south asia institute the university of texas at austin NEWSLETTER Fall 2009 Contents People...... 4 Collaborations...... 8 New Faculty...... 9 Distinguished Vistitors...... 12 Conference Updates...... 16 Outreach...... 18 Travel...... 20 Hindi Urdu Flagship Program...... 23

Cover image image is Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2009 by Nina Paley, sitasingstheblues.com

Institute Director: Itty Abraham South Asia Institute Not printed with state funds. Editorial Board: Rachel Meyer http://www.utexas.edu/cola/southasia/ Domestic and foreign subscriptions Design: Itty Abraham tel: 512.471.3550 free upon request.

had served as interim director for the spring and summer, had done a superb job keeping the Institute moving along smoothly; our many constituents on and off campus were delighted with the way things had been managed. In this short time, Kamran has successfully managed to leave large shoes behind to fill. My sincere thanks for his generosity and efficiency!

Most of you reading this attend our events regularly so you know what we’ve been doing. But, in case you missed, or have forgotten, some of the highlights of the last year, let’s do a brief walk-through. The fall seminar series Image/Text/Sound was organized by Kathy Hansen (Asian Studies). We got a chance to listen to scholars from North America and Europe working on such diverse topics as Hindi cinema, Parsi theater, histories of book publishing, and genealogies of visual representation. A number of participants had recently published books related to their talks which allowed the discussion to range beyond the bounds of their presentations. The spring series, Border I write this on my return from 8 months of research leave Subjects: Emergent Themes in South Asian Studies, was organized spent largely in Trivandrum, Kerala. India, when I left, by Kaushik Ghosh (Anthropology). With talks ranging was in its usual state of indifference to the rest of the world, from contemporary borders in northeast India to the having held another successful general election, more or less borders of the social sciences and law, the series attracted weathered the global recession and starting to look forward large audiences and generated lively conversations. Thanks to an uptick of economic growth. By contrast, the US, to both for the always-considerable effort in putting together when I arrived, was full of doom and gloom -- the Great these exciting series. As always, a full list of participants, Recession, Iraq, Afghanistan, health care, unemployment, past and future events, can be found on our newly renovated the list goes on -- and, moreover, it was hotter in Austin than website http://www.utexas.edu/cola/insts/southasia/. in Chennai! The Institute hosted a number of distinguished international Things picked up considerably when I got back to the visitors last year, including the Pakistani sitar ustaad Ghulam fourth floor of the Hogg building. Kamran Asdar Ali, who

2 south asia institute Farid Nizami, who received a Fulbright award to spend do an event targeting members of the Houston business the year in Austin. Music professor and fellow sitarist community. The Institute director, a member of the business Steve Slawek was his faculty host and Nizami soon found school faculty, and a graduate student in Anthropology himself a part of the Austin global music scene. In the spoke to the assembled group about the risks and prospects fall, we were fortunate to host P. Sainath, India’s only ‘rural of doing business in India. affairs’ correspondent, who spoke to a packed Thompson Center. In the spring, journalist, playwright, and Pakistani For all its strengths in philology, ancient history, and rarely media personality Imran Aslam spent a week here. Aslam spoken languages, let it not be said that the Institute is not is the head of Geo TV in Pakistan. Excerpts from a long up to speed with 21st century technologies. The Institute interview with Kamran Ali of Anthropology may be found now has a Facebook site and is plugged into Twitter, both in this issue of the newsletter. of which have become popular ways for our students and friends to correspond with us from far away. The next step, The Institute sponsored a number of conferences in the last clearly, is to develop a Second Life avatar (after all, we do year, notably Martha Selby’s (Asian Studies) fascinating inter- have some special claim on that word, don’t you think?) disciplinary workshop titled Vital Signs: Prediction, Prognosis and Letter from the Director... Death in South Asia, and, one of the largest outreach events we Looking forward, I am delighted to welcome three new have ever hosted, Beauty in the Worlds of Islam, organized by faculty members to the Institute: Ipsita Chatterjee in Akbar Hyder (Asian Studies). During the summer, Patrick Geography, Heather Hindman in Asian Studies, and Snehal Olivelle (Asian Studies) and Janice Leoshko (Art History) put Singhvi in English. You will find interviews with each of together a major international conference on the emperor them in this issue. All of them work on contemporary South Asoka, in conjunction with the India International Centre, Asia, an area that the Institute and College of Liberal Arts Delhi, the Indian Council on Historical Research, and administration has targeted for growth. These hires allow Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. us to expand our coverage of modern South Asia region significantly. Over the next few years I hope this area will Our K-12 outreach activities continue to expand and grow. expand still further, especially as we fill our newly created Other than the Beauty in Islam conference mentioned chair in Pakistan studies. above, which brought together 75 schoolteachers and social studies administrators from across Texas, the Institute All in all, in spite of the gloom that dominates public continues to collaborate with the other Title VI centers on commentary on the state of the country, I am very pleased campus through the Hemispheres consortium. The annual that thanks to the strong involvement of a diverse and Hemispheres summer institute Sense of Place: Intersecting committed faculty and the support of the College of Liberal Geography, History, and Culture, had an audience of 45 middle Arts and federal government, the South Asia Institute can and high school teachers. Rachel Meyer, the outreach look forward to continuing the good work and maintaining coordinator, continued her active involvement in outreach the high standards it has come to be known for. Now, all we activities in the Austin and nearby school districts, supported have to do is work on the weather.... by graduate students who receive FLAS awards as well as international students. A novel form of outreach took Itty Abraham place in the fall, when the Institute partnered with CIBER, Director, South Asia Institute a Title VI-supported center in the UT Business School to

Fall 2009 3 People Itty Abraham, Associate Professor India. His most recent publication at the Oxford Centre for Hindu in Government and Asian Studies, was “Pakistan’s Troubled “Paradise Studies at the University of Oxford. was on leave during the spring on Earth” for Middle East Report During his stay there he gave a and summer thanks to a $100,000 (April 2009). serious of talks on the Upanishads, Scholar’s Award from the National and delivered the Majewski Lecture. Science Foundation. Based in Kathryn Hansen, Professor of Asian He also gave papers at a conference Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, his Studies, traveled to four foreign on the future of Indology at the research took him up and down the countries to present public lectures University of Karakow, Poland, Malabar coast. He was invited to give on her research during the past and at the conference “Cultures et the inaugural lecture at the Centre for year. She especially enjoyed her constructions historiques dans l’Asie Cross Cultural Communication in first visit to the UAE, where she du Sud de la première modernité” South Asia, School of International presented “Passionate Refrains: organized by the Centre d’Etudes Studies, Mahatma Gandhi The Theatricality of Urdu on the de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud of University, Kottayam; he gave talks Parsi Stage,” at a workshop on Sorbonne. In the Spring Olivelle in Hyderabad and Ahmedabad, and Islamicate Cultures of Bombay delivered the Michael Ondaatje spoke at the national anti-nuclear Cinema organized by the NYU Lecture at the University of conference held in Kanyakumari. Abu Dhabi Institute. She gave talks Toronto. Olivelle was appointed He was invited to participate in at the 20th European Conference the “International Mentor” of The workshops hosted by the National on South Asian Studies at the Cardiff Centre for the Study of University of Singapore and UKM, University of Manchester, UK; at Asian Religions of the University of Malaysia in March and August 2009 an ethnomusicology conference Cardiff and delivered the inaugural respectively. His edited collection, at the University of Amsterdam; talk at the opening of the Center. South Asian Cultures of the Bomb is and at the University of British His edited volume, Ashoka in History finally out from Indiana University Columbia, Canada; in addition and Historical Memory was published Press, and he has a chapter “Contra to presentations at the Biennial by Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi. Non-proliferation” in Scott Sagan’s Norman Cutler Conference on new edited volume Inside Nuclear South Asian Literature at the Carla Petievich, Visiting Professor South Asia (Stanford UP). University of Chicago, the University of Asian Studies, completed two of Colorado, and the annual AAS scholarly essays: “The World Kamran Asdar Ali, Associate meeting. Her article “Staging Changes and it Doesn’t: Notes Professor of Anthropology, Composite Culture: Nautanki and on Pakistani Culture,” which will received a Fellowship to spend Parsi Theatre in Recent Revivals” is appear in the catalogue for Hanging the 2010-2011 academic year at being published in the current issue Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin of South Asia Research. (Yale 2009) and which accompanies (Institute of Advanced Study). He a show by the same name that just co-edited the volume Comparing Gail Minault, Professor of History, opened to great acclaim at the Cities: Middle East and South Asia with is in the prepress stage of Gender, Asia Society in New York, and, Martina Rieker, published by Oxford Language, and Learning: Essays in “Innovations Pious and Impious: University Press. http://www.oup. Indo-Muslim Cultural History (New Expressive Culture in Nawabi com.pk/shopexd.asp?id=1724. In Delhi: Permanent Black, 2009). Lucknow” which will be published in addition to the introduction for the The contents will include 12 of her the catalogue for a major exhibition, volume he contributed the chapter, previously published articles, edited, Captured Hearts: the Lure of Courtly ‘Men and their “Problems”: Notes updated, and conveniently located Lucknow to be launched in 2011 at on Contemporary Karachi’. He in one book. the Los Angles County Museum of also wrote the Foreword for Muhajirs Art. and Nation: Bihar in the 1940s, a book Patrick Olivelle, Professor of Asian written by the late Professor Papiya Studies, was the Shivadasani Fellow Mar t ha A nn S el by , Associate Professor Ghosh published by Routledge for the Trinity Term (April-June) of South Asian Studies, published

