Donmar Warehouse. She was the Chair of the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction 2025.

John Gabriel is Chair of the Oral History Society, a member of its ‘In Dialogue’ Steering Committee and Higher Education Special Interest Group. A senior professor of Sociology and one of the founders of the Centre for Life Writing and Oral History at London Metropolitan University, he teaches health ethics and research methods. Since the early 2000s, John has contributed to community oral history projects on refugees, youth in care, industrial decline, and lost trades in Islington. He recently co-led a PhD training course with Jenny Harding and Verusca Calabria. His research interests include racism, pedagogy in higher education, and oral history’s role in capturing diverse lived experiences.

Rumi Dahar (Chair) is a researcher, writer, and oral historian whose work explores spirituality, storytelling, and the politics of belonging among LGBTQIA+ and feminist Muslims. Their doctoral research, Seeking, Being, Becoming: The Spiritual Life Journeys of LGBTQIA+ and Feminist Muslims, uses oral history as a practice of care and co-presence to examine how faith, love, and resistance intertwine in everyday life. Rumi is currently developing this research into two book projects—a scholarly monograph and a trade book—expanding their work on narrative, faith, and lived epistemologies.