Surviving the Pandemic in South Asia

Surviving the Pandemic in South Asia: A Panel Discussion with Anita Patil-Deshmukh, PUKAR; Imran Ahmed, Shakti Foundation, and Usman Javed, Mazdoor Dhaba

On Monday, September 28, at 9 a.m. EDT, the Rutgers South Asian Studies Program is hosting an event on COVID-19 in South Asia, with presentations from NGO leaders working with those most affected by the pandemic. Anita Patil-Deshmukh from PUKAR (Mumbai), Imran Ahmed from the Shakti Foundation (Dhaka), and Usman Jawed from Mazdoor Dhaba (Delhi) will speak, followed by a Q&A session.

For more information, see https://southasia.rutgers.edu/news-events/upcoming-events/eventdetail/88/-/surviving-the-pandemic-in-south-asia.

To register to attend, see http://bit.ly/SurvivingthePandemic-Registration

 

Partha Chatterjee: A Relativist View of the Indian Nation

 

Professor Partha Chatterjee will be speaking as part of the Rutgers AMESALL Distinguished Lecture Series, on Friday, October 09, 2020, at 11:00 a.m. EDT.

Talk abstract: Research in the last three decades on the print literatures in the various Indian languages has revealed that the consciousness of the people as constituting a nation was deeply grounded in the emergence in the 19th and 20th centuries of the regional vernaculars as standardized print languages. But the identity of the people-nation in each region had constituent features that were not the same everywhere. At the same time, the identity of a linguistic community as a people was located within a larger identity of belonging to the Indian nation. This paper argues that while there is a real construct of the Indian nation, it looks different when viewed from the perspective of each regional language. There is no language-neutral perspective available. Hence, one must accept a relativist view of the Indian nation.

For more information, see https://www.amesall.rutgers.edu/news-and-events/events/icalrepeat.detail/2020/10/09/79/-/amesall-distinguished-lecture or contact Prof. Preetha Mani (preetha.mani@rutgers.edu).

A Real Threat to Research and Safety

Any woman* considering dissertation research in India should read Audrey Truschke's recent essay** and take it seriously. As a scholar working in science studies, cultural heritage management, and architectural/landscape history, I've run up against the limits of what can be said without threat of a masculinist Hindutva retaliation. While my personal safety has never been threatened (that I know of), I have certainly done a lot of self-censoring when applying for visas, pursuing certain research topics, and publishing on certain topics. I thought long and hard before publishing my article on Ayodhya, and I had to take multiple deep breaths before publishing an article that undermines the myth of Jaipur as a Hindu city (city plan).

My dissertation research will probably never make it into book form, but that may be just as well, as interpreting Jai Singh's observatories as sites of an exclusively Hindu science is just not possible. Certainly earlier Hindu/Sanskrit texts played a role, especially early in Jai Singh's explorations, but arguably, Islamic and then European texts were more important during the era of design and construction.

I don't know what kind of risk I'd be willing to assume to see my book published. Professionally, I'm not dependent on it for promotion and advancement, so having my book pulped like Wendy Doniger's wouldn't necessarily hurt my career. But it would hurt personally, tremendously, beyond what I could express.

Knowing the problem is the first step: be aware of what's going on. Solving the problem is the second, third, fourth, and fifth step. Men, support your more vulnerable colleagues at home and in the field. Think about how networks that are so valuable to your research may be failing to help your female colleagues. If your voice is being heard, use it for change. Listen to the women with whom you work.

*Really, this warning is for everyone working in South Asian studies, but women, trans, and non-binary people are definitely more at personal risk.

**Thank you to the scholar who shared this essay via the ACSAA network this morning.

LOC South Asian Collections Webinar

Hat-tip to AIIS for sharing information about an upcoming webinar. The Asian Division at the Library of Congress will be offering a free introduction to its South Asian collections on November 21, 2019. ADA accommodations are available.

Direct link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/introduction-to-the-south-asian-collection-webinar-registration-79419218019

Arts of South Asia

Why this book excites me:

Arts of South Asia offers "a collective approach to previously unrecorded histories about how the arts of South Asia were sourced for external appreciation and about a variety of economic, political, and social forces that enabled 'collecting.'" [p1]  While I'm mostly interested in the sections exploring artworks that have been "kidnapped" (authors' word), the book also deals with art that has been produced for "translocal consumers," with local and possibly global circulation in mind.