4 south asia institute an article titled “Discursive Shifts Hindi conference. The last talk serving as faculty liaison for a visiting in Early Ayurvedic Narratives of was in Agra, at the Kendriya Hindi Fulbright Exchange musician from Conception and Gestation” in Divins Sansthan, on a general discussion on Pakistan, Ustad Ghulam Farid Remedes: Medicine et Religion of the state of Hindi teaching in the Nizami; continuing as editor of en Asie du Sud, Ines G. Zupanov US. In the summer he began work Asian Music, Journal of the Society and Caterina Guenzi, editors on the Language for Health project, for Asian Music; and continuing (Purushartha 27). She presented a three year project to develop a to represent the interests of the a paper titled “The Zoomorphic health-profession specific language Archive and Research Center for Impulse: Selfhood, Romance, and curriculum in Hindi. Ethnomusicology of the American Borderland Identities in Tamil Institute of Indian Studies. In his role Cankam Poetry,”at the Annual Stephen Slawek, Professor, Butler as Chair of the Ethnomusicology Meeting of the Association for Asian School of Music, was invited to committee of AIIS, he traveled to Studies (Chicago, March 2009). She lecture and perform in Baylor Chicago and New Delhi to report also gave a paper, “Form, Style, and University’s Lyceum Series in April. on the activities of the Archive Rhetoric in an Early Fourth-Century His performance of traditional and Research Center before the Tamil Anthology,” at a workshop ragas on the sitar, accompanied by Board of Trustees of AIIS and the organized by Dr. E. Annamalai Gourisankar Karmakar on tabla, Indian Advisory Committee of the titled “Tamil Literary Culture: Past was enthusiastically received, as was Government of India. and Present” at Yale University his presentation of a paper entitled (April 2009). Selby has been named “Recent Experimental Compositions Cynthia Talbot, Associate Professor Distinguished Alumni Fellow by the in the Classical Music of North of History, spent the 2008-2009 Dean of the College of Liberal Arts India.” Earlier in the year Professor academic year working on a book on and Sciences at the University of Slawek traveled to Amsterdam to Prithviraj Raso and other narratives Iowa, and will be honored with a deliver his paper, “A Tale of Two about the twelfth-century king two-day celebration in Iowa City in Concertos: Inauthentic Authenticity Prithviraj Cauhan, with the support early September. Her translation of and Authentic Inauthenticity in of a National Endowment for the Ainkurunuru, an anthology of Old Ravi Shankar’s Orchestral Works,” Humanities fellowship. Her article Tamil love poetry, will be published in a major international conference “Becoming Turk the Rajput Way: by Columbia University Press in on the music of India, India and Conversion and Identity in an Indian late 2010. She has also been elected the World: Intercultural Performing Warrior Narrative” appeared in the to the Executive Committee of Arts, hosted by the University January 2009 issue of the journal the American Institute of Indian of Amsterdam and the Indian Modern Asian Studies. She completed Studies, and will begin service as Musicological Society. In November, the editorial work on a volume AIIS Language Program Chair in Professor Slawek coordinated the titled “Perceptions of India and Its March 2010. visit of master Indian instrument Pasts: Essays in Honor” of Thomas maker Sanjay Sharma, of the R. Trautmann to which sixteen In December 2008 Jishnu Shankar, reknown Rikhi Ram family of sitar scholars contributed essays; it will Senior Lecturer of Asian Studies, makers of New Delhi, to recondition be published by Yoda Press (Delhi) began a five lecture tour which the BSOM’s aging sitars and in spring 2010. She presented a started at the Defense Language tanpuras. During the year, Professor paper last fall at the conference of Institute, Monterey, California, and Slawek maintained a hectic pace of the International Association of took him to Japan for an invited teaching and service, getting four of Historians of Asia, which met in lecture on “Teaching with Authentic his doctoral students through their Delhi, and she served as the chair Materials.” Then on to Jaipur for an dissertation defenses; doing his best to of the program committee for the AIIS-HUF presentation on Register continue instructional activity of the spring 2009 annual meeting of the in Hindi for teacher-training, finally BSOM’s Javanese gamelan during Association of Asian Studies in culminating in Delhi with an talk the absence of its regular instructor, Chicago. on the HUF at the Aksharam Bapak Rasito Purwopangrawit;

Fall 2009 5 People Patricia A. Wilson, Graduate examine colonial archives at the practices of Kurukshetra. Apart Program in Community and British Library. from failing to secure a batch of Regional Planning, hosted her co- fresh homemade lemon pickles, the author Varun Vidyarthi last fall for Hafeez Jamali (Anthropology) was trip was tremendously successful a series of talks and book signings awarded a Pre-doctoral Dissertation and the research conducted will for their recently published book Fellowship by the American Institute greatly enhance certain aspects of Development from Within: Facilitating of Pakistan Studies (AIPS) for his his dissertation titled “Kurukshetra: Collective Reflection for Sustainable Change. dissertation proposal titled ‘Between Place and Narrative.” Elliott Varun is the founder and director Global Dreams and Local Realities: will present a paper based on of Manavodaya, The Institute of Baloch Identity and the Politics of this research during this year’s Participatory Development, based Place in Gwadar, Pakistan’. Southwest Conference on Asian in Lucknow. SAI co-sponsored a Studies being held at the University reception for him with the School of Suzanne Schulz (Radio-Television- of Texas. Elliott was also honored Architecture. The book is available Film) accepted an American with a Graduate School Continuing at amazon.com. Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) Fellowship for this academic year Junior Fellowship for her work which he will use to continue writing Graduate Students on local and informal media in his dissertation. Lucknow and Delhi. She will begin Amber Abbas (History) is currently in research in February 2010. Based Recent Ph.D. Graduates India on a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral on work conducted in January Dissertation Research Abroad 2009, Suzanne and Subah Dayal Mark McClish (Asian Studies) Fellowship. She was also offered (UCLA) recently completed a visual successfully defended his Ph.D. in an American Institute of Indian essay for the Tasveer Ghar project. Asian Cultures and Religions in Studies Junior Fellowship which she The essay is entitled “Outside the August. He was invited this summer declined. Next spring she will utilize Imambara” and can be viewed at to attend the conference “Asoka and a 3-month American Institute of www.tasveerghar.net the Making of Modern India” in Bangladesh Studies Fellowship to New Delhi where he presented a continue her research in Dhaka. Jolie Wood (Government) has been paper on The Textual History of She intends to present “Multiple awarded a Fellowship for Doctoral the Arthasastra. He is currently a Realities: Continuity and Cleavage Candidates by the American Carnegie Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Partition Narratives” at the UT Association of University Women at Ripon College. Austin Institute of Historical Studies’ (AAUW) Austin Branch in 2009- Independence and Decolonization 10 for her continuing work on her Reena Patel, a 2008 alumni, recently Seminar in April 2010. dissertation entitled, “White-collar signed a book contract with Stanford Agitation, No-collar Compliance: University Press. Based on her UT Aun Ali (Sociology) was awarded a The Privilege of Protest in Varanasi, dissertation research in India, the Pre-doctoral Dissertation Fellowship India.” book, Working the Night Shift: Women’s by the American Institute of Employment in the Transnational Call Pakistan Studies (AIPS) for his Elliott McCarter (Asian Studies) Center Industry, will be available early dissertation proposal titled “The recently returned from Kurukshetra, next year. She currently works as a Politics of Sectarianism: State, Haryana where he traveled with the Foreign Service Officer at USAID. Islamism, and the Making of Shia blessing of a departmental grant to Politics in Pakistan”. Aun spent witness the mela accompanying the last summer in Pakistan traveling solar eclipse. In the days following between several cities conducting the celestial event, he continued his interviews and archival research. research in the region, conducting His next destination is going to be interviews and gathering data London this winter where he will about the stories, places and

6 south asia institute Meet our Foreign Language under the University of Calcutta. I my language and culture. Teaching Assistants... have also taught Bengali to a group I am Aqsa Iqbal from Islamabad, the of people from a European NGO. capitol city of Pakistan. I received I am Rohan Banerjee and presently I am sure my experiences here at my Master’s is in English Language, UT will enrich me and will sharpen Literature & Applied Linguistics my vision and intellect. Although I from National University of Modern didn’t start here, but the prospect of Languages, Islamabad in August changing the world seems inspiring 2005. SinceTelugu receiving my degree, Javali Songs: Salon to Cinema to me as well! I have been teaching at the same I am Shilpi Agarwal from Lucknow, university. I have taught English often known as the City of Nawabs, language courses from beginner to Davesh Soneji City of Manners and Etiquette advanced levels and have taken the McGill University and famous for its lyrical language English language courses specially – an amalgam of Hindi and designed for PLA (Chinese Officers) Urdu. I received my Bachelor’s and Saudi Royal Officers. I am happy degree in English Literature, to be an FLTA for Urdu at The Mass Communication and Video University of Texas. As a language Production; Master’s and M.Phil in teacher, I love to teach languages, English Literature from University but it is a unique experience for me of Lucknow, Lucknow. My M.Phil. here in Austin because I am teaching working as a Fulbright Foreign dissertation was on Indian Diaspora Urdu, my mother tongue. Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA) writers settled in America like in Bengali at the University of Texas Bharati Mukherjee and Chitra at Austin. I am from Kolkata, often Banerjee Divakaruni. In the future, referred to as the “cultural capital” I will pursue my Ph.D. in English of India, and by the very spirit of Literature, specializing in Post- it, bear in my heart a true sense of Colonial Studies. Though I am a cultural pluralism. I did my M.A. in student of English Literature, I enjoy English from Presidency College, one teaching my mother tongue Hindi at of the leading academic institutions The University of Texas, because I in India, under the University of like to help people know more about Calcutta. I am a passionate reader of poetry and I write some as well. However, my major interests lie onstage. I have performed as an actor with “Rupokolpo” in several theatre festivals that occur in and around Kolkata and suburbs. Philosophically, I am inclined to post structuralism and psychoanalysis. I am planning to do my PhD on the symbols of violence and grotesque and (de)construct how essentially they narrate multidimensional representations of fragmented selves. Professionally, I taught English Literature (primarily British and Indian) at Behala College

