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South Asia Program

2020 Bulletin

2020 SAP Bulletin cover

Author: South Asia Program

The 2020 Bulletin features many original articles, on Buddhist nationalists in Sri Lanka, remembrances of the 2015 Nepal earthquake, migrant workers in Delhi, rhinos and tigers in Nepal, women’s nutrition in Hyderabad, and more. In addition, the bulletin highlights new SAP faculty, recalls South Asian Studies Fellows’ experiences in Ithaca, lists selected faculty publications, recognizes our visiting scholars, and reviews SAP news, events and outreach activities of the past year. The front and back cover feature the artwork of Atul Bhalla, the 2020 SAP Virtual Artist in Residence.

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Publication Year: 2020

The Lowest Depths: Partition through Objects of Fictitious Togetherness, by Atul Bhalla

November 12, 2020

12:10 pm

“….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'.

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Einaudi Center for International Studies

South Asia Program

Anthropology Colloquium: Sarah Besky

October 30, 2020

3:00 pm

"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(link sends email) 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.

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South Asia Program

The Battle for the Sabarimala Temple

October 28, 2020

12:00 pm

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.

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South Asia Program

Einaudi Center for International Studies

Hindu Belonging and Minority Recognition in Pakistan

October 26, 2020

11:15 am

This roundtable brings academics and activists together to discuss contemporary issues of Hindu belonging and minority recognition in Pakistan. Speakers will draw on their ethnographic research and activism with Hindus in Sindh, Pakistan to engage questions of devotional life, religious difference, caste, class, and gender hierarchy, and the possibilities and limits of state recognition.

Participants:

Ghazal Asif (John Hopkins University): The 2017 Hindu Marriage and Family Act: caste, gender, and the law in Pakistan

Kapil Dev Human Rights Activist

Chander Kolhi (Progressive Human Foundation): Inequality and Injustice to Scheduled Castes in Pakistan

Juergen Schaflechner (Freie Universität Berlin): 'Wary and Aware': Self-representation and public performances of Hindus in Pakistan's public spheres

A discussion session, moderated by Natasha Raheja, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, will follow the speakers' short talks. The audience is encouraged to submit questions via the Q&A window in the webinar.

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Einaudi Center for International Studies

South Asia Program

Comparative Muslim Societies Program

You Always Step into the Same River, by Atul Bhalla

October 22, 2020

12:10 pm

My sustained preoccupation with the water in Delhi, India resulting in ‘Yamuna Walk’ and ‘I was not waving but drowning’ both executed on or around the same site on the western Yamuna bank, which forms the basis of my diverse practice leading to questions of distribution, regulation, commodification and pollution of the River. I have over the years attempted to explore its physical, mythical, historical, spiritual and political significance in relation to the population it sustains. Attempting the political through the poetical. My attempt is to understand water as a repository of history, meaning and myth; the way I perceive it, feel it, drink it, swim in it and sink in it or will drown in it.

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'.

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Program

Einaudi Center for International Studies

South Asia Program

“Exploring Buddhist Manuscript Cultures of Thailand through the indigenous Vaṃsa Literature” (Peera Panarut, Universität Hamburg)

October 16, 2020

4:00 pm

Please join us for a virtual talk by Dr. Peera Panarut, a specialist in the epigraphic and manuscript culture of Thailand, including the Buddhist manuscript tradition. This event is funded by the GPSA and generously co-sponsored by the Department of Asian Studies, the Department of Religious Studies the South Asia Program and the Southeast Asia Program. All are welcome to attend, and a Zoom link will be available upon registering. Please contact Bruno at bms297@cornell.edu for any special arrangements you may require in order to attend this event.

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South Asia Program

Southeast Asia Program

Art in the Age of Blockchain

October 14, 2020

9:30 am

The possibilities of presenting contemporary art through digital technologies have multiplied in recent years. Particularly through the pandemic, programming and exhibitions have migrated online, breaking down barriers for public appreciation. Out of necessity, putting arts engagement at the core of all programming will effect long term transformations in discourse and knowledge building.

Within this broader shift, the specific technology of blockchain offers the extraordinary opportunity of simultaneously elevating and democratizing art’s reception and public engagement by dismantling hierarchies and decentralizing the art world.

Beth Citron, Curator, Art Historian and Artistic Director, Education and Provenance, of Terrain.art

Deeksha Nath, Curator and Artistic Director, Exhibitions and Provenance of Terrain.art

Rizio Yohannan, Writer, and Publisher at The Marg Foundation

SAP is co-sponsoring this event hosted by the Marg Foundation, Mumbai, India.

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Einaudi Center for International Studies

South Asia Program

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