SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

South A

Centre of South Asian Studies ANNUAL REVIEW ISSUE 75: September 2010 - August 2011 SOAS

STUDYING AT SOAS

The international environment and CONTENTS cosmopolitan character of the School make student life a challenging, rewarding and exciting experience. We welcome students 3 Letter from the Chair from more than 130 countries, and more 4 Centre Members than 45% of them are from outside the UK. 6 Members News The SOAS Library has more than 1.5 million 14 Annoucements items and extensive electronic resources. It 18 Academic Events Summary is the national library the study of Africa, Asia and the Middle East and attracts scholars all 20 Event Reports over the world. 32 Research Students 34 Charles Wallace Visiting Fellowships SOAS offers a wide range of undergraduate, postgraduate and research degrees. 36 Research & Enterprise Students can choose from more than 38 Centre for the Study of Pakistan 400 undergraduate degree combinations 39- Join the Centre and from more than 80 postgraduate programmes (taught and distance learning) in the social sciences, humanities and languages with a distinctive regional focus The School of Oriental and African Studies and global relevance, taught by world- (SOAS) is a college of the University of London renowned teachers in specialist faculties. and the only Higher Education institution in the UK specialising in the study of Asia, Africa The School is consistently ranked among and the Near and Middle East. the top higher education institutions in the UK and the world. The School’s academic SOAS is a remarkable institution. Uniquely excellence has also been recognised in combining language scholarship, disciplinary research assessment exercises (RAEs) expertise and regional focus, it has the largest concentration in Europe of academic SOAS offers a friendly, vibrant environment staff concerned with Africa, Asia and the right in the buzzing heart of London. The Middle East. capital’s rich cultural and social life is literally on its doorstep and offers students School of Oriental and African Studies On the one hand, this means that an unparalleled environment in which to live University of London SOAS remains a guardian of specialised and study. Thornhaugh Street knowledge in languages and periods and Russell Square regions not available anywhere else in the London WC1H 0XG UK. On the other hand, it means that SOAS scholars grapple with pressing issues - www.soas.ac.uk democracy, development, human rights, identity, legal systems, poverty, religion, Tel: +44 (0)20 7637 2388 social change - confronting two-thirds of Fax: +44 (0)20 7436 3844 humankind. We welcome you to become part of the This makes SOAS synonymous with SOAS experience and invite you to learn intellectual excitement and achievement. more about us by exploring our website: It is a global academic base and a crucial resource for London. We live in a world of Web: www.soas.ac.uk/admissions/ shrinking borders and of economic and Web: www.soas.ac.uk/visitors/ technological simultaneity. Yet it is also a world in which difference and regionalism SOAS Library present themselves acutely. It is a world that Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4163 SOAS is distinctively positioned to analyse, Fax: +44 (0)20 7898 4159 understand and explain. Web: www.soas.ac.uk/library/

2 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON LETTER FROM THE CHAIR

“when one reviews the range of activities hosted by the Centre, I believe that we were spoilt for choice”