Fall 2009 7 South Asia Seminar Series: IMAGE/TEXT/SOUND October 2, 2008 3:30 PM-5:00 PM Meyerson Conference Room, WCH 4.118 South Asia Institute http://www.utexas.edu/cola/insts/southasia/ International Collaborations School Inauguration cut the ribbon with me, students visit to Oslo in August. showered us with rose petals, and The formal and informal On June 8, 2009 the new school a couple of the balloons festooning conversations that took place building for al-Hamd Educational the ceiling grates succumbed to the during these visits were extremely Girls High School was officially heat and exploded. We spoke about productive. It became obvious right inaugurated. Dr. Carla Petievich, our dream of Pakistani children away that in some fields, members of Executive Director of the Hoshyar becoming educated and changing the two departments have a number Foundation, was on hand together the world around us. Then the of common research interests. with Mrs. Farida Tanveer, the school students sang the Pakistani national In other fields the specializations principal. The eight-room school anthem, and Shahnaz and I complement each other. It was building was the first capital project sang ‘We Shall Overcome.’ We concluded that collaborations on of Hoshyar, established in 2007 distributed sweets and juice, then concrete research projects could be to support human empowerment gave the parents a tour of the school. extremely fruitful and that teaching through female education. The It was tremendously emotional and exchanges could fill the respective ceremony was attended by a large exciting.” ‘blind spots’ for the benefit of number of students and their students. parents, along with Ghazanfar Ali, Cooperation between Asian These explorative talks resulted Studies and the University of in finalizing an ‘Academic and Oslo, Norway Scientific Cooperation and Oliver Freiberger Exchange Agreement’ between UT and the University of Oslo, In the fall of 2008 a conversation was which will facilitate future exchange initiated between the Department efforts. A number of cooperative of Asian Studies at UT (DAS) and initiatives on the research level are the Department of Culture Studies being underway or in the planning and Oriental Languages (IKOS) phase. The first teaching exchange at the University of Oslo, Norway. will take place in the spring semester The main objective was to explore of 2010. Dr. Ute Hüsken (IKOS) will possible forms of exchange in give a series of talks and seminars both research and teaching. The related to her field of expertise, two departments have a strikingly South Indian temple culture, which similar structure, in that research, is otherwise not taught at UT. In teaching, and language training are turn, Dr. Joel Brereton (DAS) will related to a variety of geographical teach Vedic Sanskrit at IKOS, a field areas (and time periods) of Asia. Just in which UT is one of the leading the vice-principal, and Shahnaz like DAS, IKOS houses a number of universities in the world. Plans for Hassan, Lecturer in Urdu at UT- renowned scholars in several fields of other upcoming teaching exchanges Austin and a member of the Hoshyar Asian Studies, especially for South are currently being made. advisory board. and East Asia. In early 2009 Dr. The cooperation agreement “When we arrived at the new Ute Hüsken, professor of Sanskrit between the two sister departments school building we found it at IKOS, received a grant from the opens up many exciting possibilities festooned with balloons, many University of Oslo for organizing of academic exchange. Faculty and of the classrooms painted, and explorative talks. A delegation from students alike will benefit greatly a huge crowd awaiting us,” Dr. Oslo visited Austin in April 2009, from this initiative. Petievich said. “As Mrs. Tanveer and a group from UT paid a counter

8 south asia institute New South Asia Faculty Blair Shultz, Asian Studies The most interesting thing for me, one class this fall. It’s entitled “The then, was the combination of the Literature of Modern, South Asian turn towards realist fiction (which Islam” and it attempts to trace a begins at the beginning of the genealogy of Muslim writing in 20th century) and the development the subcontinent over the course of the All-Indian Progressive of the 20th century. I was inspired Writers Association (at about the in some ways by Ayesha Jalal’s very 1930s). Both of these developments interesting book Self and Sovereignty put into stark relief the social in which she attempts to show how dilemmas which preoccupied the advent of colonial modernity intellectuals at the height of the in the subcontinent contradictorily nationalist agitation: women’s affected the ways that Muslims uplift, caste abolition, the stultifying understood individuality and effects of religious orthodoxy, the community belonging. I also wanted overwhelming problems of rural to challenge Rushdie’s own notion poverty. And for me, this was an that his writing had nothing to do India that was both emotionally with the traditions of vernacular Snehal Shingavi, English compelling and politically engaging. fiction in the subcontinent. I noticed that you have several publications of translated short stories. What inspires Premchand, of course, is synonymous So, the class begins by looking at you to work on the particular pieces you with the social novel in Hindi. The debates between Islamic reformers have chosen? Angare stories, on the other hand, (Ashraf Ali Thanawi and Syed are infamous, but because of British Ahmed Khan), but moves to Both projects, Premchand’s Sevasdan censorship policies, the collection considering the decline of aristocratic and the Angare stories, grew out of was unavailable until very recently culture (Ruswa’s Umrao Jan Ada), the my own literary and intellectual to most Urdu readers. Sajjad development of Muslim nationalism preoccupations. The kinds of Zaheer and Rashid Jahan’s stories (Ahmed Ali’s Twilight in Delhi) and stories about India that I grew in that collection produced some middle-class feminism (Chughtai’s up with were larger-than-life and of the most contentious literary- Crooked Line and Atiya Hossain’s mythological narratives: somewhere cum-religious debates in the 1930s Sunlight on a Broken Column), the effects between Amitabh Bachchan and and it actually rallied writers from of Partition (Sa’adat Hasan Manto’s Amar Chitra Katha. And the all over India to defend artistic short stories and Rahi Masoom consequence was a more or less freedom against the twin forces Reza’s Adha Gaon), and ends with sanitized and romantic vision of of orthodoxy and colonialism. I contemporary narratives of the India which became the emotional wanted to find some way of making India-Pakistan conflict (Rushdie’s bedrock of immigrant communities that material available to English- Shame and Mohsin Hamid’s The from South Asia in the US. At the speaking audiences. I also find them Reluctant Fundamentalist). same time, though, it was clear wonderfully interesting and, dare I to me that there was a vast gulf say, salacious. I’m hoping that the combination between that India and the India of Anglophone and Hindi/Urdu that I encountered, and I began to Could you tell me about the courses you literature will add some much seek out narratives which helped me will be teaching this Fall? needed complexity to the arguments to explain that India, how it came about the development of South about and how it felt about itself. I am very lucky to be teaching only Asian fiction as a whole while at the

Fall 2009 9 same time putting Muslim writers Violence, and the City, that can identities are being reformulated in converstation with one another work towards fulfilling course in the context of disappearance of across the twentieth century in some requirements in the Urban Studies formal factory-based employment provocative ways. Track. At present, I am teaching and the emergence of informal and GRG 356 T, Global Societies, an sweatshop style working conditions How do you feel about the artistic, “keep upper division undergraduate topics -- what does this do to class Austin weird” vibe of the city? course that deals with social, political, consciousness, union movement, cultural, and economic issues in the feminist consciousness, and hence, I spent the last decade at UC pre and post-globalization context, how can class and feminist identity Berkeley, at the heart of the in the latter half of the course, I tie be re-conceptualized in the context weirdest, most Bohemian city in the these issues with urban exclusion, of a post-industrial world? US. Austin feels like coming home violence, and war. in that respect. The weirder the What do you make of the Urban better, I say. On what projects are you currently development here in Austin? working? Austin has been popularly referred I am currently working on to as the ‘creative city’, a site where expanding and deepening my creative classes (software engineers, investigations on the nature and artists, singers, academics, experts) mechanisms of urban exclusions settle to produce a vibrancy that have become common place and prosperity that is in direct with market-oriented globalization contradiction to the rust belt cities. In -- I am focusing on Ahmedabad many ways, Austin does capture that city in India, which embodies vibrancy and creativity, the urban these contradictory aspects of the landscape is a kaleidoscope of vibrant ‘new’ entrepreneurial urbanism. colors, graffiti, twinkling lights, sago This ‘new’ urbanism in the Global palms celebrating and worshiping South in general, and Ahmedabad quaintness, weirdness, difference, in particular, entails adoption of I wonder however, how much of Ipsita Chatterjee, Geography urban renewal policies that beautify, it is real? I live in an apartment clean and dress-up the city in complex with a huge pool, all the Could you tell me about your part with the anticipation for global investment, in complexes in my area have one or Urban Studies track of course work in the the process intentionally excluding multiple pools, gyms, club houses, Geography Department? the urban poor, and socio-culturally this is the kind of urbanism that marginalizing the ethnic poor. is desirable for the creative class -- I am an urban geographer, who Outward looking economic policies what does this do in terms of water studies issues of globalization, labor, are creatively juxtaposed with use, resource use, in a place where spatial transformations, conflict parochial hatred and ethno-phobia drought is an important issue? I am and violence in the urban context, to chalk-out new tropes of urban interested in exploring the grit and naturally I am looking forward exclusion. I am investigating these grime, the ‘underbelly’, if you will, towards developing upper division mechanisms of urban exclusion. that supports this creativity and undergraduate courses on topics vibrancy. like: Globalization and the City, My other passion at the moment is Urban Transformations, Identity, to understand how class and gender

