Panels

This panel seeks to bring together researchers working on ‘Adivasis’/’Indigenous Peoples’/ ‘Scheduled Tribes’ in Jharkhand and central India on the one hand, and on Northeast India on the other. Although these communities have been marginalized in national imagination and in academic writings, researchers working in these different spaces have rarely, if ever, been in conversation; both the regions and communities inhabiting these imagined blocks have been studied differently. By bringing together divergent trajectories of historical thinking and exploring the ways in which the two regions and its peoples have been conceptualized, mapped, represented and governed, this panel will explore how comparative and intersecting histories of Jharkhand and Central India and of the Northeast can be written. Approximately 80–100 million people, ‘Adivasis’/‘Indigenous Peoples’/‘tribes’ are categorized as ‘Scheduled Tribes’ under the Indian Constitution. On the basis of their experiences, the geographical spaces inhabited by the Scheduled Tribes have been governed separately under the Fifth and Sixth Schedule. In order to explore how comparative and intersecting histories of these regions can be creatively written, this panel will reflect on the following themes: the history, politics and impact of scheduling both in the colonial and postcolonial period; the interdependence of landscapes and livelihoods that breaks down the binaries of hills/forests and plains, the mobile and the settled; the instability of boundaries and borders created by the state when confronted with everyday practices of communities; the politics of representation and classification that have led to the creation of categories and the idea of the ‘primitive’; the importance of religion in shaping identity; state practices of repression and surveillance in the name of development etc. Panelists are requested to reflect on some of these themes and add others relevant to the panel.

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Riverine, deltaic and coastal areas of South Asia are frequently affected by hydrometeorological hazards such as cyclones, floods and storm surges: these recurring events damage agricultural production and public and private infrastructure. As a result, erosion of the coasts and banks has led to the displacement of many villages. For this panel, we are seeking contributions examining the adaptive strategies deployed by different categories of stakeholders to cope and adapt to hazards. The effectiveness of public management of hazards through structural (extension of embankments, construction of shelters, etc.) and non-structural (awareness raising, support for adaptive strategies, etc.), individual and collective strategies based on agricultural adaptations and agro-ecological technologies used in rice or shrimp farming, nature-based solutions initiatives, coastal or river restoration practices and other alternatives are all being called into question. Overall, we aim to create a site-based knowledge exchange that critically addresses the issue of adaptation by examining power relations between public and private sector actors to highlight the limitations of strategies adaptation. We thus wish to examine the source of the problem that considers the hydrosocial cycle and the social, economic and ecological situations to support sustainable reconstruction in spaces exposed to multiple risks.

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In any social context, food is defined within a structure of sanction and prohibition, inherently linking the idea of edibility with its negation—items that cannot or should not be consumed. We propose the term “non-food” to mark this negative space that delineates the margins of edibility in a society. This panel seeks to explore how South Asian literatures imagine and represent this under-researched liminal zone of non-food and the interplay of desires and anxieties it embodies. By doing so, the panel aims to shed light on the distinctive patterns of food exclusions, inclusions, and validations in South Asia, as well as the unique value systems, economic structures, and ontological philosophies that accompany them. The proposed category of non-food is understood as encompassing matter that is potentially edible but is excluded, penalized, tabooed, restricted, or stigmatized. This labelling may arise from various factors, including dietary laws, character judgments, class and caste dynamics, religious beliefs, ethical or attitudinal standards, processes of modernization, or personal choices. The boundaries of food and non-food are fluid and often influenced by discourses surrounding modernity, puritanism, orthodoxy, and the supremacy of certain traditions over others. Building on the concepts of vibrant matter (Bennett) and the productive power of food (Foucault), this panel views the idea of non-food as an active agent of power shaping ethical values, bodily disciplines, and socio-political relations. Consequently, the rejection or avoidance of certain potentially edible matter transcends its literal meaning, engaging with questions of identity and social divisions. The panel will examine literary representations and testimonies from South Asia that illuminate this power of the idea of non-food in defining the boundaries of edibility and, by extension, one's sense of self-identity and of belonging within society.

