History and Sociology of South Asia

Using the example of Upendrakishore Ray (1863–1915), a well-known Bengali artist, writer, technologist and publisher, this essay critiques prevalent theories that portray colonial Indian modernity as a largely derivative discourse. Addressing Ray’s globally recognised contributions to the refinement of technologies for the printing of photographs and paintings, the article shows how Ray’s relative lack of resources could not obstruct his innovative approach and investigates why, in spite of his originality, his Western recognition was no more than transient. Turning then to Ray’s views on pictorial art, the essay shows how in this area, he merely followed the precepts of western ‘academic’ art and failed to attain any originality. Indian engagements with modernity, the essay concludes, were neither exclusively original nor invariably imitative, and we need new theoretical approaches that can accommodate this diversity and unpredictability.

This article suggests that the concept of the moral economy of the peasant, as defined by James C. Scott, in the context of Southeast Asia, provides a compelling theoretical framework through which one can examine Gopinath Mohanty’s novel Paraja (1945),2 2

 This article takes its cue from a brilliant article written by Shashi Bhushan Upadhyay in which he usefully employs the concept of moral economy to analyse the peasant narratives of Premchand. See Shashi Bhushan Upadhyay, ‘Premchand and the Moral Economy of Peasantry in Colonial North India’, Modern Asian Studies 45, no. 5 (2011): 1227–59. However, while Upadhyay equates the idea of moral economy with the traditional Indian concept of dharma, in order to explain the passivity of Premchand’s peasant protagonists, I have endeavoured to demonstrate, in this article, the disintegration of the moral economy in Gopinath Mohanty’s novel Paraja, and how such disintegration may precipitate resistance and a strong sense of moral outrage.

an unparalleled achievement in Oriya literature that narrates the predicament of the tribal peasants of the Koraput region. It demonstrates how the encroachment of the colonial state on the invaluable resources of the tribal peasants in Mohanty’s novel results in an escalating disintegration of the moral economy which in turn precipitates resistance and a strong sense of moral outrage. However, instead of collective rebellion that Scott discusses about, in his groundbreaking work, in Mohanty’s novel, we find several instances of everyday forms of resistance, a concept that Scott formulates in his subsequent works. This not only helps us to understand and make sense of the motives and intentions of the tribal peasants in the novel but also underscores the abiding relevance and timeless appeal of Mohanty’s work, even in the post-Nehruvian nation-state, where the problems confronting the tribal peasants in the wake of globalisation are increasingly acute, virtually insurmountable and even more pronounced than ever before.

The emergence of caste as a key category of classification, enumeration and control under colonial rule has created a refectory taxonomy of administrative categories through officially enforced labelling activities. The census categories made an opportunity to occupy institutional space and promoted identification with caste and stimulated lower caste people, such as the Bauri community, for their rights and representations. The stigma associated with the native agencies, such as Chamars, Pig Herds (Ghusuria) and others in the Hindu stratification, was challenged by the anti-colonial nationalist, who re-signified them as sites of cultural authenticity and collective sovereignty. The government’s passion for labels and pigeonhole, which led to crystallisation of caste system, could hardly tame intractability or ‘vagueness’ of social category in the middle rung and spurred a series of negotiations and contestations among the caste groups across the Hindu hierarchical spectrum. As against, it transfigured in the colonial modernity’s endeavour to grapple with tensions between the universal and particular, normative and stigmatised subjects leading to caste radicalism’s re-exegesis of Hindu religious tradition to produce an original (Adidharma) view of social stratification and the post-colonial state reinforcing it by a rational legal regime opposed to the idea of civic inequality.

This article examines the cross-cultural influence that worked on the absorption process of the goddess Kāmākhyā (Assam) within the Brahmanic pantheon, through a correlation of textual and historical-religious pieces of evidence. ² 2

 This article is an enlarged and revised version of a paper that I presented on 18 September 2015 during the sixth Coffee Break Conference (17–19 September) held at the Italian Institute of Oriental Studies of ‘Sapienza’ University of Rome.