am delighted to report that was present for an engaging discussion at training sessions for Nepalese youth lead- the 2010-2011 academic the screening of her film ‘Life Goes On’. We ers. We also hosted a panel discussion on year has been filled South also launched the Nargis Dutt lecture with a contemporary debates relating to the radio in Asia-related activities. talk by director Anusha Rizvi on the business Nepal. We also held a fascinating discussion The Centre sponsored of making films to mark the 100 year an- on enforced disappearances and state ac- a largeI number of seminars, workshops, niversary of International Women’s Day. The countability in Nepal. We then concluded the film screenings, and workshops during the Centre sponsored three film screenings and year with a high-profile roundtable discussion year. For instance, we hosted a special the 4th London Himalayan film festival. In on constitution drafting, state restructuring roundtable seminar on the budgetary cuts addition, many colleagues have been instru- and the peace process in Nepal. to the BBC World Service and its impact on mental in lining up a number of speakers for the continuation of radio transmissions to literature-related events. For instance, we When one reviews the range of activities South Asia. The Centre sponsored a special hosted a book reading, by famed author Moh- hosted by the Centre, I believe that we were seminar series on the theme of leftist politics sin Hamid, of his book entitled Moth Smoke. spoilt for choice. In my view, though, the in South Asia. We also sponsored the 11th We also held a special interview with famed highlight of the year was the Centre’s Annual Jaina annual lecture and the 13th Jaina Kashmiri author Mirza Waheed, author of the Lecture, which was delivered by the eminent studies workshop on Jaina narratives. One bestseller The Collaborator. religious studies and Sanskritist Prof. Wendy of the key achievements of the Centre was Doniger. Professor Doniger was a leading the opening of a Centre on Pakistan and the I am a firm believer that the Centre should scholar at the University of Chicago whilst initiation of an MSc programme in Pakistan be used a platform to engage with relevant I was a PhD student there. She has been, studies at SOAS. policy-making bodies and political actors. To without a doubt, one of the most brilliant that effect, we have focused our efforts on and provocative minds I have ever met. This At the initiative of many colleagues, the Nepal. As we all know, this year has been a year we had the honour of hearing Professor Centre sponsored a number of fascinating period of constitutional instability in Nepal. Doniger speak on the representation of Dalits film-related events, including a Distinguished Given the world class level of Nepal expertise in Sanskrit texts. The title of her lecture was: Lecture by one of India’s leading filmmakers, at SOAS, we have been at the forefront of ‘Does the Mahabharata Approve of Ekalavya Shyam Benegal. We also held retrospective academic knowledge transfer on Nepal. For cutting off his Thumb? and Other Tales of film screenings and a lecture series devoted that reason, this year we hosted a luncheon Dalits in Ancient India’. to the famed Indian actress Sharmila Tagore. with prominent delegates from the Nepalese The film writer and director Sangeeta Datta parliament. We discussed the idea of holding Lawrence Saez

3 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON CENTRE MEMBERS CURRENT

Dr Daud ALI Dr Heather ELGOOD Professor Mushtaq KHAN Senior Lecturer in Early Indian History Course Director, Postgraduate Professor of Economics Department of History Diploma in Asian Art Department of Economics [email protected] Department of the History of Art [email protected] and Archaeology Dr Richard AXELBY [email protected] Mr Abul Hussain KHONDOKER Senior Teaching Fellow Senior Lector in Bengali Department of Anthropology and Sociology Mr Alexander FISCHER Department of the Languages [email protected] Lecturer in Law and Cultures of South Asia School of Law [email protected] Dr Rochana BAJPAI [email protected] Senior Lecturer in the Politics of Asia/Africa Dr Prabha KOTISWARAN Department of Politics and Dr Peter FLÜGEL Lecturer in Law International Studies Lecturer in the Study of Religions School of Law [email protected] Department of the Study of Religions [email protected] [email protected] Sandhya BALASUBRAHMANYAM Dr Martin W LAU Teaching Fellow Dr Jonathan GOODHAND Reader in Law Department of Economics Reader in Development Practice School of Law [email protected] Department of Development Studies [email protected] [email protected] Dr Crispin BRANFOOT Dr Jens LERCHE Senior Lecturer in South Asian Art Dr Saurabh GUPTA Senior Lecturer in Development Studies and Archaeology Senior Teaching Fellow Department of Development Studies Department of the History of Art Department of Development Studies [email protected] and Archaeology [email protected] [email protected] Dr Mara MALAGODI Dr Jan-Peter HARTUNG Teaching Fellow Dr Michael CHARNEY Senior Lecturer in the Study of Islam Department of the Languages Reader in South East Asian Department of the Study of Religions and Cultures of South Asia and Imperial History [email protected] [email protected] Department of History [email protected] Dr Mulaika HIJJAS Dr Magnus MARSDEN British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology Dr Whitney COX Department of the Languages with reference to South and Central Asia Senior Lecturer in Sanskrit and Cultures of South East Asia Department of Anthropology and Sociology Department of the Languages [email protected] [email protected] and Cultures of South Asia [email protected] Professor Almut HINTZE Dr Matthew MCCARTNEY Zartoshty Professor of Zoroastrianism Lecturer in Economics with Dr Kate CROSBY Department of the Study of Religions reference to South Asia Seiyu Kiriyama Reader in Buddhist Studies [email protected] Department of Economics Department of the Study of Religions [email protected] [email protected] Dr Stephen P HUGHES Lecturer in Social Anthropology Professor Werner F MENSKI Professor Philippe CULLET Department of Anthropology and Sociology Professor of South Asian Laws Professor of International Environmental Law [email protected] School of Law School of Law [email protected] [email protected] Professor Michael J HUTT Professor of Nepali and Himalayan Studies Ms Alessandra MEZZADRI Dr Sonali DERANIYAGALA Department of the Languages Lecturer in Development Studies Lecturer in Economics and Cultures of South Asia Department of Development Studies Department of Economics [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Professor Naila KABEER Mr Satoshi MIYAMURA Professor Rachel M J DWYER Professor of Development Studies Lecturer in Economics Professor of Indian Cultures and Cinema Department of Development Studies Department of Economics Department of the Languages [email protected] [email protected] and Cultures of South Asia [email protected]