10 south asia institute New South Asia Faculty our experiences with the world of those concerned about its negative aid workers in Kathmandu. We repercussions. Carla Freeman has observed that no one had written captured this divide in the title of about this large population, likely her 2001 article “Is Local:Global as deemed not “exotic” enough for Feminine:Masculine?” The course anthropologists. I took this as a seeks to bridge this gap, beginning challenge and have been writing with an introduction to general and researching zones of contact theories of globalization, including since then. I was fortunate that the economic and political concepts when I returned from this early, that can often be intimidating to transformative fieldwork trip to cultural researchers. With this be able to work with scholars of background in place, the class then globalization and diasporaTelugu studies looks Javali at a diverse set ofSongs: writings Salon to Cinema Heather Hindman, Asian Studies with whom I found a great deal that seek to see how these theories of shared interest in the mobility play out in the world. In the end, Could you tell me a bit about your interest of people and the politicization of globalization looks not like a Davesh Soneji in expatriate communities? territorial rootedness. flattening of the world, but a source McGill University of friction that has unintended and My interest in expatriates came Please talk about your course this Fall, unexpected effects. as a result of a longer interest in “Global Markets and Local Cultures” – Nepal. Kathmandu has long been a what critical issues are you excited about crossroads for travelers and traders relaying to your students? and that continues to the current day. The capital city in many The “Global Markets and Local ways dominates the economic and Cultures” class is very much political life of the modern nation- designed to bridge an intellectual state, with some from rural areas gap in scholarship on globalization. referring to going to Kathmandu There is a significant mass of as going to Nepal. In addition to research on global theory, often the large population of backpack coming from political science and travelers, adventure tourists and economics, that claims to explain Buddhist seekers in Kathmandu, the operations of global finance and there are a significant number of the generalized rules of the market foreign aid workers, diplomats and in a newly global age. Meanwhile, expatriate business people. The in the humanities, history, and presence of such a large number of anthropology, there is a different foreigners was something that was a conversation about local impacts of part of my everyday experience of globalization that generates “case the city as I was doing research on studies” of how external forces Newari nationalism and gender. The influence a particular population. move to my research on expatriates Too often, these two discourses do in Nepal came as a result of a not intersect – resulting in a lack of conversation with fellow scholars real dialogue between those lauding on Newari culture that drifted into the effects of globalization and

Fall 2009 11

South Asia Seminar Series: IMAGE/TEXT/SOUND October 2, 2008 3:30 PM-5:00 PM Meyerson Conference Room, WCH 4.118 South Asia Institute http://www.utexas.edu/cola/insts/southasia/ Distinguished Visitors ALI: How was the relationship between the media and the Excerpts from an interview by Professor Kamran Asdar Ali state similar or different between the martial-law of Zia ul- (Anthropology), during Imran Aslam’s recent visit to Austin. The full Haq and the military rule of Gen. Musharraf ? interview may be found in MERIP no. 251, Summer 2009.

ASLAM: In essence, the role of the media will be and should Imran Aslam is the president of Geo TV Network, the channel be adversarial. I say that because as a member of the media, that “changed the media landscape” of Pakistan, as the New York one is essentially the opposition to anti-democratic forces in Times put it. government. Ultimately, both regimes were usurpers who In 1983 Aslam became the Editor of the Star, an evening newspaper came to power through extra-constitutional measures. that was to blaze a trail in investigative journalism during the days of Initially, the government would try to coopt the media. But General Zia-ul-Haq. Working with a team described as ‘typewriter inevitably fissures emerge and once the leadership realizes guerillas,’ the Star refused to play it safe and finally Aslam was given a that reporting that will be critical of their tenure, they clamp choice : soft pedal or resign. He resigned. down on the press. For the next two years he earned a living by writing advertising jingles and In the case of Zia ul-Haq the relationship between the news working in the theatre and on television. Aslam returned to journalism media and the government was openly adversarial. During in 1990 when he helped found The News, Pakistan’s leading English Zia ul-Haq’s rule the press saw a lot of pre-censorship and a language newspaper. He was part of the team that launched Geo on lot of advisories coming in. If you did not heed warnings, you 14 August 2002. The network has taken strong positions on sensitive faced imprisonment or the possibility that your publication societal and political issues and has helped to enlarge the space for would be shut down. As a result many good journalists discussion , dissent and debate in Pakistan. In spite of repeated efforts by indulged in self-censorship and this was most debilitating. the Musharraf regime to close them down, Aslam and Geo resisted this pressure successfully.

12 south asia institute During the 1990s when Pakistan enjoyed a period of he opened up the air waves. This was a new type of dictator civilian rule, there was a small opening. Still, the government with a new agenda. continued to attempt to buy or coerce journalists. Since working journalists could not be bought, the management About a year after the September 11th attacks, we launched was targeted through tactics such as news print quotas and a television news channel called Geo TV from Dubai. This cutting government advertising. was one of the first news channels. Other channels had emerged that also had news content but they were hybrid During Nawaz Sharif’s second term in office (late 1990s), channels. We had to operate from Dubai because for all and even during Benazir Bhutto’s rule before him, we Musharraf’s claims of opening up the air waves, the license received visits from information officials in the government. to operate in Pakistan was not forthcoming. The reason he Mr. Haqqani (the current ambassador of Pakistan to the gave for not allowing us to operate within Pakistan was cross- US, then a close political advisor to the PPP government), I media ownership – print and broadcasting -- too much of remember, came into the office one day. We were running a a monopoly. story about the corruption allegations against Asif Zardari (the current President of Pakistan and the spouse of the Geo TV had a formidable impact because it was reaching deceased Prime Minister) and him not being allowed to many more people than a local television station could. contest elections. Haqqani came and tried to persuade us Initially there was shell shock. The people in power didn’t to drop the story. understand technology -- how were things being shipped out of Pakistan? How was the footage being sent to Dubai? When Nawaz Sharif was in power, the owner of the Jang Group of newspapers, Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman was asked to The impact was instantaneous. I’ve never before seen the fire a number of his news staff. He refused and the following kind of impact we were able to create in a very short period morning when he arrived at his office he found 18 tax notices of time. Of course the Iraq war was starting and also within on his table from decades back, which they had probably Pakistan there was turmoil and excitement. Things were kept as a weapon to be used at the appropriate time. As the changing in a very interesting way and I think we were able pressure started to mount, a list was submitted by the so- to give a snapshot of the whole thing in a different way. called democratic forces (meaning the democratically elected To the credit of Gen. Musharraf, he took a lot. He took government of the time) of a few important members of criticism, parodies, ridicule. So we said this was a benevolent the news who were to be sacked. They confiscated our news dictator, somebody who wanted to be loved. We talked print and brought us down to about four pages. But we about his uniform and we talked about the military’s role continued to fight. We called it a “war on Jang,” Jang being in politics. the parent newspaper, which in Urdu means war. Musharraf was very telegenic and used the media as much The owner of Jang, Shakil, gathered journalists at the mosque as possible to get his point across. He was very fond of and announced that the government was blackmailing pontificating…he loved talking. There was a little boom him. Shakil had taped conversations with Saifur Rahman taking place thanks to the American aid coming in. Good and Mushahid Hussain (both high level functionaries in management in certain areas…governance issues were the Sharif government and personally close to the Prime resolved in certain areas, banks becoming a little more Minister) in which they openly asked him, on tape, to sack interesting, more credit facilities available, the telecom these people and promised him they would take away the tax boom, some investment was coming into Pakistan. The stock notices if he complied. Once the tapes came out it created a market was performing well. These were the pleasant days lot of waves and the government backed off. of Musharraf. We were lulled into this feeling of security… thought it was open ended and we could keep pushing the In 1999 when Pervez Musharraf came to power there was audience. But when the two assassination attempts took a little hope. In his first speech he talked about opening up place against him he went back into his shell. We saw a the air waves. We started talking about electronic media to whole series of bomb blasts, suicide attacks. He felt his hold see how the new dictator would take this and sure enough was slipping.

