Panels

It is still largely unexplained in scholarship how the now hegemonic view that Advaita Vedanta is the central philosophy of Hinduism came about. In addition to Vivekananda, the influence of European Orientalism is usually cited. Otherwise, research concentrates on the pre-colonial period and mostly on the supposed classics. The reception of Advaita Vedanta in colonial India by traditional Indian scholars has received only limited attention. This applies on the one hand to Brahmanical Sanskrit scholarship, but at least as much to "vernacular Vedanta" (Michael S. Allen), i.e. the diverse scholarly discourses in the so-called "vernacular" languages. The panel aims to shed more light on this neglected aspect by focusing on different regional and vernacular contexts.

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This panel aims to study the Himalayas as a geo-political ecosystem, focusing on the diverse causes and implications of risk and disaster in the Himalayas. Extreme environmental events that are on the rise in scale and frequency in the Himalayan region are mired in human and more-than-human causes. The fragile topography of the young mountains and colonial legacies of ‘development’ in the region interact to create multiple geographies of risk. For a comprehensive understanding of the Himalayan landscape, this panel aims to initiate a conversation between environmental history, political ecology, anthropology and human geography. The panel aims to explore questions such as: how have the diverse meanings of what constitutes ecological risk in upland ecologies evolved historically? How do we map the diversity of lived experiences and complexity of disaster vulnerability that emerge in Himalayas, owing to the geographical, social and economic diversity within the Himalayan ecosystem? Papers are particularly welcome that delve into lesser-known spatial/thematic case-studies of the Himalayan landscapes of risk. Potential themes could include: • Colonial legacies of ecological intervention in the region • Nature of interaction between state and non-state methods of disaster risk mitigation • More than human causes and implications of climate change • Transborder geographies of risk and migration • Conflict, militarisation and ecological implications

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This panel calls for papers that explore how histories of anticolonialism might be informed by integrated multisensory perspectives and methodologies. Since the ‘visual turn,’ the discipline of history has undergone seismic shifts in terms of moving away from its earlier reliance on texts as archives. There is now a surge in interest in sound as a method, evidenced by several definitive monographs in South Asian Studies in the last five years. Taking such texts as inspiration and provocation, we submit that historical understandings are substantially enriched by an awareness of how sensory inputs such as smell and touch shape, preclude or enable anticolonial politics. This panel invites scholars to reflect on how multisensory approaches to historical phenomena are enriched by sensitivities to the interplay of visual, textual, aromatic, and haptic experiences in anticolonial contexts. In doing so, we hope to expand the horizons of knowledge, reflecting upon historical challenges, opportunities and importance of embracing the sensory turn.

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The aim of this panel is to evaluate the impact of socio-political and cultural transformations on gender representations in diverse media forms in South Asia - from celluloid to digital cinema and from television to streaming platforms. Since the 20th century, the audiovisual cultures in South Asia have undergone massive changes in response to political, religious and cultural shifts as well as technological transformations. For instance, cross-currents of increasingly dominant right-wing ideologies and radical protests are reflected in the prevailing audiovisual culture in India (Gehlawat 2024; Paunksnis 2023). Similarly, the onset of a neoliberal postfeminist culture, which has altered the rhetoric of women’s empowerment (Gill 2007), has pervaded the Indian media ecosystem (Chakraborty Paunksnis 2023). This demands painstaking appraisals of mediated representations employing a critical cultural studies framework. Such local examples must be analyzed vis-à-vis technological changes as the pervasive nature of mediatization has strong impact on society (Hepp 2020). Besides interrogating the myriad representations of gender in various South Asian media forms, the papers in this panel will also consider the following questions: How are media’s representations of gender influenced by the ideologies of the political establishments? Does globalization and neoliberal postfeminist culture contribute to the discourse of women’s empowerment? What impact of shifting patriarchal power dynamics is visible on the representation of masculinity? How do the mediated representations respond to the questions of intersectionality and Queer subjectivity? In which way can the gender question be positioned vis-à-vis the interplay between modernity and indigenous knowledge systems? How is gender’s negotiation with technology represented in media? Is the language of gender-based movements re-formulated in continually transforming media ecosystems? The panel seeks to create a discursive space for facilitating contesting arguments on the proposed theme. It welcomes contributions interrogating the varied representations of gender dynamics in South Asian media.

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This panel delves into the multifaceted world of mantras, emphasizing their significance as sacred utterances used in rituals, prayers, contemplation, and wellness practices. Originating in southern Asia, mantras have played pivotal roles in rites, meditation, worship, and healing traditions spanning millennia. The research explores the materiality and performative aspects of mantras, examining their roles in healing and magical practices across cultures. Central to our investigation are questions about how mantras function through various sensory modalities and the kinesthetic elements that enhance their transformative potential. Our interdisciplinary approach considers mantras not merely as linguistic constructs but as dynamic, multimodal experiences expressed through manuscripts, stones, voice, meditation, movement, amulets, tattoos, aroma, and attire. This panel features contributions from scholars in anthropology, religious studies, history, and digital humanities, drawing insights from ongoing research initiatives such as the MANTRAMS project. Discussions encompass the global dissemination of mantras through diasporic networks, new religious movements, and digital platforms, highlighting their enduring significance in traditional and modern contexts.

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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 interdisciplinary panel offers both a balanced mapping of governance challenges in Bangladesh and an argument-driven exploration of the tensions that define its political transformation. Across diverse cases, the discussions highlight how struggles over authority and accountability as well as state control and citizen agency shape the evolving landscape of governance. The contest over judicial independence reflects the legacy of confrontational party politics, where attempts to reform a partisan judiciary expose the fragility of institutional autonomy. Environmental governance is illuminated through the Halda River, a globally unique breeding ground for carp, where corruption, bureaucratic inertia, and grassroots activism collide around ecological survival. Economic transformation is revisited through the garment industry, showing how policy learning and ideational shifts within the state, rather than external donor pressure, have steered Bangladesh’s globalization. The rapid rise of mobile journalism illustrates both the empowerment of citizen voices and the constraints of infrastructural and ethical deficiencies in digital communication. Youth politics takes center stage in the 2024 quota reform movement, whose escalation into a nationwide uprising was articulated through wall writings blending nationalist memory with global generational consciousness. International dimensions add further complexity: European discourses situate Bangladesh within Indo-Pacific geopolitics, while transnational practices such as shipbreaking reveal the environmental injustices of hazardous waste transfers. Finally, debates around public policy in international arbitration underscore how domestic political priorities intersect with global legal regimes. Collectively, these contributions show how law, policy, ecology, media, and youth mobilization converge in Bangladesh’s contested transformation, where struggles over authority, accountability, control, and agency are at the core.

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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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