4 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Professor Peter MOLLINGA Dr Theodore PROFERES Dr Tadeusz SKORUPSKI Professor of Development Studies Senior Lecturer in Ancient Indian Religions Reader in Buddhist Studies Department of Development Studies Department of the Study of Religions Department of the Study of Religions [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Dr David MOSSE Dr Parvathi RAMAN Professor Chandra Lekha SRIRAM Professor of Social Anthropology Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology Professor of Law Department of Anthropology and Sociology Department of Anthropology and Sociology School of Law [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Mr Rakesh NAUTIYAL David RAMPTON Dr Sarah STEWART Senior Lector in Hindi Senior Teaching Fellow Lecturer in Zoroastrianism Department of the Languages and Department of Development Studies Department of the Study of Religions Cultures of South Asia [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Dr Rahul RAO Dr Shabnum TEJANI Nandini NAYAK Lecturer in International Security Senior Lecturer in the History of Graduate Teaching Assistant Centre for International Studies & Diplomacy Modern South Asia Department of Development Studies [email protected] Department of History [email protected] [email protected] Professor Peter G ROBB Dr Matthew J NELSON Professor of the History of India Dr Hanne-Ruth THOMPSON Reader in Politics Department of History Senior Lector in Bengali Department of Politics and [email protected] Department of the Languages International Studies and Cultures of South Asia [email protected] Dr Lawrence SAEZ [email protected] Senior Lecturer in Comparative Dr Eleanor NEWBIGIN and International Politics Dr Simona VITTORINI Lecturer in the History of South Asia Department of Politics and Senior Teaching Fellow in the Modern Period International Studies Department of Politics and Department of History [email protected] International Studies [email protected] [email protected] Professor Pasquale SCARAMOZZINO Mr Paolo NOVAK Professor of Economics Dr Burzine WAGHMAR Lecturer in Development Studies Department of Financial and Senior Library Assistant Department of Development Studies Management Studies (Acquisitions and Bibliographic Services) [email protected] [email protected] Library and Information Service [email protected] Dr Francesca ORSINI Mr Naresh SHARMA Reader in the Literatures of North India Senior Lector Urdu/Hindi Mrs Farzana WHITFIELD Department of the Languages Department of the Languages Assistant Librarian South Asia and Cultures of South Asia and Cultures of South Asia Library and Information Service [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Dr Caroline OSELLA Dr Amrita SHODHAN Professor D Richard WIDDESS Reader in Anthropology with Senior Teaching Fellow Professor of Musicology reference to South Asia Department of History Department of Music Department of Anthropology and Sociology [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Dr Edward SIMPSON Dr Amina YAQIN Dr Ulrich PAGEL Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology Lecturer in Urdu and Postcolonial Studies Reader in Language and Religion in Tibet Department of Anthropology and Sociology Department of the Languages and Middle Asia [email protected] and Cultures of South Asia Department of the Study of Religions [email protected] [email protected] Dr Subir SINHA Senior Lecturer in Institutions Dr Cosimo ZENE Mr Krishna PRADHAN and Development Reader in the Study of Religions Senior Lector in Nepali Department of Development Studies Department of the Study of Religions Department of the Languages [email protected] [email protected] and Cultures of South Asia [email protected]

