Politics, Religion and the Nation

A Conversation with Prof. Vasudha Dalmia on the theme, ‘Politics, Religion and the Nation’ organized by Rickshaw: A Students’ Collective and Department of Sociology, South Asian University on 27 November 2015 from 11.30 am to 01.00 pm was concluded successfully. The conversation was held at FSI Hall, South Asian University and was moderated and chaired by Prof R. Mahalakshmi from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and coordinated by Dr Dev Pathak, Department of Sociology, South Asian University.

(All event photographs are courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program, Department of Sociology)

Press Release

Celebrating Life and Work of Faiz Ahmed Faiz:
Towards Building a South Asian Consciousness

The Department of Sociology, South Asian University and its journal, Society and Culture in South Asia organized Jashn-e-Faiz, an event to celebrate the life and works of Faiz Ahmed Faiz. South Asian University is a SAARC initiative. The event was organized to project the possibilities of an alternative idea of South Asian consciousness, which transcends the limitations of state-centric imaginings for the region.

Dr. Kavita Sharma, President, South Asian University in her initial remarks talked about the life of Faiz Ahmed Faiz and stressed how his works has mass appeal across borders. A poet like Faiz, went beyond ‘art for art sake’ to address the issues of exploitation, injustice and discrimination. As a poet, he is the figure whose works serve as a source of a common popular consciousness to emerge.

Dr. Ravi Kumar, Chairperson, Department of Sociology, said in his explanation on why this program was initiated that literary works and other arts forms provide a way to bring people of South Asia closer. A conversation among people needs to be developed takes place is beyond the instrumentalist limitations provided by restrictive bilateral agreements, visa regimes and other structural impediments and clearances that usually foregrounds relations among states. When bloggers are being killed in Bangladesh, when journalists are killed in Pakistan, voices of dissent suppressed in Sri Lanka, and rationalists are murdered in India, there is a need to devise ways to get over such intolerance and violence. This can be done using the ways, which have developed outside of state structures – what poets, artists and intellectuals have done historically. Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Nazrul Islam and Sahir Ludhiyanwi are only a few among a considerable list of such people who provide us ways to create a more tangible South Asian consciousness.

Prof. Sasanka Perera, Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences pointed out why the Department of Sociology has been instrumental in taking initiatives that are aimed at looking at the possibilities of how a South Asian consciousness needs to be developed using art forms as their emotional appeal to people had a better chance of making sense as opposed to diplomatic and other poltical initiatives which are often distant from ordinary people.

Prof. Salima Hashmi, artist and daughter of Faiz Ahmed Faiz who attended the event as the guest of honor spoke on the trajectory of Faiz’s poetry writing. In different phases, he wrote on issues, which he had to confront in his life. They ranged from themes emerging out of wars, economic impoverishment of masses, suppression of freedom of expression and so on. She spoke of how poetry provided the language of political protest, and suggested that Faiz’s work reflected it. He went beyond the dogmatic understanding of Marxism when he married romanticism with Marxism and argued that Marxism needs to be used as a humanist message. She went on to show how his works entered the popular domain and visual art production in Pakistan. Cultural development must alter the existing social values and new values will be created along with alterations in the social and political structure. Only one fundamental value exists, that is the value of humanity. 

Faiz always represented the spirit of unity of people across borders, and this became clear when he did not become part of patriotic poetry writing during Indo-Pakistan war in 1965. Instead, taking thus event as a point of departure, he wrote a poem titled ‘Black Out’. He worked ceaselessly for Pakistan-India friendship. He rejected the narrow unilinear notion of Pakistan. He was concerned with the partition and the violence it had unleashed. He was constantly struggling in his life which informed much of his poetry. And he proves through his work that out of great suffering, a great sense of hope can be born.

In his presentation, Paresh Chandra from the Department of English, Delhi University argued that Faiz was not looking at the nation that the partition had created. He had expected it to be a different nation. He was concerned at the exploitation, alienation and oppression that was happening around him. His poetry on love also, while talking in an idiom of romance, was talking of this concern. He was trying to imagine an idea of community, love and hope. The idea of struggle and reflection on society seemed to take Faiz beyond narrow national boundaries.

Dr. Irfanullah Farooqi from the Department of Sociology, Aligarh Muslim University showed how there were words and images which emerged in the poetry of Faiz represented ideals and experiences which could go beyond the boundaries of the nation to imagine the experonecs of a larger collective. 