I'm also intrigued by the chapter on Coomaraswamy, for obvious reasons, but also because he played such a large role in shaping the Indian painting collection at the Boston MFA. 

Arts of South Asia: Cultures of Collecting 
Allysa B. Peyton and Katherine Anne Paul, Editors
University Press of Florida, 2019
ISBN 9781683400479
Hardcover, 296 pages, $65.00

Table of Contents:

Introduction (Allysa B. Peyton & Katherine Anne Paul)

Chapter One: “Relating to a Country So Distant”: Collecting South Asian Arms and Armor at the Tower of London during the Nineteenth Century (Natasha Bennett)

Chapter Two: Objects across Empire The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (Deepali Dewan)

Chapter Three: Colonial Collecting in Ceylon: Dispersing the Hugh Nevill Collections across the British Isles (Sushma Jansari)

Chapter Four: “We Want Quality and Condition”: The Formation of Chester Beatty’s South Asian Manuscripts and Miniatures Collection (Hyder Abbas)

Chapter Five: Collecting with Éclat: Coomaraswamy and the Framing of Indian Art in American Museums  (Brinda Kumar)

Chapter Six: Nasli Heeramaneck: The Consummate Collector and Connoisseur (Pratapaditya Pal)

Chapter Seven: Masterworks of South Asian Art at the Newark Museum: From Missionaries, Merchants, Medical Women and Men (Katherine Anne Paul)

Chapter Eight: Collecting and Curating Indian Art in Southeast Asia The Asian Civilisations Museum and the Indian Heritage Centre, Singapore (Gauri Parimoo Krishnan)

Chapter Nine: Returning “Home”: The Journey and Afterlife of Repatriated Objects (Melody Rod-ari)

Appendix A. Publicly Accessible Collections of South Asian Art outside South Asia

Appendix B. Higher Education Programs for South Asian Studies

Appendix C. Selected Histories of Global Collecting

Hal Gould's Corner

From the website:

"Since 1991, I have been a Visiting Professor of South Asian Studies in the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Prior to this, from 1968 to 1991, I was Professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana; and for a time Director of Asian Studies at this institution. My career in South Asian Studies began as a Fulbright Student to Lucknow University in 1954-55 where, under the tutelage of Professor D N. Majumdar, I conducted anthropological field work in village communities in Faizabad district, not far from the holy city of Ayodhya. Following completion of my doctorate, at Washington University of St. Louis, in 1959, my research and my life have taken me to every corner of India. After a while, the focus of my scholarship shifted to the study of grass-roots political behavior plus commentary and analysis (see my list of publications) on macro-political trends in the South Asian region; in these capacities over the years I have crossed paths with a wide spectrum of Indian politicians and scholars at every level of South Asian society, including four Indian prime ministers. My wife, Ketayun, is a native-born Indian of Parsi-Zoroastrian descent, a research scholar in her own right, who has published widely in the Social Work field and has over the years held numerous positions in academia."

Visit Hal Gould's Corner: South Asia Past, Present and the World

South Asian American Digital Archive

The collections in the South Asia American Digital Archive (SAADA) represent members of the South Asian diaspora who have settled in the United States, including those who trace their heritage to Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the many South Asian diaspora communities across the globe. The digital archives include the collections on Dalip Singh Saund, Early Immigration, Early Student Life, Hindustan Gadar Party, HipHopistan, India Alert, India Forum (California), Indian Emergency, Kerala Catholic Association, Lord of The Universe Society (LOTUS), Reflections on America, South Asian American Voting Youth (SAAVY), and Sudhindra Bose.

LOC Asian Reading Room

From the website of the Library of Congress Asian Reading Room:

"The Asian Reading Room is the primary public access point for researchers seeking to use the Asian collections of the Library of Congress in the many languages of Asia. The reading room covers the area from the South Asian subcontinent and Southeast Asia to China, Japan, Korea, and Mongolia. With over 2.8 million books, periodicals and newspapers, a large number of manuscripts, and electronic media, the collections are the most comprehensive sources of Asian language materials outside of Asia. Area Specialists and Reference Librarians provide in-depth reference assistance on questions concerning Asia."

http://www.loc.gov/rr/asian/

South Asian Pamphlets, 1920-2005

Inventory of the South Asian Pamphlets Collection, 1920-2005 at Duke University Libraries.

Database: Making Britain

A possible helpful web resource from The Open University for those working on South Asian/British nationalism.

"Making Britain: Discover how South Asians Shaped the Nation, 1870-1950"