Panels

Dr Jondhale Rahul Hiraman and Dr Sayantan Mondal launched an ambitious research and digitisation project on Dalit Literature in Marathi and Bangla Dalit periodicals which is now being further developed in partnership with Prof. Judith Misrahi-Barak and Dr Nicole Thiara. This project invites one to the unchartered territory of Dalit periodicals and traces the complex relationship some of these periodicals shared with the little magazine movement, especially its innovative production-circulation strategies and disruptive energy that challenged the mainstream literary status quo. What prism do these little magazines of the second half of the 20th c. offer for reading 21st c. India? Why is it crucial that they should be preserved and why is this not only about the preservation of the past but also about the salvaging of the future? Why should Western societies and cultures be committed to the project? Additionally to raising such questions, this panel introduces the wider project and focuses on four distinct new areas of research: Dr Jondhale Rahul Hiraman will present on ‘Marathi Dalit Periodicals and the representation of the Caste Question’. Dr Sayantan Mondal presents: ‘Recovering the Ephemeral: Production and Circulation of Bangla Dalit Periodicals’. Dr C. Chandra Sekhar will explore ‘Echoes of Change: Dalit Contributions to Christian Periodicals in Colonial Telugu India’. Dr J. Balasubramaniam will discuss ‘Unfurling Voices: The Role of Tamil Dalit Print Media from 1869 to 1970 in Shaping Public Discourse and Modern Identities’ We also invite paper proposals that critically engage with the under-researched area of Dalit Periodicals within the broad research field of Dalit Studies.

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This panel delves into the critical dimensions of governance and politics in Bangladesh, examining transformations driven by endogenous mechanisms and ideational shifts. Dr. Mohit Ul Alam’s paper on the student quota reform movement elucidates the historical and ideological complexities of state policies, particularly the contentious reservation system for descendants of 1971 Liberation War veterans. Alam contends that despite judicial reforms, the ruling party’s use of force to suppress protests underscores broader struggles over political dominance and ideological control. Dr. Md. Manzoorul Kibria’s research on the Halda River highlights the socio-political ramifications of water governance, illustrating how corruption, environmental mismanagement, and local activism influence ecological sustainability. His study provides insights into the roles of government agencies, local communities, and NGOs in addressing the threats to one of Bangladesh’s key ecological resources. Rajib Nandy’s exploration of mobile journalism (MoJo) investigates how digital technologies are transforming news production and dissemination in Bangladesh. While MoJo empowers citizen journalists and facilitates real-time reporting, Nandy identifies infrastructural deficiencies and ethical concerns that hinder its full potential. Finally, Dr. ASM Mostafizur Rahman’s paper presents a historical institutional analysis of Bangladesh’s socio-economic transformations. Rahman challenges conventional theories of exogenous donor-driven pressure, arguing that policy learning and ideational shifts within the state have been pivotal in Bangladesh’s globalization through the garment industry. Collectively, these papers explore the multifaceted challenges of governance in Bangladesh, from higher education to environment, media, and industry. The panel offers a nuanced understanding of how societal forces and governance structures interact with endogenous pressures, shaping Bangladesh’s political and economic transformation.

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Muslims in India are currently facing multifaceted challenges, including political and economic marginalization, physical degradation, and attacks on their religious and cultural expressions. This panel endeavors to analyze the character and underlying causes of anti-Muslim violence within the Indian context. Specifically, it seeks to address whether this violence is a consequence of the prevailing political supremacy of Hindutva or if it is animated by the country's political structure and culture. The panel also aims to identify the social and political transformation that the Hindutva regime is producing today. It seeks to identify and evaluate both historical ruptures and continuities represented by this regime. In addressing these inquiries, the panel proposes to uncover and interrogate the epistemologies and strategies that have come to facilitate, justify, and obscure anti-minority violence in India. We invite an investigation of diverse facets such as geographical variations, institutional frameworks encompassing courts and bureaucracies, and social domains including family, community, and religious establishments. We seek to illuminate the discernments of Muslim life experiences and ethical dimensions, with the overarching goal of refining the understanding of Muslim subjectivities to develop theoretical frameworks for comprehending the Indian state, its legal system, and political landscape. Additionally, the panel invites papers that deliberate on narratives of resistance, reparative measures, and reconstruction strategies, and critically evaluate the potential and limitations of existing political discourses—such as those related to citizenship, Islam, and syncretism—on the trajectory of Muslim and minority futures in India. This panel is sponsored by South Asian Muslim Studies Association and presentations will be considered for a publication output.