The panel discussion expressed how works of art and literature has provided us sufficient inputs in terms of looking at struggles of people, their love and anxieties as an intrinsic part of human existence and hope for a better world. If crafted out of this hope cautiously, it may still be possible to formulate a South Asian consciousness which moves beyond the parochial ideas of the nation and nationalities.

Dr. Ravi Kumar 

Chairperson 

Department of Sociology

(Images courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU)

A Celebration of the Life and Poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Poster and schedule designed by Sandhya, AS, Mphil/PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Society and Culture in South Asia -- Call for Submissions

On Gender and Sexuality @ SOCIOLOGY @ SAU

Department of Sociology
Faculty of Social Sciences
South Asian University

 Young Scholars’ Conference, 15-17 October 2015

Discourses, Dialogues and Praxis in Contemporary South Asia
Thursday 15th October

10 am-11:30 am: Opening Plenary Round Table  Sexual Violence and Impunity in South AsiaUma Chakravarti, Urvashi Butalia, Sahba Hussain, Navsharan Singh and Sahba Hussain
Chair: Professor Sasanka Perera, South Asian University

 Tea break: 11:30 am-11:45 am

 Panel 1: 11:45 am -1:15 pm: Queer Lives, Queer NationChair/Discussant: Dr Navaneetha Mokkil, Jawaharlal Nehru University
 

The ‘gay gaze’ and the web
Utsa Mukherjee, Royal Holloway, University of London & Anil Pradhan,
Jadavpur University, Kolkata

Querying the Nation:
The Queer "identity" and the National Narrative in the Sri Lankan English Novel
Deepthi Siriwardena, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka

 Hindu Myths, Queer Sexuality and Neo-liberal Economy:
Exploring Identity politics in Contemporary India
Archit Nanda, Delhi University

1:15-2:15 pm: Lunch
 2:15 -4pm: Panel 2:
Contemporary trends in marriage and conjugality
Chair/Discussant: Dr Parul Bhandari, Centre of Social Sciences and Humanities (CSH)

Love in Tourism and Inter-racial marriages:
Construction of gender and sexuality: A spatial analysis
Neha Nimble, Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai

 Problematizing the Legal and Meta-Legal Dynamics of Cohabitation in India
Charusheel Tripathi, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi

Socio-Economic Analysis of Marriages in Nepal:
A Case Study of Three Villages in Dhanusha District
Ratnakar Jha, South Asian University

Women in inter-religious marriages – A Case study in Kerala
Shani SS, Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai

 Tea break: 4 pm-4:15 pm

Panel 3: 4:15-5:45 pm
Chair/Discussant: Dr Mallika Shakya, South Asian University New Delhi

 Gender, Sexuality and Family Violence among South Asian Immigrants:
Canadian PerspectiveRangapali Ranaweera & Malinda Panagoda

 Domestic Violence Against Women in Bangladesh:
An Analysis from Socio-Legal Perspective
Razidur Rahaman, University of Dhaka

Gender Issues in Export Oriented and Import Competing Industries:
Evidences from Indian Manufacturing
Kishor Jadhav & Tareef Husain, Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar

 Friday 16 October
 10-11:15 am: Keynote lectureChanging selves and sexualities: Perspectives from 'other' worlds.Professor Nivedita Menon, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi
Chair: Dr Ravi Kumar, South Asian University

Tea break: 11:15 am-11:30 am
 Panel 4: 1130-1:15 pm
Gender, Performance and Form: Visual media
Chair/Discussant: Dr Dev Pathak, South Asian University New Delhi

Transgressing Boundaries, Transforming Cultures: the Constructs of Gender, Sexuality and Region in the Bedeni films of West Bengal
Spandan Bhattacharya, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi

Gender and Visual Representation:
A study of the photographs by Pushpamalan N and Mickalene ThomasDevika N, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi

Sohag, Samdaun and Kohbar:
Understanding the expressions of ‘self’ by the women of Mithila
MS Suman, Delhi University

1:15-2:15pm: Lunch

 Panel 5: 2:15-3:45 pm:
Gender, Performance and Form: Dance
 Chair/Discussant: Dr Gitanjali Surendran, Jindal Global University

 Situating Lavani in popular culture and Media
Sejal Yadav, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi

Revisiting Gender through Bhavai
Minakshi Rajdev, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi

Mapping the Contours of Gender and Sexuality Representation in Indian Classical Dance forms:
A Case Study of Odissi
Sipra Sagarika, Punjab University, Chandigarh