In Assam, the cross-cultural interaction, between local tribes and Indo-Aryan speakers, began around 200 BCE–100 CE—when the Vedic culture had already changed from its earlier theological pattern. Therefore, after had been influenced by a long cross-cultural negotiation, the early medieval north-eastern purāṇas transformed the dakṣayajña myth, legitimising the temple of Kāmākhyā on Nīlācala as the greatest śākta pīṭha (seat of power), where the yoni (vulva) of Satī was preserved. In this way, the Purāṇas reconnected Nīlācala–Kāmākhyā not only to the sexual symbolism, but also to an ancient cremation ground and its death imaginary–a fact that the systematisation of the yoginī cult (ninth–eleventh century) into the Yoginī Kaula school corroborated. In this cross-cultural context, the early medieval Assamese dynasties emerged tied to the danger of liminal powers—linked to both the heterodox śākta-tantra sects and tribal traditions that were harnessed by the kings through the exoteric and esoteric rituals practised at Kāmākhyā.

This article traces the formation of the secular in Bangladesh during the period of 1947–71. Arguably, this is a period when the idea of a ‘secular Bengali nation’ as opposed to ‘Islamic Pakistani nationalism’ was coined in by the political forces to foster imagination of a Bengali root of East Pakistan. This article argues with multiple evidence that particular project of secular Bengali nationalism in the sense of strict separation of religion and politics as opposed to religious nationalism makes little sense in contemporary Bangladesh as major parties here are found to manipulate religious nationalism in a society where simplistic and unenlightened interpretation of religion plays a significant role. This article argues that the idea of secular nationalism had multiple meanings and roots during 1947–71 and by acknowledging diverse roots of secular nationalism, it is possible to make sense of contemporary Bangladesh that is by all secular indicators turned into an intolerant entity but at the same time it is equally important to note that Bangladesh's intolerance is devoid of enlightened application and teaching of Islam.

This article examines the lived experiences of workers and the organisational practices of a ready-made garment factory. It illuminates the centrality of social reproduction and the unpaid work of poor women of Bangladesh producing commodities that are channelled to core societies. This article demonstrates that women’s responsibility in social reproduction conditions the nature of their paid work, the terms of their employment and the forms of workplace control. Women workers face extremely rigid gender divisions of labour in the sphere of care work within the household and in workplace. Women workers’ unpaid housework reproduces the material bases of global capitalism by intensifying the labour demands on factory workers and the production process. Commodity chains (CC) threaten the productive and reproductive labour of poor women in periphery nations through the implementation of strategies by capitalists in core nations and by local capitalists connected to the CC. This article demonstrates the importance of incorporating class, gender, productive and reproductive labour, as well as households into world-systems analysis.

The unholy nexus between media houses and politics is a well-known sad reality. Such nexus is further complicated by the involvement of caste. The present essay examines the trajectory of Eenadu, a Telugu daily in Andhra Pradesh, and its political manoeuvrings in favour of the Kamma-dominated Telugu Desam Party. Describing the entry of Eenadu, the essay moves to examine the newspaper’s consistent support of the TDP and its stance against the Congress in AP through the political fortunes for N.T. Ramarao, Chandrababu Naidu and Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy.

Over the last 20 years, the Indian diaspora in the USA has suddenly come of age, numerically as well as economically. This growing confidence can be seen in the literature written by writers of Indian origin settled in the USA. Shunning sentimentality and overt nostalgia, this latter-day diasporic writing is laced with humour and a critical though affectionate tone directed towards their Indianness. Foremost among these voices is Jhumpa Lahiri. Pulitzer Prize winner Lahiri is the author of two novels and two short story collections. Deeply attached to her Indian heritage, yet wanting desperately to assimilate into the cultural melting pot of American society, Lahiri’s fiction is suffused with a complex biculturalism. With Jhumpa Lahiri’s fiction at the centre, my article will focus on this tug-of-war of alienation and assimilation that is at the heart of every immigrant experience.

After toppling the first Communist ministry in Kerala the main attention of the US agencies—Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the US Embassy in India—was to install a non-communist stable government in Kerala to meet the dangers of communism in Asia. The US agencies adopted two ways to realise these objectives. First of all, they extended all out support to the triple alliance composed of the Congress Party, Praja Socialist Party (PSP) and the Muslim League against the Communist Party in 1960 election. The election campaign of the triple alliance was much funded by the CIA. However the triple alliance won the election, the Communist Party got more votes than in 1957 and it intensified the US agencies to beef up its anti-Communist operations in Kerala and outside. It led to the adoption of second method of anti-Communist activities that the US agencies began to give wide publicity in India and outside that the first Communist ministry in Kerala could not make any economic advancement in Kerala during their tenure nor could they redress the chronic problems of unemployment and food scarcity and if Communists were voted to power in other parts of Asia, they would follow the same trend and fall.