5 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON MEMBERS NEWS

Rochana Bajpai Amina Yaqin Senior Lecturer in the Politics of Asia/Africa Lecturer in Urdu & Postcolonial Studies

Rochana Bajpai has a new book 2011-2012 has been a rich and densely out, Debating Difference: Group Rights packed year of research activity for Amina and Liberal Democracy in India (Oxford Yaqin. The academic year began with an University Press, 2011). Using landmark invitation from Granta to speak at their Indian constitutional and legislative debates Granta 112 Pakistan Launch Event: ‘Ash at on minority rights and quotas, Rochana Nightfall: Pakistani Poetry, Then and Now’ in develops a model for interpreting group rights September. that hinges on the interplay between five principal normative concepts—secularism, Also in September was the launch of a jointly democracy, social justice, national unity, edited special issue ‘Muslims in the Frame’ and development. This book demonstrates hosted by the Centre for Cultural, Literary and that liberal and democratic concepts are Postcolonial Studies, SOAS. The event was more sophisticated and widely shared in the introduced by Professor Robert Young (New Indian polity than is commonly believed. It York University) followed by presentations also identifies the limits of Western-centric from Dr Amina Yaqin, Dr Peter Morey, accounts of multiculturalism. Highlighting Professor Tariq Modood. This Special Issue the role of argument and debate, Debating was published by the renowned international Difference elaborates a new approach to a postcolonial journal Interventions. crucial issue for liberal democracies today, how to reconcile the demands of group During the Spring break Amina was in Lahore equality and civic unity. Affirmative Action in Malaysia’ (co-authored for a lecture tour. Amina was invited by with Dr Graham Brown) at the Association of the English Dept at the Punjab University Rochana’s other publications during 2010- Asian Studies Annual Conference, Honolulu, to deliver a lecture on ‘Introduction to 11 include ‘Rhetoric as Argument: Social Hawaii; ‘Liberalisms in India: An Exploratory Postcolonial Studies’. At Government Justice and Affirmative Action in India, Sketch’, and ‘Debating Difference: Rethinking College University her lecture was on the 1990’, Modern Asian Studies, 44 (4), pp. Group Rights and Liberal Democracy in theme of Pakistani Culture and she spoke 675-708; ‘Cultural Rights of Minorities India’ at the South Asian History Seminar, St. about the debate that was held amongst during Constitution-making: A Re-reading’. Antony’s college, University of Oxford, 31 May Urdu intellectuals in the 1960s and 1970s In Mahajan, G. and Jodhka, S., (eds), 2010. on this topic. At the Lahore University of Religion, Community and Development. Management Sciences Amina was welcomed New Delhi: Routledge, 2010, pp. 282- Rochana was invited to brief the Archbishop by Yasmeen Hameed who impressed with her 300; ‘Constitution-making and Political of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, on knowledge, determination, and enthusiasm Safeguards for Minorities: An Ideological secularism and minority rights in India in July for Urdu literary studies. Explanation’, in Ansari, M.R. and Achar, D., 2010 to mark the centenary of International (eds), Discourse, Democracy and Difference: Women’s Day, Dr Rochana Bajpai In the summer term Amina visited Newcastle Perspectives on Community, Politics and participated in a panel discussion on Asian University where she had been invited by Culture. Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2010, pp. women held at the Nehru Centre, London on Dr Neelam Srivastava to contribute a paper 271-308. 7 March 2011. to the Critical Race, Postcoloniality and Gender seminar series. Her paper was on the She presented a paper ‘Secularism and Rochana, Dr Matt Nelson, and Professor theme of ‘Dolls and Modesty: the ideological Minority Rights in India’ at a conference Charles Tripp organized a workshop on fashioning of Muslim identities’, and this on ‘Provincializing Secularism: Minorities comparative political thought on 8 July, topic extended into a sexuality panel in July and the Regulation of Religion’ held on 4 2011 to launch a new teaching and research at Brunel University. February 2011 at Vanderbilt University, initiative at the Department of Politics and Nashville, Tennessee. Other papers this year International Studies, SOAS. She was invited to contribute to an included ‘Heuristics of Hegemony: Debating ‘Alternative Approaches to the Sexualisation Debates’ Panel proposed by Profes- sor Liesbet van Zoonen (Loughborough University) for The Futures of Feminism: New Directions in Feminist, Women’s and Gender Studies, Annual FWSA Conference, held at Brunel University.