 Tea break: 3.45 pm-4 pm
Panel 6: 4-5:45 pm:
Gender, Sexuality and Urban Space 
Chair/Discussant: Dr Rukmini Sen, Ambedkar University Delhi

 Like a moth to a flame: an exploration of dance and desire in public space.
Meghna Bohidar, Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai

 Politics of Sexuality in Urban Space – A Study of Kiss of Love Protest.
Mahima Taneja, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi

 Creative Practice as Resistance:

The queer collective as an example for forms of resistance in the city
Sumithra Sunder, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore

Saturday 17 October:
 Panel 7: 10 am-11:30 am:
Gendered labour
Chair/Discussant: Dr Chudamani Basnet, South Asian University

Vulnerability of Migrant Women Workers at their Pre-departure Stage:
A Case of Sri Lankan Women Domestic Workers in the Middle East
Dushmanthi Silva, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu

 “Was I born to cook for others?” Unraveling the questions of servitude through an affective attachment of love and labor between the domestic workers and the neo-middle class Bengali women
Anindita Chatterjee, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi

(In)Fertile Ground for Commercial Surrogacy in India: Making a Feminist Sense
Sneha Banerjee, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi

 Tea break: 11:30 am-11:45 am
Panel 8: 11:45-1:15pm:
Gender at Play
Chair/Discussant: Dr Diya Mehra, South Asian University

 The Binao and Bijao of ‘Homo’ Beauty Parlours:
Personal Narratives of Same-Sex Desiring Subjects of Meitei Society, Imphal
Sunny Sharma Gurumayum, Ambedkar University Delhi

Is Man’s Beauty indispensable for his Masculinity?
Sharmin Akhter, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka

 Gender at play:
A case study of physical education in Manipal
Esther Moraes, Manipal University, Manipal

 1:15-2:15pm: Lunch

Panel 9: 2:15pm- 3:45pm. Gender, identity and conflictChair/Discussant: Dr Ankur Datta, South Asian University

 Identity-in-conflict:
Realising realities in the midst of fiction in Rehnuma library Centre, Mumbra
Reetika Revathy Subramanian, Partners for Urban Knowledge,
Action and Research (PUKAR), Mumbai

Feminism in turbulent times:
A Study on Meira Paibis of Manipur 1970-2004Naorem Jonsan Singh, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi

 Sexual borderlands: the unmaking of a tribe and a new gender consciousness
Deepa Kozhisseri, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

 Tea break: 345 pm-4 pm

4 pm: Film Screening:
Nirnay (Decision)Directors: Pushpa Rawat & Anupama Srinivasan

Turkey and India as Global Humanitarian Actors

Nepal Samvidhan

Amidst a large gathering, the discussion, Nepal Sanvidhan organised by 'Rickshaw: A Student's Collective' of the Department of Sociology got underway at 4.00 pm 01st October 2015 at FSI Hall, South Asian University. The panelists were Suhashini Haidar from the Hindu and Prashant Jha from the Hindustan Times. The discussion focused on the contexts and the outcome of the recent promulgation of a new constitution in Nepal.

Images courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Images courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Images courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Images courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Images courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Images courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Images courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Images courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Images courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Images courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Images courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Images courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Images courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Images courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Images courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Nepal Samvidhan: "Lets Talk Nepal"

Everybody Loves an Earthquake: Mediated Politics of Crisis in the Practice of Journalism from Nepal

The lecture and discussion, 'Everybody Loves an Earthquake: Mediated Politics of Crisis in the Practice of Journalism from Nepal' by Kunda Dixit, Editor, Nepal Times was held at the IIC, New Delhi on 26th September 2015. The event was organised by Department of Sociology and Society and Culture in South Asia at South Asian University in collaboration with India International Center, and was chaired by Dev Pathak, Department of Sociology, SAU.

Image courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Image courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Image courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Image courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Image courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Image courtesy of Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD Program in Sociology, SAU

Everybody Loves an Earthquake: Mediated Politics of Crisis in the Practice of Journalism from Nepal

The recent calamity of a high-magnitude earthquake wrought havoc for inhabitants in parts of Nepal. It also disclosed the mediated politics on the crisis. What the world beyond Nepal ‘knew’ about evolving dynamics within the country was almost solely depended on the output of media personnel in the country at the time, many of whom were members of the overseas press corps based in Kathmandu. The mass-media representations of the earthquake and its aftermath painted a debatable scale of devastation, followed by a kind of politics of philanthropy verging on what might be called ‘competitive humanitarianism’ in the affected areas. This underlined issues of media ethics, politics and the activism of NGOs. In this public talk, the speaker will discuss the necessity to be aware of the role of media in reporting as well as in exacerbating the impacts of a calamity and the manner in which media ethics might have been compromised in the process.  

