Panels

Abolitionist feminisms teach us to not depend on the logics or the institutional structures of the carceral state to keep us safe; and instead to build networks of care, solidarity, accountability to protect ourselves and one another. In this panel, we reflect on building these networks in the midst of increasing nationalist, transnationalist, and imperialist violence in South Asia. These racialized and gendered violences take legal and extra-legal forms – from extrajudicial abductions and lynchings to legalized deportation, citizenship statutes, sedition charges and loss of employment, inflicting psychic, economic, epistemic, and relational harm. In this panel, we draw on our experiences as both feminist academics and activists researching authoritarian violence and locate moments of emergence within protests and social movements in South Asia that are either fleeting in nature or more enduring. We invite case studies of recent protests and social movements from Pakistan, India, Kashmir, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. We invite panelists to ask how these movements might reimagine what is possible by theorizing people’s capacity to exercise their creativity and create new kinds of egalitarian politics, precisely at the moment when increasingly authoritarian and fascist regimes seek to shut them down. Then, shifting our gaze from the movements that we study to our own movements inside and outside the field, we reflect on our own practice as academics from the Global North to the South, and what it might mean to nurture our solidarities beyond their moment of emergence.

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Di􀆯erent aspects of sexual and gender diversity in South Asia have garnered increasing attention from a range of actors in recent years, including LGBTIQA+ activists and community members, academics from disparate disciplines, literary writers, journalists and filmmakers, and artists. An emerging theme from these various analytical and disciplinary lenses is the recourse to cultural heritage and contemporary cultural practices, often referencing a recorded or imagined past that reflects a diversity-friendly attitude. Historical or cultural precedents may support contemporary non-binary, non-heterosexual identities, subjectivities, and practices. Such cultural traces may be found in the rich written, material, visual, auditory, verbal, and performative traditions of South Asia. This panel seeks to explore the historical and living cultural heritage of di􀆯erent regional, ethnic, tribal, caste, or religious origins that are or might be engaged in advocacy for South Asia's minoritized sexual and gender diverse communities. Who is engaging them and how, and how are these e􀆯orts and actions received by LGBTIQA+ activists and members of the LGBTIQA+ community, source community members and the public more broadly, and the state? This panel invites contributions from scholars, amongst others, in gender studies, transgender studies, queer studies, history, art history, transcultural studies, heritage studies, literature, religious studies, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, and law, across di􀆯erent regions of South Asia to explore and expand upon such considerations.

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This panel invites papers drawing on empirically grounded socio-legal inquiries into imaginations of decoloniality in South Asia. What does decoloniality mean in the context of everyday regulation and governance? The architecture of India’s governance systems remains heavily influenced by its colonial experience. This panel enquires into reflections on meanings of decoloniality as they evolve through the way people navigate these governance structures. We seek to explore in what forms decoloniality manifests / would manifest for judges, lawyers, and bureaucrats as agents of the state and for teachers, village councils and religious heads as regulatory authorities in different semi-autonomous social fields and for citizens who remain in a continuous relationship with these different state and non-state systems of regulation. This panel seeks to explore the notions of decoloniality as they evolve through governance-in-action. More specifically, this panel invites papers enquiring into: - Decoloniality as a feature in the working of state authorities such as judges, police, commissions and government schools. How does it manifest? Or how do they imagine decoloniality in their respective contexts? - Narratives of decoloniality within spaces of non-state actors such as village councils, mediators, NGOs, religious tribunals and private educational institutions. - Impressions of decoloniality among vulnerable communities, including LGBTQIA++ groups, religious minorities, indigenous communities and individuals that stand at the intersection of all these axes.

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This panel examines the often overlooked continuation of casteism within South Asian diasporic communities globally. As Dr. B.R. Ambedkar noted, "The caste problem is a vast one, both theoretically and practically" (Ambedkar, 1979, p. 6). Recent research shows that caste's divisive constructs such as hierarchy, patriarchy, humiliation, deprivations, exclusions, and economic disparities persist, even as social and temporal contexts change (Waghmore, 2023). One key concern that remains underexplored is how casteism changes and reproduces itself as it crosses national borders, maintaining a dynamic and fluid presence in diasporic communities (Hardtmann, 2023). Moreover, the resistance to casteism and efforts to dismantle caste structures in diasporic communities are similarly understudied (Modi, 2023). Even with their physical distance from South Asia, diasporic communities carry cultural, social, and political legacies, with caste being a significant and contentious element that surfaces at the intersection of host countries and migrant communities (Reddy, 2023). This panel aims to address this research gap by examining how caste discrimination appears and is challenged in new socio-cultural settings. It seeks contributions that explore the (im)material causes and effects of casteism in South Asian diasporic communities and look at the social, cultural, political, and legal paths to freedom from casteist practices and beliefs. Dr. Ambedkar emphasised that "Caste has killed public spirit. Caste has destroyed the sense of public charity" (Ambedkar, 1979, p. 56). By focusing on how casteism moves and changes and how diasporic groups confront it, this panel contributes to broader discussions on caste discrimination and its intersection with race and ethnicity. It emphasises the agency of diasporic communities in handling and redefining their caste identities, contributing to the discourse on migration and transnational identities.