Fall 2009 13 His tour of America and the book that he wrote showed him arrived with flowers and wreaths and danced in the streets. to be a very shallow person at the end of the day. When he The atmosphere became like a carnival. It gave the owners asked Chief Justice Chaudhry (the Chief Justice of Pakistan of the channels and all of us confidence that we could take who was dismissed by Musharraf in March of 2007) to a stand. Finally, when Musharraf lifted the emergency resign the media found a cause they could relate to. The decree, we came back on TV just in time for the elections in coverage of the Chief Justice, twenty-four hours a day, was February of 2008. But Musharraf was so obsessed by this unprecedented. In this period the two main political leaders, Frankenstein monster that he went to Dubai to pull the plug Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, were out of the country. on our station. The last chance of us beaming out to the rest In his pursuit of legitimacy, Musharraf started to make of the world was killed. deals. And one of the deals he made was with Benazir. We know for a fact that the British and Americans were involved So you see, nothing really changes. Both Musharraf and in that. They wanted to bring someone who would toe the Zia ul-Haq proved similar in the end, even if their styles line and maybe work with Musharraf were different. side by side. But what needs to be stressed is (...) that technological change and the instantaneous nature of the news today There were other things Musharraf caused a change in the whole dynamic. did not forgive the Chief Justice for. The reaction time to events has become One of them was his ruling on the very small. The information sectors of privatization of the steel mill (In 2006, government were caught by surprise during the process of privatizing of and unable to react instantaneously. state industries the Chief Justice had Often the media would break the news blocked the sale of the Pakistan Steel and the government wouldn’t know Mill to private investors, bringing about it. You call them for a response upon him and the judiciary the ire and they say “well we’re just seeing this of the then Prime Minister and other on your channel.” I don’t think they government officials) which was a understood how to respond to it. major disaster for Shaukat Aziz, the prime minister. The whole privatization process brought ALI: There are ebbs and flows in your relationship with the back the stigma of corruption. Many believed that the steel current government as well... mill is a strategic part of Pakistan’s economy and should not just be sold to people who don’t have the ability (to run ASLAM: The big debate post-Musharraf was the “war it). So the media played a role here. We decided this is an on terror” and whose war it was. Whether we were to take issue we are going to support, openly and publicly and no ownership of it or whether we were just the fixers and the matter what happened. And as the support grew and the story was being written by somebody else. There was an lawyers’ movement gained momentum, Musharraf acted attempt by the powers that be to channel this debate so like dictators are wont to do and declared emergency rule that they could do the bidding of their masters. But public and banned all television channels. sentiment is something that you always have to be careful of. You can create public opinion, but you cannot create an Slowly, channels kept coming back. Musharraf said we had artificial public opinion. to sign a code of conduct in order to operate, which was like a death sentence. Plus, there was a list of people he said The initial euphoria of the February 18 elections evaporated would not be allowed to conduct talk shows. Not only did he quickly because it soon became clear that the electorate had ban news channel, he banned entertainment channels, the delivered a hung mandate and there would have to be some youth channel and sports. So there was a huge financial loss, sort of a coalition to run the country. (continued p. 25) but luckily people came out in support of the channels. They

14 south asia institute South Asia Seminar Series Fall 2008 - Spring 2009

Neepa Majumdar Chris Pinney University of Pittsburgh Northwestern University Saying More: Innuendo and Constructions of Female Lessons from Hell: Popular Hindu Imagery and Stardom in Indian Cinema of the 1930s Governmentality

Kathryn Hansen Richard Eaton UT Austin University of Arizona A Hindu Architecture and Power in the Deccan: an Historical “Mythological” Typology in the Parsi Theater: Betab’s Kaushik Ghosh Mahabharat UT Austin Nano: The Story of the Big ‘Small Car Anand Pandian Johns Hopkins Bina D’Costa University ANU Framing Strangers within our Borders: Human (in) security in Feelings: South Asia Landscapes of Affective Nandini Sundar Expression in Delhi School of Tamil Cinema Econimics Citizenship in a Davesh Soneji Looking-Glass World McGill University Telugu Javali Songs: Salon to Cinema Sanjib Baruah Bard College Ulrike Stark The Partition’s Long University of Chicago Shadow: Politics of the ‘Government’s most energetic servant’ or South Asia Seminar Series Blurred Citizen-Alien Nano: The Story of the Big 'Small Car' ‘Traitor to his country’? Rediscovering Raja Kaushik Ghosh University of Texas at Austin February 12, 2009 Shivaprasad, Sitara-e Hind 3:30 PM-5:00 PM Meyerson Conference Room (WCH 4.118) Sumathi Ramaswamy

The SAI seminar series features lectures by distinguished South Asian specialists from UT and abroad. Regular seminars occur on Thursdays at 3:30 pm, preceded by a reception at 3:00 pm, in the Meyerson Oxford Conference Room (WCH 4.118). Saloni Mathur Of celestial gods and UCLA terrestrial globes Split Collections: Partition, the Museum and Material Culture

Fall 2009 15 Kabir at UT

In November 2008, the poet and translator Arvind held in UT’s Jessen Auditorium, at which a range of Krishna Mehrotra was a guest of the Hindi Urdu different ‘Kabir’ songs was presented to great acclaim. Flagship. Besides being an English-language poet in his (The inverted commas around the poet’s name here own right, Dr Mehrotra (who teaches English literature at reflect an academic fastidiousness about authenticity Allahabad University) is well known for such translations that is wholly absent in Prahladji’s dynamic style: for as those in The Absent Traveller: Prakrit love poetry while scholars like to ‘problematize’ the contestable from the Gathasaptasati of Satavahana Hala (1991), attribution of such verses, the devotee sees them as a classic volume with an afterword by UT’s very own a source of spiritual solutions rather than academic Martha Selby. In his HUF talk, Mehrotra presented his problems.) The concert was compared by Shabnam new and unpublished translations of poetry atttributed Virmani, a prolific filmmaker whose documentary to the 15th-16th-century Hindi poet Kabir, the greatest Had-Anhad: Journeys with Ram and Kabir had been mystical poet of the vernacular ‘Nirgun’ tradition; shown the night before the performance. During their discussion following his readings addressed both the three-day visit to UT — part of a tour across numerous Kabir tradition itself and the broader process of literary campuses and communities in the US — Prahladji and translation. his ensemble also engaged with Hindi students, and temporarily transformed Rupert Snell’s Panorama of Kabir was again the subject of a larger event that took Hindi Literature class into an arena where the vision of place in April 2009, when the Hindi Urdu Flagship Kabir was encountered face to face, rather than through sponsored a short festival of film and music celebrating the questioning lens of academic discourse. the poet’s work and persona. The centerpiece was an unforgettable concert by a group of devotional singers, Prahlad Singh Tipanya and his accompanists, Conference Updates

16 south asia institute Beauty in the Worlds of Islam

The two-day conference Beauty in the Worlds of Islam Conference Presenters and Topics was attended by a number of K-12 teachers as well as many other scholars and students. The conference • Nargis Virani: Joseph: The Embodiment of ‘Half of explored the manner in which beauty is created, judged, the Beauty of the Entire Universe’ negotiated, and relayed in Muslim societies from Asia • Tahera Qutbuddin: The Art of Arabic Oratory: A to the Americas. It emphasized the several ways in Classical Sermon on Piety by Imam Ali which the diverse imaginative spirit of Muslim peoples • Nerina Rustomji: Perfection of Paradise is manifested in architecture, music, poetry, rhetoric, • Shafique Virani: Beauty in the Laughter of Children: and calligraphy; it also examined how issues of gender, Muslim Preschools in East Africa sexuality, disenfranchisement, and modernity shape • Fawn Shirazi: Sex Change in the Islamic Republic ideas of beauty. Dr. Ayesha Jalal, MacArthur and of Iran • Cemil Aydin: Cosmopolitan Muslim Empires and Religious Diversity: The Ottoman Experience • Rupert Snell: Kabir: God’s Mystic Witness • Ali Mir: Muslims & Urdu in the Worlds of Bollywood • Prof. Ayesha Jalal: Striving for Beauty: Poetics and Ethics in Muslim History • Denise Spellberg: Could a Muslim Be President? Islam in America • Juliane Hammer: Embodying Gender Justice: American Muslim Women and the 2005 Woman- from left to right: Houchange Chehabi, Ayesha Jalal, Shafique Virani Led Friday Prayer in New York • Naveeda Khan: Nineteen: A Story [of Islam in America] Carnegie Fellow at Tufts University, gave the keynote • Hina Azam: Aesthetic Dimensions in Classical address, impressing the audience with a wide-ranging Islamic Law analysis of the relationship between ethics and beauty • Janice Leoshko: Defining Identities: Lessons from throughout the areas of the world inhabited by Muslim Bamiyan and the Taj Mahal peoples. The first night of the conference ended in a Sufi • Houchang Chehabi: Persianate Elements in the musical assembly conducted by visiting Fulbright fellow Traditional Athletic Cultures of West and South from Pakistan, Ustaad Nizami. Asia

Within the conference, Professor Syed Akbar Hyder held a workshop and roundtable discussion on the most pressing issues related to the teaching of Islam in high school and colleges. Thus the conference succeeded in its two-fold task of enriching American high school and college pedagogies relating to social studies, while enhancing interdisciplinary conversation among scholars of literature, visual arts, history, anthropology, political science, architecture and jurisprudence. Conference Updates

Fall 2009 17 conference, “Beauty in the Worlds of Islam,” in April 2009. The two-day event, led by Prof. Akbar Hyder, was attended by more than seventy-five middle and high school teachers and social studies administrators from across the state, as well as fifteen post-secondary faculty from community colleges and small universities in California, Florida, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Texas.

The cornerstone of the Hemispheres partnership is its annual Summer Institute for K-12 educators. This year’s Institute, “Sense of Place: Intersecting Geography, History, and Culture,” featured four speakers sponsored by SAI. Presenters from UT’s faculty included Ipsita Chatterjee from the Department of Geography and Shanti Kumar from the Department of Radio, Television and Film. Outside SAI’s outreach program includes AIM: South Asia (Area speakers included Kathleen O’Reilly and Laxmi Murthy, Instructional Methodologies for South Asia), as well as Associate Editor of Himal Southasian. During the Four- working collaboratively with UT’s other three NRCs day event, forty-five teachers and twelve speakers examined through Hemispheres. Both initiatives focus intensively on how changing perceptions of place related to its political, the development of resources for K-12 and post-secondary economic, social, and cultural background. education by providing workshops, in-service teacher training, curriculum design, and classroom outreach Hemispheres also extends the impact of its Summer programs. Institutes by creating curriculum related to workshop

In Fall 2008, AIM: South Asia hosted a K-12 workshop, “Land and Landscape in South Asia,” for middle and high school teachers and social studies coordinators from the Austin area. Twenty participants joined the event from the Independent School Districts of Austin, San Marcos, Round Rock and Pflugerville. The workshop addressed topics concerning land and landscape that are often studied separately. Participants were asked to consider ways of thinking about the importance of the addressed topics in order to understand the significance of culture (including religion, literature and art) and geography in South Asia. Speakers included Janice Leoshko and Michael Charlesworth of the Department of Art and Art History at UT, Rupert Snell of the Department of Asian Studies at UT, and Kathleen O’Reilly, from the Department of Geography at Texas A&M University.