6 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Mara Malagodi Teaching Fellow

Mara Malagodi was on fieldwork in In May, Mara was invited to address the Kathmandu in August 2010 to conduct All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human high-profile interviews and archival research Rights in Westminster on an event on on the drafting of Nepal’s 2007 Interim transitional justice in Nepal organised by Constitution and the ongoing work of the the Peace Brigades International. In June, Constituent Assembly. The interviewees she presented a position paper on Nepal’s included Nepal’s then Prime Minister Madhav recent constitutional developments at Kumar Nepal, Maoist leader Baburam the SOAS event jointly organised by BNAC Bhattarai, CA Constitutional Committee’s and the UK Constitutional Law Group, Chairman Nilamber Acharya and many other and delivered a comparative paper with politicians, judges and lawyers. In Nepal she Madurika Rasaratnam on international peace also started collaborating with the UNDP interventions in Nepal and Sri Lanka at the Nepal Centre for Constitutional Dialogue. LSE Centre for Global Governance workshop Former Prime Minister of Nepal, Madhav Kumar Nepal, st during Mara’s interview with him Persistent Conflict in the 21 Century. In September, Mara joined as a student member the Honourable Society of the Mara was awarded a British Academy Middle Temple in London, which awarded Overseas Conference Grant to present a her the Blackstone Entrance Exhibition, in paper at the British Academy International view of qualifying as a Barrister. In November, Partnership Scheme SOAS/ Martin Chautari she was invited to present her work in the workshop The Creation of Public Meaning Contemporary South Asia Seminar Series at during Nepal’s Democratic Transition in the University of Oxford. In December, she Kathmandu in September. She is now presented a comparative paper on judicial organising with Dr Martin Lau a one day review in India and Nepal at the PSA Politics workshop on Law and Conflict in Kashmir for of South Asia Specialist Group workshop 31 October. Elites, Mass Publics and the Political in South Asia held at the LSE. Publications ‘The End of a National Monarchy: Nepal’s In March 2011, she organised at SOAS Recent Constitutional Transition from Hindu the screening of the Indian film Frozen in Kingdom to Secular Federal Republic’ Studies collaboration with Satsang Productions, Mara Malagodi with Maoist ideologue Baburam Bhattarai in Ethnicity and Nationalism – 2011; Vol. 11, and the book launch of Mirza Waheed’s Issue 2 (In Press). groundbreaking debut novel The Collaborator (Penguin/Viking 2011) set in Indian Kashmir ‘Minority Rights and Constitutional as an in conversation-event with acclaimed Borrowings in the Drafting of Nepal’s 1990 Pakistani writer Kamila Shamsie. In April, Constitution’ European Bulletin of Himalayan Mara was invited to deliver one of the Research, December 2010; Vol. 37, pp. 56- keynote addresses at the 25th Anniversary 81. BASAS Conference in Southampton under ‘Impunity and Accountability in Post-Conflict a British Academy grant to bring a rising Nepal’ – Law & Society Trust Review, 2010: scholar of Nepal to speak on a plenary 275, 35-47. panel. As the Treasurer of the Britain-Nepal Academic Council (BNAC), she attended the ‘Constitutional Change and the Quest for Nepal Study Day held at the University of Legal Inclusion in Nepal’ (forthcoming 2012) Cambridge. She also co-organised two events in Rights in Divided Societies, Colin Harvey at SOAS in support of the BBC South Asian and Alexander Schwartz (eds.), Oxford: Hart Language Services. Stupa in Boudha Publishing.