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Literary and performative expressions have been sites of resistance and celebration for the many marginal communities in South Asia. Through genres like oral songs, poetry, short stories, life narratives, and performative cultural practices like plays, rituals, etc., they have attempted to re-present themselves. Their relegated status in terms of caste, gender, religion, language and indigeneity is represented and contested through creative modes of articulations, thereby reshaping their selfhood at both individual and communitarian levels. An important analytical tool in this context is memory, with its capacity to connect past and present and to incorporate diverse materials/mediums. Concepts like “Public Memory” (C. L. Novetzke) and “Cultural Memory” (J. and A. Assmann) have helped us in understanding the communitarian phenomena with newer insights. This panel invites works engaging with the literary and performative expressions of marginal groups in India and South Asia. It brings to the fore and deliberates upon the rich bodies of literature and cultural practices deployed as critical sites of dissent by various individuals and “publics”. We seek to explore the intersectional politics of aforesaid marginals and the way they lead to community formations relying on literary and cultural memories, thereby defying structures of power and repression. We invite papers exploring the following and related themes: 1. Memory as an alternative archive 2. Orality and writing as emancipatory expressions 3. Language hierarchies and contestations 4. Caste and communitarian assertions 5. Indigenous articulations 6. Gender and agency 7. Contesting geospatial imaginaries 8. Devotional/ritualistic practices of the marginal

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While Roman property law continues to inform modern legal systems, its counterpart in classical Hindu jurisprudence (Dharmaśāstra)—which shaped legal practice across premodern Southern Asia—remains primarily the domain of historians and philologists. Despite significant transformations under colonialism, concepts from Indic property theory, such as svāmin (owner), adhikāra (authority), dhana (wealth), bhoga (possession), and svātantrya (independence), have continued to shape vernacular political and religious discourses over time. This panel aims to delineate the historical trajectories and local inflections of this Indic vocabulary of ownership across diverse historical, regional, and linguistic contexts, particularly through the dialectics of scholastic norms and local legal practices. For the purposes of this panel, property is broadly conceived as a discursive field where relationships between people (authority, rights, claims) and between people and their environment (things, places, non-human agents like deities or animals) are negotiated—a process through which fundamental ontological and cultural categories such as personhood, lordship, autonomy, gender, sovereignty, wealth, and objecthood are articulated or produced. The panel invites contributions exploring these embedded notions of property and ownership, engaging with, but not limited to, the following themes: • Theoretical formulations on ownership and property in scholastic traditions such as Mīmāṃsā, Nyāya, or Dharmaśāstra. • Property regimes and documentation in regional legal cultures from the medieval and early modern periods. • The interaction of property theory with socio-economic structures, including household, gender, caste, labor, and religious institutions. • The criteria determining ownership: who is entitled to own, what is considered subject to ownership, and the ideologies underpinning these distinctions. • The transformation of Indic property theories through changing modes of production or encounters with Islamicate or Western legal traditions.

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The objective of this panel is to look at how gender and sexuality are portrayed in postmillennial South Asian graphic novels and comics. With a focus on works created in the past 20 years, it will investigate how modern South Asian graphic storytellers subvert and reimagine sexual identities and conventional gender conventions in the sociocultural setting of the area. Through an analysis of significant texts from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India, this study demonstrates the creative ways in which writers and artists use the visual arts to address problems like gender inequality, LGBTQ+ rights, and identity intersections. The stories examined contribute to a larger conversation on social justice and human rights in South Asia by giving marginalised voices a forum and offering critical criticism on cultural norms. This study underscores the significance of graphic narratives as a powerful tool for advocacy and change, reflecting the dynamic and diverse perspectives of postmillennial South Asian societies.