AIM: South Asia, along with the Hindu-Urdu Flagship themes. Hemispheres has completed a first draft of a (HUF) Program, co-hosted a second Spring outreach curriculum unit based on last year’s “Restoring Women Outreach

18 south asia institute 2008. SAI is supplying on-going assistance by providing New K-12 Lesson Plans classroom speakers and curriculum resources to support “Partition in the Classroom” for High School Social Studies the Academy’s mission to engage students in educational experiences that foster international understanding and “Outsourcing: understanding new business relations between diversity of thought for a globally interconnected world. India and the US Call center in India” for High School Social SAI worked through Hemispheres to provide a full day Studies Open House for all 125 students and their teachers in November 2008 by hosting a series of talks and hands-on “Photography in India” for High School Social Studies, Art/Art History, Literature and Language Arts (with modifications for activities on the UT campus. SAI is looking forward to Middle School) hosting another open house in October. A second global studies academy, Eastside Memorial Global Tech, opened “Holi, the festival of colors” for Middle School Social Studies at Eastside Memorial High School in September 2009. SAI served on the planning committee leading up to the school’s “Women in the Indian Independence Movement - The Salt Protests of 1930” for High School Social Studies opening and will provide on-going assistance with teacher training and curriculum support. “Juki Girls: Clothing, Factory Work, and Changing Gender Roles in Sri Lanka” for High School Social Studies SAI also conducted many in-service teacher training and classroom outreach events. Rachel Meyer, SAI’s outreach “Teach India Project - Salem Trade: Artifacts from India” for High School Social Studies coordinator, presented at fifteen national and state teacher training conferences and in-service teacher training at “Teach India Project - An Indian Folk Tale” for Kindergarten and regional and district centers across the state. Meyer also First Grade presented to UTeach, the pre-service educator program run by the College of Liberal Arts, where she reached 118 New Hemispheres Curicculum students at UT. SAI’s graduate student speakers conducted presentations at three Diversity Days events, and during Explorers, Traders & Immigrants: Tracking the Cultural regular class time at four high schools and five middle and Social Impacts of the Global Commodity Trade for schools in the Austin area. SAI expanded its presence in Grades 9 – 12 Explore UT (the UT Open House which attracted 50,000 participants of all ages), consisting of two hands-on booths Restoring Women to World Studies: A Document-Based (Scripts of South Asia; Henna Designs) and an Indian Question Curriculum Unit for Grades 9–12 Dance performance. More than 5,000 participants visited the three SAI events. Through its outreach activities, SAI to World Studies” workshop and presented this unit at the has reached more than 485 teachers and 57,750 students annual meetings of the Texas Council for Social Studies during the 2008-2009 academic year. and the National Council for Social Studies in Fall 2008, as well as at a number of regional and district training events The redesigned outreach website features new lesson plans across the state. authored in collaboration with SAI’s FLAS Fellows and local teachers. The outreach program also fostered new partnerships with two global academies in the Austin Independent School http://www.utexas.edu/cola/insts/southasia/outreach/ District. The first program, The Academy of Global Studies overview.php (AGS). which is housed at Austin High School, opened its doors to its first batch of 125 freshman students in Fall Outreach

Fall 2009 19 Travel The Public and the Bus Mubbashir Rizvi , Graduate student in Anthropology

The Bus as Microcosm

I traveled extensively in buses while I was doing fieldwork in Pakistan during 2007. Most of my research was based in rural Okara district, Punjab. However, during the course of the year I traveled in city buses while visiting family in Karachi, and while commuting back and forth between Lahore and Okara. During this time I marveled at how the bus is a great object to think about the perils and pleasures of public life in Pakistan, if not South Asia. As a mobile milieu the bus brings together a cross-section of classes, ethnicities, locales in a rotating cast of passengers, bus conductors and Photos by Raja Islam itinerant vendors who hop on and off between stops. One can buy newspapers, roasted nuts, tikkis (vegetable fritters), plastic toys, cures for common ailments, and male strength Karachi. The relative orderliness and civic sensibilities of tonics all in the span of a single ride across the city. The Lahore are much admired by middle class Karachiites, but social intermingling in transit buses is not without limits nor then again Lahore is a much smaller and slower city. is it without its own rules. Most city buses are segregated by The chatter in the bus changes seamlessly as the bus moves gender where the small front section is the ‘family’ or ‘lady’ across the city, switching from Punjabi, to Urdu to Urdu- section, whereas the remaining two thirds of the passenger English and than back to Punjabi as the bus nears the last space serves the ‘public,’ meaning men. However, it is not stop. The body language and fashions change as the bus uncommon to find older women and younger women meanders through different parts of the city. While most accompanied with families in the back when the front of the passengers are dressed in shalwar kameez at the section is overcrowded. start, somewhere in the middle of the route you start seeing more young men wearing jeans, pant-shirts, one hears loud Routes and Roots conversations on cell phones, the excited speech of college students, blaring headphones and then by the tail end of the Most of my travels to Okara started with a ride on New Khan route, the shalwar kameez is ubiquitous again. Metro company buses, which I took to the cross-country bus The NKM bus empties out between Punjab University terminal at Multan Road. NKM like most bus companies and Jauhar Town. Most of the remaining passengers are in Pakistan is a privately operated enterprise. The NKM laborers, domestic workers, farmers and students, on their route starts near the Wagah border in Lahore’s eastern way back to their villages and market towns in interior suburbs, moving toward the working class neighborhood of Punjab. However, there is one small hurdle. The New Khan Mughalpura, before reaching the posh city center at Mall Metro bus stops half a mile short of the bus terminal due to a road in Gulberg. The bus moves slowly along the congested bypass intersection, thus spawning a niche industry of Qinqi canal road making its way west past Punjab University and motorickshaws (especially made to carry up to 8 passengers) ends at Thokar Niaz Baig. I usually caught the bus at Jail and wagons that take the country bound passengers to the road in the center of the city. I was pleased to see a bus stop bus terminal. At the terminal one has to steadily walk to a sign and was doubly surprised when the bus made a full stop coach as any sign of confusion or doubt will result in a rush in front of me, a sole passenger, at the designated bus stop. I of bus touts trying to lure you into their bus. The general had gotten used to hopping onto slowly moving mini-buses fare between Lahore and Okara hovered between 80-110 in Karachi, a tacit rule understood by all who wish to get Pakistan rupees depending on your haggling skills and the on a bus as a single passenger. It is no wonder that the bus departure time of the coach. transport system is held in higher esteem in Lahore than in

20 south asia institute Road Trip driver and conductor had sold the tickets (and passengers) to another bus company. Passengers hoping to continue their travels would have to present their ticket to so-and-so bus at the terminal. The DG Khan bound Ravi Express was turning around and going back to Lahore.

Karachi’s Minibus Culture

The bus culture changes in Karachi. Mini-bus operators take great pride in the look of their buses and adorn the body with one liners like ‘Dekh magar payar sey’ literally ‘look but only with love’ or ‘Dollar aur hasina ki talash’ which roughly translates to ‘in search of dollars and beautiful women’ and the ubiquitous ‘Pappu yar tang na kar’ which means ‘Pappu (generic nickname) friend don’t bother Cross-country buses vary from the bare bone variety to me’. The frenzied pace of life in the city is reflected in the rag tag AC coaches that play Bollywood or Lollywood seemingly undisciplined way the bus passes through slums, ‘Jat-Gundasa’ genre films (a hyper macho genre depicting large thoroughfares, commercial streets, ethnic enclaves and an angry peasant who fights the injustices of landlords neighborhoods for millionaires. There are informal rules to and corrupt government officials). Walking up to a queue observe when getting on a mini-bus in Karachi. If you find of buses one hears a cacophony of Urdu, Punjabi songs yourself as the lone passenger at a stop, don’t expect the bus and recordings of Quran recitation. Conductors work the to stop for you. You must gesture or make eye contact with terminal to fill the bus to capacity. Windows of the coaches the driver to show your intention of getting on the bus, and are draped with thick velvet curtains for insulation, but pace yourself to hop on as the bus slows down to a speed of curtains also block potential passengers from peeking inside 3-5 Km/hr. During rush hour it is wishful thinking to expect to see if the bus is full or not. There are more tickets than to find a spot in the bus. It is much more likely that one has seats. Very often I found myself with a ticket but no seat. to find a perch on a railing, a spot on the roof, or the edge. The conductors were happy to place a stool in the aisle, The bus conductor makes his rounds all over the moving which served as my seat for the next two hours. Single male bus, including the roof, railings and sides. The perils of passengers were often moved around when large families these unsafe conditions stand in contrast to the pleasures of or female passengers needed to be accommodated. I got surfing through the city on top of the bus, the loud sounds “The bus driver and conductor had sold the tickets (and passengers) to another bus company.” reacquainted with Bollywood films on these bus trips and of darde-disco blaring and the rotating neon light on some I was surprised to see that conductors wouldn’t flinch from newer buses that create a party-like atmosphere. The thin playing jingoistic films like ‘Ma Tujhe Salam’ with anti- profit margins of the mini-bus industry keep the fares low Pakistan content. There was cheering and booing and and affordable despite the unprecedented hike of petrol occasionally passengers asked the conductors to change the prices. films. Bus trips didn’t always go as planned. Once I was traveling The Personal is Public to southern district of Dera Ghazi Khan when the coach stopped at the main bus terminal (Lari Adda) at Okara I was thrown off the first time someone asked me my where over half the passengers got off. The conductor income in a crowded bus, but “How much do you earn?” is patiently waited for the bus to fill again. However, the bus a common refrain while traveling by bus in rural Pakistan. didn’t leave the station even after it was full. I could see There is no shying away from personal matters in crowded the conductor and bus driver from the passenger window buses. The thin line between public and private information having an animated conversation. After a short while, the breaks down in mass transportation: personal questions conductor came back to announce that the driver had can come up in overstuffed mini-buses in Karachi, buses in decided to turn around and go back to Lahore. The bus Lahore or in the AC coach hurtling down Multan Road in