7 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON MEMBERS NEWS

Simona Vittorini Cosimo Zene Matthew Nelson Senior Teaching Fellow Reader in the Reader in Politics Study of Religions

In 27-29 2011 March Simona Vittorini In December, 2010, with the collaboration of During the Fall of 2010 Matt elson presented attended the 7th India-Africa CII Exim Bank colleagues from the departments of History papers on ‹Education, Islam, and the Conclave in New Delhi as part of my research and Anthropology, Cosimo Zene organised Ideology of Pakistan› at Oxford (Comparative into India-Africa relations. a workshop on “Gramsci & Ambedkar on Political Thought Workshop) and ‹Talking Subalterns and Dalits.” Over 3 days, a group About Differences (Or Not)› at the LSE She has written with Dr Dave Harris a piece of international scholars explored relevant (PSA-sponsored conference on Elites, Mass for the BBC titled ‘India’s growing interest in themes for both Gramsci and Ambedkar vis- Publics, and the Political in South Asia). Africa’ which can be found on à-vis the Subalterns/Dalits. The workshop During the Spring of 2011 he was a full-time www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-1351911 addressed in particular the following Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International themes: 1) The Emergence of Subaltern/ Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, where On 17 May Simona briefed Mr Trouve, the Dalit Subjectivity and Historical Agency; 2) he presented two papers related to his work Swedish Special Envoy to Afghanistan The Function of Intellectuals; 3) Subalternity on religious education, citizenship, and on India’s perceptions on the relations and ‘Common Sense’; 4) Dalit Literature, pluralism in Pakistan. between Pakistan and Afghanistan not subalternity and consciousness; 5) The least with regards to the prospects for the Religion of Subalterns. In April, Matt convened the South Asia development a political settlement and Council panel for the annual meeting of the particularly in view of recent developments An edited volume with the papers presented Association for Asian Studies in Honolulu, (such as the death of OBL). at the workshop is currently being prepared Hawaii. His panel, ‹Rhetorics of Resistance: for publication. The success of the meeting Maoists in Nepal and India; Taliban in Two chapters on India Africa relations is evident by the willingness of participants Pakistan and Afghanistan,› included papers (co-written with Dave Harris) have just been to continue these encounters. A second by Michael Semple (Harvard), Mariam Abou- published: ‘African governmental responses workshop on “Education and Religion of Zahab (CERI, Sciences Po), Jeevan Sharma to Indian ventures on the continent: a Subalterns/Dalits in Gramsci and Ambedkar” (Tufts), and, as a last-minute replacement for changing arena of African politics?’ (with is now being planned for 2012. Nandini Sundar from Delhi, Michael Spacek Dave Harris) in Dietz T et al (eds.), New (Carleton University in Ottawa). Back in

Topographies of Power? Africa Negotiating London, he also conducted a special briefing an Emerging Multi-polar World, Brill, Leiden; Gramsci regarding contemporary affairs in Pakistan and ‘India Goes Over to the Other Side: & for the Swedish Embassy. This involved the Indo-West African Relations in the 21st head of the Swedish Foreign Office›s Asia Century’, In Mawdsley E and McCann G (Eds.) Ambedkar and South Asia desks. India in Africa: Changing Geographies of on Subalterns and

Dalits Power, Oxford Fahamu Books. Joseph A. Buttigieg, Anupama Rao, Jon Soske, Roberto Dainotto, Gopal Guru, Nicolas Jaoul, Kate Crehan, Marcus E. Green, Mauro Pala, Udaya Kumar, Fabio Frosini, Derek Boothman.