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Scholars studying agrarian transition in the countries of the global south have discussed the existence of dynamism within agriculture, the possibility of varied solutions to the agrarian question and multiple transition pathways of agrarian change. By spotlighting the economic dynamism and differentiation at work in the rural economy, the panel aims to explore the contemporary processes of agrarian change in South Asia, and the implications of intensifying capitalist development on agrarian lives and livelihoods. The panel seeks an interdisciplinary investigation of the social relations and dynamics of production, property and power in agrarian and labour relations. Restructuring of production and exchange in agriculture and the resultant reconfiguration of the ways in which households reproduce themselves in this part of the world necessitate developing new approaches to studying agrarian change as well as adding new strands of empirical work to unpack the nature of the contemporary agrarian question. Interactions between caste, class, and marginalised communities in the rural, peasant autonomy, deagrarianisation, repeasantisation and emergent patterns of migration, urbanisation and non-farm employment are of particular interest. The panel invites theoretical and empirical papers that discuss the processes and trajectories of agrarian change in South Asia and speak to the problematics of production, accumulation and politics, and welcomes contributions from economists, historians, anthropologists and other related disciplines.

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This panel, that we hope to develop across multiple sections, aims to explore the experiences of political prisoners in colonial and post-colonial South Asia. We are particularly keen to understand the complex interaction between carceral institutions and experiences as reflected in a range of disciplines. We thus hope to make visible those experiences, figures, and relationships of power that have been addressed by scholarship only marginally – if at all. Though often understood as the ultimate site of state-administered power, the seclusion and secrecy of prisons often replicate aspects of the private sphere, therefore existing as a liminal space. On the one hand, abuses of power by agents of the state foster an environment of de-humanising brutality; on the other, prisons see the formation of solidarity networks, coping strategies, and forms of resistance. Scholarship on South Asia has only sparsely focused on questions of political imprisonment, and the elements of control as well as the deviant possibilities within the prison space. Further, these conversations tend to be rooted, and therefore structured around specific disciplines. Since the penal apparatus exists as a space with diverse actors, players, experiences and expressions, this panel wants to initiate an in-depth interdisciplinary conversation around political imprisonment in South Asia. We are interested in exploring the structures political imprisonment, how judicial and administrative classifications shape the prisoners’ experiences, prisoners’ experiences and potentials of resistance shaped inside and outside of the prison, the discourses of empires, nation-states and media –largely, the prison question in South Asia. Categories like class, caste, ethnicity, and gender are some of the windows which will inform our exploration of South Asian political prisoners. Overall, this panel critically enriches the scholarship on South Asian activism, colonial and post-colonial alike, through the discussion of the overlooked yet crucial aspect of political prisoners’ experiences.

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Amidst precipitating socio-political contestations, acute inequalities, glaring gaps in availability of key civic services, increased strain on resources, rising hostilities and marked intolerance of the ‘other’, it becomes critical to pay heed to the myriad negotiations that shape everyday modes of inhabitation and existence for diverse classes and communities within expanding cities. Our sprawling urban centres serve as ready sites, where many of these negotiations play out. At one level, cities offer prospects of economic advancement, upward mobility and improved standards of living. At another, they also engender exclusion and strife. When particular resident groups feel threatened, besieged and cornered within a city, it is not just their lives that are reconfigured, their inhabited urbanscapes are also reoriented. This panel seeks proposals that uncover different experiences of disenfranchisement, exclusion and marginalisation within the urban—be it on the basis of class, caste, gender, ethnicity, religion, community, differential access to infrastructure and technology, or any other reason. Possible methodological approaches may vary to include—primary field survey, data collection, ethnographic work, personal interviews, community engagement, archival exploration, analysis of urban planning and land use patterns, and more. The list is only indicative and not restrictive by any means. We are interested in contributions which deliberate on changing urban landscapes, and the ways in which different resident groups make sense of, negotiate with and respond to these changes. The panel welcomes both contemporary and historical experiences. It invites paper proposals that unpack different modes of inhabiting, navigating, engaging with and laying claims to the urban in South Asia.

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Often described as “India’s first dictatorship” (Jaffrelot and Anil 2020) and “Indian democracy’s darkest hour” (Prakash 2017), the National Emergency (1975 – 1977) is one of the most controversial and debated moments in modern Indian history. Imposed by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the 21 months-long period was marked with suspension of political procedures, civil liberties, media censorship and violation of human rights. The Emergency has left a lingering impact on Indian politics, and its afterlife has been especially scrutinized with reference to the current political landscape and the rhetoric of a “second undeclared emergency” (Ganguly 2024, Prakash 2019). And yet, for decades the Emergency has remained at the margins of the collective memory of India, finding a reflection as a “counter-memory” (Merivirta 2019, Tarlo 2003) primarily through the creative sphere. Since the vast majority of research on the representation of the Emergency focuses on literature, a broader interdisciplinary approach is necessary to fully understand the impact and effect of this period. Therefore, marking 50 years since the beginning of the Emergency, this panel proposes to expand the discussion on representations and memories of the Emergency and its aftermath through various cultural forms. The panel aims to put in dialogue research on how different forms of cultural production and media (including film, television, literature, music, visual culture, performative arts etc.) both from India and the diaspora, have dealt and continue to deal with the long shadow of this traumatic period of modern Indian political history, as well as its impact on creative expressions.