Fall 2009 21 southern Punjab. All’s fair provided you show a willingness The Public and the Bus for small talk and a friendly disposition rather than the aloof contemptuousness that is on display in city buses. It usually doesn’t take long for the conversation to turn to one’s whereabouts, income, jobs, and marriage status. If married, then, for how many years? How many kids? If not married, then, ‘why not’? Traveling through the Punjab countryside, I constantly met people whose life histories went beyond anything I expected to find. Take for example Ayaz, a shy 16-year-old rickshaw mechanic from Gujjranwala, who was returning from Okara after visiting his newlywed sister. Our conversation started when he shared some roasted channa (chickpeas) with me. As we talked I learned that Ayaz had been working at his uncle’s repair shop since he was 10 years old. After two years at the shop he got bored and hatched a plan to Attitudes towards taking the bus vary greatly from city to visit India with his friends. Being street-smart Ayaz knew the city, neighborhood to neighborhood, and across classes. different routes used by smugglers. He made his way across For example, most residents of Karachi depend on mini- the border through the outskirts of the industrial city of buses to get around their sprawling traffic congested city at Sialkot. Once across the border he befriended “sardar’ (Sikh) an affordable price. Yet the affordable mini-bus is a source bus drivers by telling them that he was from Gujjranwala in of great consternation for middle class residents because it Pakistan and wanted to see India. The truck drivers gave brings up questions about respectability. Many lower middle him rides all the way down to Bombay. He has been to India class families prefer perilous rides on motorcycles and scooters three times and he plans to go once every year. Ayaz saves rather than taking a harrowing trip on a crowded mini-bus. his earnings to travel and covers his travel expenses by taking The prospect of rubbing shoulders with day laborers and pictures of girls in India and selling them to his friends back ethnic others, along with genuine issues about safety and “Ayaz saves his earnings to travel and covers his travel expenses by taking pictures of girls in India and selling them to his friends back in Gujranwala.” in Gujranwala. As odd as the story might sound, Ayaz is overcrowding has made mini-bus travel unpopular among aware of the risks of border crossing but he still loves the middle class urban dwellers. adventure. In Pakistan’s large cities, there are multi-tiered transportation In contrast to the wanderlust adventures of Ayaz, most of systems, rather than one that serves all classes. There are my conversations revolved around more mundane topics: company vans, buses, school vans, lady worker vans, high current affairs, the search for stable jobs and sometimes priced AC coaches, and entrepreneurial residents who religion. I met Niaz in May 2007. Niaz was a big fan of finance their cars or trucks by lending it out as a local General Musharraf and he was greatly upset about the commuter or school van. The bus as a means of mass growing opposition to Musharraf’s rule. He came from a transport raises questions about the meanings of the ‘public’ middle class family of sweet makers from Mandi Bahauddin in South Asia. The meanings of ‘public’ vary greatly in who supported the pro-Musharraf PML-Q. Niaz had Pakistan. One meaning implies slum dwellers, undisciplined opted to break out of the family business and he had moved crowds and faceless masses that fall short of middle class to Lahore to work at a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise respectability. However, public can just as easily stand in as (where his cousin helped him get a job). He explained his a ‘popular collectivity’ joined in the shared depredations of decision to take up work at KFC as a pathway to going commuting, load shedding, failures of municipal planning, abroad to work in the Gulf or even Europe. He had heard etc. Certainly there are common problems of mass transit about the potential of transfers to other KFC franchises in all major urban cities but there are also some unique abroad. features and tacit codes that have to be understood in their own context and historical development.

22 south asia institute in the fall of 2010 after additional intensive language study , The Hindi Urdu Flagship Program during the summer. directed by Herman van Olphen in UT’s Department of Asian Studies, is part of the national Language Flagship As mentioned above, the third year of the four-year program (www.thelanguageflagship.org) funded by the Institute comprises an ‘immersion’ program in India: students follow of International Education. The first cohort of students an intensive program of specially designed courses at the entered the Hindi Urdu Flagship in the fall of 2007; by the American Institute of Indian Studies, overseen by HUF fall of 2009 there were 30 students at three levels Overseas Program Coordinator, Dr. Rajesh Kumar. In HUF remains the only program of its kind in the United addition to language courses, the students take courses for States. Its special features include a four-year program of credit in their UT majors, and also undertake internships intensive study of Hindi and Urdu; an intake of students in various organizations in India, thereby gaining valuable who have already achieved an ‘Intermediate’ level of experience in using Hindi and Urdu in professional contexts. proficiency in either Hindi or Urdu before beginning the In August 2009 the HUF’s first cohort of students has just program; specially-designed immersion study in India started studying in India. After an initial period of Hindi for both semesters of the third year; language study that studies in Jaipur, the students will move to Lucknow, where transcends the usual ‘language and literature’ model to they will study both Urdu and Hindi; they will also travel include training in the broadest possible range of registers to Varanasi, Hyderabad and New Delhi to experience the and contexts; individual tutoring and mentoring of students cultural and linguistic range of these very different cities. by Faculty and teaching assistants; and the development While in India, students will begin gathering materials for of innovative kinds of instructional materials that are the Senior Projects that they will undertake in their final made publicly available through the HUF website, www. year, back on campus at Austin. hindiurduflagship.org. As the program continues to grow and expand, HUF is HUF is the only Flagship program in which students study gaining a strong reputation nationally among students two parallel languages: HUF students achieve ‘Advanced’ interested in learning Hindi and Urdu. Though the majority proficiency in both Hindi and Urdu, while taking their skills of students currently on the HUF program hail from Texas, to the ‘Superior’ level in at least one of the two, depending a growing number of students from other States are joining on their interests and preferences. Currently, HUF students the program. take at least thirty-six hours of upper division Hindi and Urdu language and literature courses in a curriculum that is In Spring 2009 Hindi Urdu Flagship students created a constantly being updated and developed to give the students new student organization called The Hindi Urdu Society. the best possible language learning experience. In 2008- This Society has so far held Hindi film screenings in the 2009, the language courses were taught by Herman van HUF Center and organized both a banquet and a picnic Olphen, Director of HUF; Rupert Snell, Associate Director to celebrate the year’s accomplishments. In the future the for Hindi; Akbar Hyder, Associate Director for Urdu; Jishnu organization hopes to expand its activities and include all Shankar, Senior Lecturer; and Shamshad Zaidi, Lecturer. students interested in learning and exploring Hindi and Urdu. Because HUF’s four-year program of study begins at the ‘Intermediate’ level, entering students have acquired some Part of the Hindi Urdu Flagship’s mandate is to produce knowledge of Hindi-Urdu elsewhere, either in a Heritage context or through formal study. About ten new students are recruited each year, and they represent a wide array of majors including Biology, Business Honors, Finance, English, Economics, Government, Public Relations, and Linguistics, as well as Asian Studies and Asian Languages and Cultures. From Fall 2009, there is a new ‘Flagship-bound’ track for beginning students; the first students to follow this track are currently in first-year Hindi classes and intend to join HUF

Fall 2009 23 new kinds of language-teaching materials for all students and all these projects is to provide learners with lively and varied teachers of these languages. Month by month, an increasing materials that go beyond traditional book-based learning, amount of material is being made available through the and which will both inform and inspire learners wherever Resources section of the HUF website by HUF’s Hindi- they may be. HUF’s online resources also include numerous speaking Media Coordinator, Jonathan Seefeldt. Numerous recordings of talks and poetry recitals by the several visitors kinds of written materials are already available for mentioned elsewhere in this report. Many visitors also download, mostly in PDF format; two books, Herman van record interviews with HUF faculty, and these too are Olphen’s Hindi Praveshika and First-year Hindi Course, available online. These projects are ongoing, with new and Christopher Shackle & Rupert Snell’s Hindi and Urdu resources being added all the time. Since 1800: a Common Reader, are the most substantial items on a long list of materials designed to address learners’ Language for Health Project needs. In addition, a series of Powerpoint presentations The goal of this project is to devise a curriculum for the by Jishnu Shankar provides invaluable material for class medical field which goes beyond the day to day translation teaching and private study. service needs in the emergency room or the doctor’s office, although that would very much be a part of it. We Several innovative audio and video materials are currently envisage a comprehensive curriculum which will include under development: in HUF’s Hindi Spoken Thesaurus (a the practical needs and cultural traditions of the medical series of podcasts designed to help learners develop their outlook and practices of people who use Hindi and Urdu vocabulary and appreciate distinctions of register), Rupert and will facilitate communication as well as research for Snell and Neha Ladha, a UT student from Jaipur, discuss those who wish to communicate with health professionals words and meanings in Hindi-medium conversations; Mera in South Asia, and South Asians – professionals as well as Shahar is a series of video monologues in which speakers patients--in the US. of Hindi or Urdu describe their hometowns; in Hamaarii Bolii, speakers of Hindi and Urdu discuss language usage The project includes a number of one hour video modules and conventions; and in the forthcoming Meri Yaaden, produced in India by a professional filmmaker. They will selections from Hindi autobiographies are presented online highlight medical communication between doctors and with oral commentary by Rupert Snell. The idea behind patients belonging to various medical traditions, treatment