Photography Workshop and Walk

An initiative of ‘Rickshaw: A Students Collective’ @ Department of Sociology

Karen Exell Talk Concluded

The talk by Karen Exell on 6th August 2016 at 6.30 pm at IIC, Delhi on the theme, ‘Museums and the Present: Issues of Community, Locality and Contextual Relevance’ was conclude successfully. The talk was organised by the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences at South Asian University in collaboration with IIC.

The basic argument of the presentation was that “Museums were developed in many parts of the world during the colonial period to ‘visualise and objectify’ the colonised people and country for the coloniser, as Shaila Bhatti has argued in relation to the Lahore Museum, or to collect and display archaeological material that supported western interests. Following decolonisation the perception has remained amongst local communities that these ‘colonial’ museums are irrelevant to their contemporary concerns. This contrasts with museological approaches in some northern European countries, where museums have become central to social policy agendas of community support, or the focus of grass-roots cultural initiatives. Using models from a variety of countries, this lecture argues that museums in post-colonial countries such as India have the opportunity to significantly enrich the lives of their local communities through creative interventions, and to realign these museums with contemporary socio-political concerns.”

The speaker, Karen Excel teaches Museum Studies, and is Programme Director of the MA program in Museum and Gallery Practice at University College London’s Qatar campus. Her research interests include the social and political role of museums and the impact of museums on cultural identity, with a focus on non-western societies. Her recent publications include the co-edited volume, Heritage Debates in the Arabian Peninsula published in 2014, and the forthcoming monograph, Museums in the Arabian Peninsula: Globalisation and the Politics of Representation scheduled to be published by Routledge in 2016.

In intruding the speaker and SAU Sociology department’s involvement in its organization, the Chair, Sasanka Perera made the following observations: 

I want to take a little bit of time to explain how it was possible for an academic program such as sociology to imagine a theme like this, given the fact that our discipline is generally supposed to deal with the present. Besides, we are a relatively unheard of entity as both a Department and as a University. I am sure most of you do not know what or where South Asian University is. It does not really matter. I am sure you will soon enough. 

But for me, that lack of an institutional tradition or heritage is an asset when we are in the process of building something from scratch. A tradition can sometimes be a burden for well established universities in the context of which they have to constantly measure what they do. Creative transgression would be unthinkable. At the moment at least, this is not a consideration for us. 

Clearly, we deal with issues such as migration, gender, violence, law, the city, class and so on as do other sociologists. But because we are in the process of defining our own presence and perspective as well as our collective intellectual future in Delhi and in South Asia, some of us are also interested in things and objects that many sociologists would not take too seriously. These include visual arts, film and performance, photography and in understanding the ways in which the past is an ensuring presence in our present. In other words, we would like to establish our practice slightly differently if given the option.

In that sense, the interest in this theme came very naturally. It is also in that same context that we organised a very unique and engaged conversation with Professor Romila Thapar in 2013 focused on the theme ‘debating the past and the present’. These proceedings have since been published in our ongoing series, ‘Conversations on/for South Asia.’

Though we have inherited the idea of museums as part of our colonial experience, they are now very much part of our collective existence playing out our own politics and intrigue. Not too long ago, in a single day the National Museum of Maldives was vandalised twice, and the Buddhist artefacts there destroyed. In Colombo, over a decade ago, some artefacts in the National Museum were taken to the President’s house, not as part of any specific program, but simply because he liked them. He also wanted the throne of the last king of Lanka to be taken to his residence to sit on when receiving foreign dignitaries. 

The appointment of Directors to important museums in the region and clearly in Delhi is an important political act. It is a matter of how the past might be represented in a way that would make sense to political dispensations of today. 

So clearly, the past as packaged in museums, the past as we popularly understand it, and the past as it is officially handled is very much a matter of the present. And that itself makes it relevant for us as sociologists not too keen to be imprisoned by the conventions of our discipline.

I am sure Dr Exell will deal with in detail how museums become an integral part of the discursive practices of the present in her talk.