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Studies on social movements and the public sphere often presume an inherently democratizing impact. However, empirical evidence suggests that social mobilization and contentious politics have a complex, ambivalent relationship with democracy. On the one hand, they facilitate democracy by promoting accountability and fostering social cohesion by offering citizens space and means to address concerns, advocate for rights and influence public policy. On the other hand, some movements engage in contentious politics, employing tactics such as disinformation, violence, and hate rhetoric, which can undermine democratic norms and exacerbate polarization. This panel explores the multi-faceted and complex roles that non-state actors play in shaping democratic decline and resilience in South Asia. Existing scholarship has predominantly focused on state-centric mechanisms in driving democratic erosion, analyzing how government policies, legal frameworks and institutional practices undermine democratic norms and consolidate power. In contrast, the influence of non-state actors—particularly civil society organizations, religious groups, and social movements— often operating at the intersection of civic engagement and authoritarian resistance remains underexplored. Utilizing a comparative case study approach across South Asia, the panel aims to identify both commonalities and unique variations in how non-state actors shape the democratic landscape, challenging existing generalizations and refining theoretical frameworks. Each paper will analyse specific actors and the mechanisms by which they impact the democratic fabric of their respective states, elucidating the varied and evolving relationships between these actors and the state. By unpacking these intricate dynamics, this interdisciplinary panel seeks to contribute to a deeper understanding of how non-state actors can either bolster or challenge democratic institutions in South Asia. In doing so, it aims to advance broader theoretical discussions on the role non-state actors play in processes of democratization and autocratization.

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This panel would explore anti-caste experiments in cinemas of India by particularly foregrounding figures (filmmakers, artists, and technicians), aesthetic figurations, and the embodiment of technology as experience and practice. Who are the intervening figures in Indian Cinema—its production, representation, distribution, and publicity—against caste as a regime of culture? What are their major contributions towards an anti-caste cinematic experience? How do they engage with caste-gender questions? Do they subscribe to a dominant aesthetic, or do they radicalize? What is the role of technology in its production, dissemination, and reception? Keeping these questions in mind, this panel would examine emancipatory aesthetics at the level of visuals, sound, and haptics through the intervention of technology. While caste works as a cultural norm in many films, it is important to study how film narratives also treat caste as a problem and engage with it. Instead of focusing on the absence and erasure of caste oppressed communities in cinema, it is indeed pertinent to highlight alternative productions by Dalits and other caste oppressed communities which ‘reject the rejection’ (Guru, 2009), offering affective and embodied registers of resistance and engagement. This prompts us to examine not only the representational questions that haunt the present, but also seek answers to the questions on presence in the historical practice of cinema. From early silent cinema to contemporary digital cinema, didn’t cinema as a medium of entertainment and a socio-cultural institution engage with the unsettling questions on caste across forms (documentary, popular films, art films), genres, languages, and cultures in India? This panel would particularly reflect on how filmmakers, artists and technicians (including junior artists, production workers, background dancers and musicians etc.), especially from the caste oppressed locations; negotiate, resist, and break the caste structures of cinematic practice.

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This panel provides a forum for new thinking on the history of constitutionalism in South Asia across the 1947 divide. In particular, this panel seeks to connect recent work on South Asian political thought and intellectual history to new interpretations of constitution-making, the law, and imaginations of the future. The papers thus interrogate both the force of ideas and the contingent ways in which they were put into action in mid 20th century South Asia. In doing so, the panel situates twentieth-century South Asia as a key global site of ideological innovation and constitutional contestation.

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Households in early modern and modern South Asia, either as physical sites or imperial microcosms or as sites of production and reproduction, have usually been treated in relation to power, sovereignty, kingship, domesticity, and patronage. They have largely been pitched in the debates on the contested and changing meanings of the public and the private. Taking this as the point of departure, the panel proposes to shift the usual focus of household in existing historiography and explore how the social construction and experience of time are linked to the changing organization, rhythms, and dynamics of households. Usually, the effects of public institutions on households (including temporality) are assumed rather than historicized. We invite contributions to test these assumptions and also detail how households have alloted, organized, and managed time and how these temporal orders have informed patterns and practices of social, cultural, and economic life. We are therefore interested in foregrounding the interconnectedness of time, space, and social organization within the household across historical periods and cultural contexts. We specifically invite contributions that seek to understand how temporal orders within households have shaped and also been influenced by factors such as market institutions (credit and debt), practices of mobilities (marriage, travel, migration), work (paid and care work), customs and rituals (agrarian cycles, rhythms of auspiciousness), and technological changes (electrification, kitchen gadgets, energy use, piped water supply, and sewage disposal). We further propose that a temporal lens could prove productive to rethink the caste and gendered histories of household and domesticity. Contributions including these concerns and approaches are particularly welcome.