24 south asia institute of various diseases, the gender-based of resistance during and after the reign were shut down by the government nuances of medical interactions, and of General Zia. under Musharraf’s rule, and Mr. the difference between urban and rural All these distinguished guests spent Zardari openly told the owner of our health provisions and interactions. We generous amounts of time with the channel that if he backed off on the will also produce lessons and exercises Flagship students as well as other judiciary issue he would make sure the for health communities in the US to undergraduate and graduate students. courts paid up the money. We refused facilitate easier communication where Zaki and Afreen also conducted Urdu this bargain. But of course there were language is an issue. creative writing workshops for the other demands about toning down the HUF program. The students were type of criticism and removing some Hindi Urdu Distinguished Speakers asked to compose an original ghazal – of the anchors whom the government Series 2008-2009 by no means an easy literary exercise! felt were enemies of the ruling party. In the 2008-09 academic year, HUF – and each one of these ghazals was sponsored visits by some of the most read, re-read and improved with the So again, the same government distinguished Urdu critics and writers spirited feedback of Zaki Shadab and intimidation of the media started The fall semester began with the most Ishrat Afreen. happening from day one. Nothing prominent living Urdu critic, Shamsur really changes… Rahman Faruqi, who has more than 25 Martha Berry, Student Advising and books to his credit; Faruqi spoke about Recruitment HUF ALI: Let’s move towards a scenario Ja’far Zatalli, a fierce satirist from early where there is some hope. You have 18th-century Delhi, highlighting issues talked about ways in which the of resistance, sexuality and aesthetics in ASLAM (continued from p. 14) intensity of conflict can be lessened. the author’s work. The second speaker You mentioned negotiations for a in the series was Muhammad Mujtaba That was not a bad thing, but we future distinctly different from the Hussain, modern Urdu’s wittiest prose realized that there were personality present where coexistence can develop. writer, who read from his masterpiece issues rather than ideological issues Within that scenario there are other Diimakon Kii Malikaa (The Queen among the main players. Immediately, actors, including Islamists. of Termites), a satire that captures the the stability of the state started falling plight of Urdu libraries and archives in apart, mainly on the issue of the judges. ASLAM: Yes, Islamists, the media, the modern South Asia. President Zardari’s fear that the Chief judiciary, civil society. There is a youth Justice would start talking about the bulge which has its own aspirations In Spring 2009, Mohsin Naquvi abandonment of the cases against him and energy. Leadership is critical at presented his research on Urdu elegies, kept him from reinstating the Chief this juncture—when you have so many connecting them to the aesthetic Justice, which did not happen until crises you need something to navigate conventions of Arabic and Persian. nearly a year later. through them. Balochistan needs to be Elegies were followed by the Urdu solved so you can access its resources. ghazal: Zaki Shadab from Hyderabad Because of the media’s commitment to Also, the whole business of how do discussed the role of music within the the rule of law and the independence we engage these people and what will structural constitution of this essential of the judiciary, we continued to dialogue be requires leadership. poetic form. He also discussed the support the Chief Justice. aesthetic transitions of Urdu as the But I don’t think this is happening now. language migrated from its well-known This government has actually done Yet sometimes leadership emerges that centers of Delhi and Lucknow to what the others did -- they call us, they can take on these very large issues. Hyderabad and the Punjab. The spring tell us to moderate our stories, they put semester culminated with readings the same kind of pressures on us, but in a by Ishrat Afreen, who spoke about more subtle way. But some government feminist poetry in modern Pakistan. officials actually openly said to us, “you Afreen discussed the manner in which better not back the judges and if you women drew from the Progressive do we’ll pull the plug.” We asked for Writers tradition and created a poetics some compensation for last time we

Fall 2009 25 Upcoming Events Women’s Autobiography in Islamic Societies: Defining the Genre

An International Workshop January 28-30, 2010 AT & T Conference Center, University of Texas at Austin

Sponsored by: Arts & Humanities Research Council of the United Kingdom and The South Asia Institute, University of Texas

Participants:

• Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, Chair (History, Loughborough University, UK) • Gail Minault, Local Representative (History, University of Texas, Austin, TX) • Hulya Adak (Cultural Studies, Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey) • Sonia Nishat Amin (History, Dhaka University, Bangladesh) • Margot Badran (Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University, Washington, DC) • Afshan Bukhari (Art History, Suffolk University, UK) • miriam cooke (Arabic Literature and Culture, Duke University, Durham, NC) • Nawar al-Hasan Golley (Arabic and Translation Studies, University of Sharjah, UAE) • Ruby Lal (Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, Emory University, Atlanta, GA) • Anshu Malhotra (History, Delhi University, Delhi, India) • Ellen McLarney (Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Duke University, Durham, NC) • Roberta Micallef (Modern Languages and Comparative Literatures, Boston University, Boston, MA) • Farzaneh Milani (Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA) • Mildred Mortimer (French and Italian, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO) • Amina Yaqin (Languages and Cultures of South Asia, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK)

This workshop is the first of three to be held by an international network of scholars working onwomen’s autobiographies in Muslim societies. Dr. Siobhan Lambert-Hurley of Loughborough University, the Chair of the network, has received a grant from the Arts and Humanities Council of the UK, and the co-operation of local sponsors, to hold this series of workshops. The first will convene at the AT& T Center at University of Texas in Austin, January 28-30, 2010, with papers to be given by members of the network. Subsequent workshops will be held at the India International Centre in New Delhi in late 2010, and at the University of Sharjah, UAE, in late 2011. It is a great honor for the South Asia Institute of the University of Texas to co-sponsor and host this inaugural gathering, which will be of interest to scholars of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Women and Gender Studies, and Comparative Literature.

26 south asia institute Fall 2009 South Asia Institute Seminar Series Against the Grain: Ancient Roots and Modern Branches

September 24 October 29 Martha Selby Mary Beth Heston University of Texas at Austin College of Charleston Form, Style, and Rhetoric in an Early Building a Polity: Royal Architecture and Fourth-Century Tamil Anthology Authority in Colonial Era Kerala

October 1 November 5 Donald Lopez Eliza Kent University of Michigan Colgate University Sacred Groves and Local Gods: Burnouf and the Birth of Buddhist Studies Religion and Environmentalism in Tamil Nadu November 12 Jack Hawley Columbia University October 8 Modern Roots, Ancient Branches: Sheldon Pollock Columbia University The Bhakti Movement--Since When? Crisis in the Classics November 19 October 15 Barbara Metcalf University of Michigan Gananath Obeyesekere Princeton University Nawab Shah Jehan Begum of Bhopal: Kali and Lord Buddha: Becoming a Muslim Ruler in Colonial India Sense and Reference in a Buddhist Tale on Vengeance and Violence December 3 Joel Brereton University of Texas at Austin An Inconvenient Text: On Translating the Rigveda

The South Asia Institute Seminar Series features lectures by distinguished South Asian specialists from UT and abroad. Regular seminars occur on Thursdays at 3:30 pm, preceded by a reception at 3:00 pm, in the Meyerson Conference Room (WCH 4.118). Seminar co-conveners: Patrick Olivelle and Janice Leoshko Fall 2009 27

www.utexas.edu/cola/insts/southasia ● [email protected] ● phone # 512.471.3550 With over 50 faculty members in a dozen schools and departments, the University of Texas at Austin has one of the most distinguished South Asia programs in the country.

The South Asia Institute was established as part of a university initiative to promote South Asian programs, especially those pertaining to contemporary issues, across the entire university and in the larger community. As a National Resource Center for South Asia funded by A Title VI grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the institute sponsors major conferences, scholarly symposia and a weekly South Asia Seminar. The institute also provides Foreign Language and Area Studies The historic W.C. Hogg building, built in 1933 and home to the South Asia Institute (FLAS) fellowships to students pursuing graduate degrees relating organizations, and the Texas com- Tamil and Urdu are currently taught to South Asia in any department or munity at large. Another central mis- in the department. school of the University. sion of the Institute is to promote the study of contemporary South Asian The South Asia Initiative underscores Additionally, the Title VI grant also languages in cooperation with the the University’s commitment to mak- provides resources for outreach pro- Department of Asian Studies and ing the University of Texas South grams to K-12 schools, post-second- the Hindi-Urdu Flagship Program. Asia program the best in the country ary institutions, business and civic Bengali, Hindi, Malayalam, Sanskrit, within the next several years.

The University of Texas at Austin South Asia Institute 1 University Station, G9300 Austin, TX 78712-0587 USA

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