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The 1943 Bengal Famine was one of the 20th century’s most calamitous man-made events, resulting from hoarding, resource extraction and unchecked inflation during the Second World War. Rice harvests that had sustained the population were in part appropriated by the British during the Second World War, leaving no provision for local needs. Rice stocks and local boats - crucial for transporting food from one part of rural Bengal to the other - were destroyed. Bengal’s economy could not withstand the immense pressures placed upon it and collapsed. The famine then echoed an image of a region unable to provide for, or care for itself, when in fact this was the product of disastrous colonial mismanagement. This panel brings together scholars working on the famine from a cultural and labour history lens. Diya Gupta’s research on photographs and wartime censored letters on the famine from the colonial archive speaks productively to Urvi Khaitan’s examination of the lives of rural women affected by famine, which made them turn to hazardous working conditions in coal mines by day and sex work by night. Artist and activist Sujatro Ghosh and curator Sona Datta consider the process of transforming academic research into creative remembrance through artwork and soundscapes, while BBC presenter Kavita Puri reflects on her latest Orwell-Prize nominated Radio 4 podcast series ‘Three Million’ to understand the legacies of the famine today in the UK. The panel, then, brings together a diverse range of perspectives on the famine, both from South Asia itself and from researchers and practitioners based in the UK, and examines how each can engage in fruitful dialogue with the other to generate fresh layers of meaning, and shed new light on private and collective memory.

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This panel examines three sets of trials spread out over different time periods and contexts but ones with larger historiographical connections. The first paper by William Pinch is on the infamous parliamentary impeachment trial of Warren Hastings (1788-1795) which scrutinized the actions taken by him as Governor General in India in the 1770s and ‘80s that were deemed not only criminal but tyrannical and immoral—and, hence, unbefitting a Briton—by his Whig accusers, especially the philosophically inclined Edmund Burke. The second paper by Aparna Vaidik examines the history of the revolutionary conspiracy case trial - the Lahore Conspiracy Case (1929-1931). Set in British India the trial lit up the nationalist night sky for three years and continued to reverberate in the public memory thereafter. The third paper by Shalini Sharma examines the caste-discrimination case in California, USA 2000 of Lakireddy Bali Reddy, the wealthiest individual landlord in the city of California who was sentenced to 97 years in jail (he served 7) for trafficking 99 Indian nationals into the United States using false visas and sexually abusing minors. These three trials are very different in their function and affect. They are separated by 300 years, center around three contrasting sets of historical actors and presided in three different jurisdictions. Yet they all are remembered, not for the complex legal issues that arise in the trials but for how they contribute to conventional narratives of what was deemed to be quintessentially ‘Indian’ or ‘Oriental’- the political asceticism embodied in Gita, the caste system or the idea of a mendacious native.

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Defining indigeneity in India is rife with terminological confusion. There is no universal definition. An apocalypse like colonization- central to the definition of indigeneity in other parts of the world- cannot be applied to South Asia. As Virginius Xaxa argues, what temporal disjuncture marks the beginning of indigeneity in the unique South Asian context of ceaseless migrations? Further, anthropologists, historians, art historians, cultural and performance studies scholars, and scholars of literature have attempted to ask how disciplines have variously subjugated the indigenous groups. In such a scenario, a move beyond is imperative- a discussion of Adivasi empowerment and resistance in the face of continuing disenfranchisement is helpful. We are interested in how performance, storytelling, art across media, and literature have been strategized by indigenous communities and individuals to stake a subversive claim in the national cultural discourse. Our panel is intentionally broad, keeping in mind the breadth of a subject like Indigenous art, performance, and storytelling in India. As indigenous including Adivasi art and cultural productions are increasingly appropriated and adapted, interlocked binaries are at play- art/craft, art/ ritual, rural/urban, classical/folk, folk/tribal. The artist and their art must negotiate with multiple forces –colonialism, casteism, religious nationalism, to name a prominent few– to render themselves audible. We welcome paper proposals that discuss indigenous storytelling and performance, including literature and culture. This panel seeks to understand how indigenous groups communities and individuals are mobilizing their art and context to intervene in the limiting discourse of Indian indigeneity. We invite paper proposals to consider how indigenous art and performance practices intervene in the praxis of aesthetics.

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