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While much research has focused on how states use the law to reinforce its power and achieve unstated ends, little research has discussed the unintended ways that ordinary citizens utilize the law against each other. To address this gap, this panel focuses on the everyday politics of case-making. In particular, it will consider the widely noted phenomenon of so-called ‘fake cases’ in South Asia, employed systematically in some contexts, whereby citizens file bogus legal cases, not to achieve a favorable verdict but to influence power dynamics or to gain a political advantage. For example, people may begin criminal cases to apply pressure on others, to win an election, resolve long-pending civil cases, force divorce proceedings, or resolve land disputes. We suggest that common narratives of a lack of state capacity or ‘weak state’ are not sufficient to explain why people appeal to the law and state institutions – albeit often in ways not envisioned by lawmakers. By comparing case studies across South Asia, we aim at a deeper theorization of the role of law in the region and how legal gray zones are utilized to pursue political goals in unintended, but often systematic, ways. What role do factors such as gender, class, caste, ethnicity, or political affiliation play in such politics of case-making? To what extent do the dynamics of state law reinforce existing power inequalities? Under what circumstances might the law be used to empower marginalized groups? How do the different actors (e.g., plaintiffs, defendants, police officers, lawyers, judges, and politicians) involved in such ‘fake cases’ view the state and formal law?

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Migration has been a longstanding feature of people in the Bengal Delta. Records of migrating to the adjacent areas in the subcontinent and far away countries in the South Pacific and West Indies islands are available since the British colonial administration in the early 19th century. So, it is unsurprising that Bangladesh – the independent country comprising the largest share of geography and population in the Bengal Delta – has emerged as a significant source of international migration and a top remittances-receiving country in the contemporary world. This session explores migration in South Asia by looking at the Bengal region in general and Bangladesh in particular. While a discussion of the causes and consequences of migration in the Bengal Delta and South Asia will be covered, this session will primarily focus on the non-economic dimensions of migration. Keeping up with the growing interest in understanding migration by going beyond an economist bias, this session invites papers that explore, for example, how the governments in South Asia approach migration, how the native population treats non-citizens (including racialization, discrimination, etc.) in the receiving countries and cities within countries, how migrants experience the state and society in their destination countries, how migrants engage in transnationalism, what role does the media and communication technologies play in shaping migration in this region. Besides the regional focus, this panel invites papers on the positionality of the researchers to understand knowledge production about migration in and from South Asia.

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Recent scholarship on Islamicate South Asia has increasingly understood courts as fundamentally social spaces of both self-assertion and negotiation. This panel builds on this prior work to explore the different layers and forms of connection characterizing courts and courtly spaces in Sultanate and Mughal South Asia. Panelists will explore the creation and reconfiguration of connections between courts with contested and rival claims to vested resources, between imperial and sub-imperial courts, and between courts and a range of political, social, intellectual, and mercantile networks. In tracking these diverse entanglements, the panel will seek to reflect the dynamic and complex enmeshment of courtly spaces with their larger contexts. This will entail considering the many forms courtly connections could take, from mutual exchange and reciprocity to contestation and negotiation to the exertion of force. This panel particularly invites contributions that consider definitions of the court beyond the conventional static locations within the royal palace or camp, through incorporating examination of a variety of settings and practices which could form courtly spaces. It also encourages reevaluating the epistemologies and conceptual frameworks brought to bear in studies of the dynamics of courtly relations, cultural production, and patronage networks. Contributions will in the process reflect on how the specific languages, archives, authorship, intended audience, and genre of the sources both help and hinder modern scholars in reconstructing these linkages.

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