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This panel examines the processes of Hinduisation and Sanskritisation in the Himalayan region, with a focus on Nepal’s distinct legal and cultural history in contrast to (British) India. It explores the intricate relationship between Brahmanical norms and local customs (deśācāra), particularly through the integration of Hindu legal scriptures (dharmaśāstra). The Himalayan region presents a unique context, where the application of these laws has sparked ongoing scholarly debate about the balance between Dharmaśāstra and indigenous practices. A key focus is the Mulukī Ain (MA) of 1854 CE, Nepal’s first codified legal code introduced by Prime Minister Jaṅga Bahādura Rāṇā. This legal reform sought to enforce Brahmanical norms across Nepal’s diverse communities, including Buddhist and non-Brahmanical groups. It was not only a legal initiative but also a political strategy to solidify Nepal’s identity as a Hindu kingdom and resist external threats, especially from colonial forces. The process of Sanskritisation and Hinduisation served to bring together Nepal’s various cultural groups under a common legal framework while preserving its Hindu ethos. The panel will explore the interaction between state-imposed laws and local traditions, analyzing how these frameworks shaped religious practices, social norms, and community identities in Nepal and the broader Himalayan region, including Tibet. Comparative studies of Nepal, India, and Tibet’s legal histories are encouraged, offering insights into how states with different colonial experiences addressed similar challenges. Scholars are invited to use archival and anthropological methods to investigate these transformations, shedding light on the dynamic relationship between state law and local customs in shaping the legal and cultural landscapes of the Himalayas.

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This panel explores the retelling of stories through theatre and performance in early modern and modern India. We are interested in the analysis of texts, but also of performances of theatre plays or other texts. The retelling of stories in different contexts, forms, languages and genres has been a feature of South Asian literature since ancient times. While preserving traditional stories, this process is also a way of creating new narratives and adapting to new social and cultural concerns. Through translation, adaptation, re-creation, stories are retold, following new idioms, new contexts, adapting again and again. This panel concentrates on how stories are retold within the theatre genre and on the stage. How are classical plays adapted by early modern authors? How are texts and stories performed on a modern stage? How are certain characters given new roles to respond to new concerns? How are heroines recast? We invite papers examining early modern and modern theatre plays. We are particularly interested in the processes of retelling, through translation, reinterpretation, adaptation, reworking of non-theatrical sources, adaptation to the economics of the theatrical genre. We are also interested in the performative adaptation of texts in a broader sense and encourage the analysis of understudied theatre plays. This panel aims to provide a forum for discussion between scholars working on different languages, but also on historical periods that are too often studied in isolation, in an attempt to identify cross-cutting processes of retelling and to contribute to the history of South Asian theatre.

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The panel investigates the multilingual dimension of religious writing in South Asia between 1600 and 1850s CE, challenging the notion of a monolingual archive that confines religious identities to a single linguistic and cultural framework. Thus, it seeks to highlight the diverse, polyvocal nature of religious literature in the region and beyond. Contrary to the view that faith is bound to a single linguistic and cultural community, the multilingual world of early modern South Asia (Orsini 2024) exhibited a vibrant ‘religious marketplace’ (Sheikh 2010), where religious and devotional texts crossed linguistic and cultural boundaries, facilitated by the mobility of religious and intellectual figures (e.g., sheikhs, gurus, sants, jogis). In the Mughal environment, texts were rendered from Sanskrit to Persian and vice versa, as well as into vernaculars (e.g., Brajbhāṣā, Avadhī, Dakhnī, Urdu), as adaptations to cater new audiences. Since the 14th century, Sufis expressed their mystical teachings through vernacular narratives (Digby 1975; Behl 2016), seeking 'equivalence' between their own conceptual repertoires and those of other traditions, rather than proposing direct translations (Stewart 2013). We invite papers examining ways of appropriating any religious text and ideas for distinct linguistic and cultural readerships through adaptation (interlinguistic, intercultural, and intertextual) between ca. 1600 and 1850 CE. We especially welcome studies examining the impact of such adaptations on the transmission and accessibility of texts across multiple genres—devotional poetry, religious narratives, musical compositions, spiritual manuals, and texts with commentaries or interpolations, in both handwritten and printed form. Contributions should emphasize the interplay between languages and religious semantics. The panel encourages approaches from fields such as literature, philology, history, and religious studies to reconsider the multilingual and multicultural dimensions of devotional practice within and beyond South Asia.

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