“….if history cannot solve our problems then we have to stop listening to it for solutions. For the only answer it has offered us is violence that refuses to meet, or hear, the other”

"In cities, the government had ensured that Hindu Pani and Muslim Pani were separately served at Railway stations and other public places , an arrangement that did not seem to invite popular protest"

'Punjab" by Rajmohan Gandhi

I aim to conceptualize my presentation focusing on the interplay between memory, postmemory and truth around the Freedom Struggle, Partition and subsequent events in Punjab. I deploy the trope of water to interrogate people, territories and the politics of water sharing, rivers and borders activated by the above historical moments. Drawing on local meanings of rivers and water of the land for each community and Punjabis in general, I aim explore the notion of truth within ‘Punjabiyat’ (being from The Punjab) - which both Hindus and Muslims pride themselves here and across the border. My inquiry stems from the ways in which a nexus of opacity, denial and untruth appears to mark the relationship between India and a major event such as Partition. Through my work titled “Objects of fictitious togetherness-I” I explored how this nexus has emerged, what it means to understand history and the present through this nexus, and what are the implications in the context of the present political regime.

Atul Bhalla has explored the physical, historical, and political significance of water in the urban environment of New Delhi through artworks that incorporate sculpture, painting, installation, video, photography, and performance. He is SAP’s Virtual Artist-in-Residence in Fall 2020.

His recent solo shows include “Anhedonic Dehiscence” (Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, 2018), “You always step into the same river” (SepiaEYE, New York, 2015) and “Ya Ki Kuch aur …” (Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, 2014). He was also the Mellon Artist Research Africa fellow at WITS University 2018, Johannesburg with the project “The Excavated distance of gold,” examining acid mine drainage at the gold mines. Recent group exhibitions have brought his work to FotoFest Biennale Houston in 2016 and 2108, The Pompidou Center, Paris, the IVAM Institute of Modern Art in Valencia, and the Devi Art Foundation in New Delhi. Important books on his works are Yamuna Walk and monograph 'You always step into the same river'.

"Teawords: Experiments with Quality in Indian Tea Production"

Friday, October 30

3 pm EST

Sarah Besky is an Associate Professor in International and Comparative Labor AND Labor Relations, Law, and History.

Virtual Event. Email ek61@cornell.edu if you would like to register to receive call in instructions.

The identification of distinguishing characteristics of commodities—a process known as “qualification”—frequently involves the use of specialized lexicons. Before Indian teas are auctioned, brokers evaluate them using a glossary of some 150 English words. This glossary was devised at the end of the British colonial period by industrial chemists who aimed to subject the aesthetic judgments of brokers to experimental scrutiny. “Teawords” formed part of a late colonial effort to ensure the circulation of “quality” tea from plantation to market. After India’s independence, Indian brokers and plantation managers continued this effort. Like other vocabularies for describing comestible commodities, teawords performatively reproduce gendered and classed distinctions, but they do much more. When they circulate among brokers and managers, teawords subject plantation conditions to experimental adjustment. As a form of linguistic and material experimentation, qualification extends colonial norms of valuation—and the institution of the plantation itself—into contemporary capitalist circuits.

The Cornell India Law Center presents:
The Battle for the Sabarimala Temple: Should women of menstruating age be prohibited from entering a Hindu temple?

In some societies, girls and women who are menstruating are considered polluted and untouchable. Should a Hindu temple in India be able to prohibit women of menstruating age from entering? That was the central question in a recent Indian Supreme Court case. The Court said that the Sabarimala temple must allow all women to enter, even those who could menstruate, in the decision IYLA v. State of Kerala. But now the Court is reconsidering that judgement. Please join the Cornell India Law Center in a conversation with University of Alabama Law Professor and legal anthropologist Deepa Das Acevedo about her new forthcoming book with Oxford University Press called The Battle for Sabarimala. Drawing on her longstanding ethnographic and legal research, Professor Das Acevedo will contextualize the dispute and explain its significance for religion-state relations and democratic governance in India. For more background information, you can read a summary of IYLA v. State of Kerala here and listen to an episode on religious freedom in India and the United States from the A Law in Common podcast.

Wednesday, October 28, 2020
12:00 PM ET
Virtual Event: Please register for the event here.