At this workshop, a group of international scholars, will explore relevant themes for both Gramsci and Ambedkar vis-á-vis the Simona has also been the Consultant Editor subalterns/Dalits. In particular, discussions will address: 1) The Emergence of Subaltern/Dalit Subjectivity and Historical Agency 2) The Function of Intellectuals 3) Subalternity and ‘Common Sense’ for the Italian translation of David Ludden›s 4) Dalit Literature, subalternity and consciousness 5) The Religion of Subalterns book South Asia. A Short History including Michael W. Department of Sudy of Religions and Department of History Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan and SOAS School of Oriental and African Studies 13-15 December 2010 University of London Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, (21-22 Russell Square, Room T102) Sri Lanka (Oxford: Oneworld) which was London WC1H 0XG Contacts: Cosimo Zene [email protected] and Tullio Lobetti [email protected] Charney

published this month (June 2011) in Italy by Reader in South East Einaudi, Torino with the title: Storia dell›India Asian and Imperial e dell›Asia del Sud. Compresi Bangladesh, History Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan e Sri Lanka. In April 2011, Michael Charney conducted fieldwork in Sri Lanka, at Colombo and Kandy, on the Sri Lankan railway for a project on the history of colonial-era railways. He is currently preparing an article on this aspect of Sri Lankan history for publication.

8 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Philippe Cullet Rahul Rao Professor of International Environmental Law Lecturer in International Security

During 2010-2011 Philippe Cullet was on Panel on ‘Water Law and Water Policy Rahul Rao has written about the global research leave where he was based in Delhi Relationship in the Context of Water Law implications of the revolutions in the as a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Reforms’, paper entitled ‘Realisation of the Middle East for The movement of India (the Policy Research. right to water Contribution and limitation magazine of the National Alliance of Peoples’ of water policy’, Second Law & Social Movements in India). He was recently Publications Sciences Research Network Conference, on Cape Talk Radio (South Africa) and P. Cullet, ‘Realisation of the Fundamental Pune, 27-30 December 2010 Lithuanian National Radio to discuss the Right to Water in Rural Areas – Implications implications of the assassination of Osama of the Evolving Policy Framework for Drinking Keynote presentation bin Laden. He has presented his work on the Water’, 46/12 Economic and Political Weekly ‘Shared Natural Resources – Opportunities queer movement in Uganda at workshops (2011), p. 56-62. and Challenges’, 40th Annual Conference at SOAS and LSE. Over the summer, he on Sunday, 17 April 2011, Indian Society of will be giving lectures based on his recent P. Cullet, ‘Water Sector Reforms and Courts International Law, New Delhi book Third World Protest in Chennai, Kolkata, in India – Lessons from the Evolving Case Mumbai, New Delhi, Sao Paulo and Rio de Law’, 19/3 Review of European Community Presentations Janeiro. & International Environmental Law (2010), ‘Groundwater Regulation – Towards a new p. 328-38. Framework’, Seminar on ‘Sustainable Ground Water Management in Uttar Pradesh: Action P. Cullet, A. Gowlland-Gualtieri, R. Madhav & & Implementation Strategies’, Club of U. Ramanathan eds, Water Governance in Lucknow, 19 November 2010, Lucknow Motion: Towards Socially and Environmentally Jonathan Sustainable Water Laws (New Delhi: Poverty and the Human Right to Water – Cambridge University Press, 2010), 556 p. Case of India, Sawyer Seminar on Human Goodhand Rights, Rethinking Human Rights and the Reader in P. Cullet, ‘Water Law – Evolving Regulatory Environment, University of Wisconsin, 3 Development Practice Framework’, in P. Cullet, A. Gowlland- December 2010. Gualtieri, R. Madhav & U. Ramanathan eds, Water Governance in Motion: Towards ‘Is Water Policy The New Water Law? - Jonathan Goodhand has been involved Socially and Environmentally Sustainable Reflections on India’s Experience’, Workshop in several projects related to Sri Lanka Water Laws (New Delhi: Cambridge University ‘Some for All? Pathways and Politics in Water and publications include an edited Press, 2010), p. 26-52. and Sanitation since New Delhi, 1990’, 22- volume and a journal article: Goodhand, 23 March 2011, IDS, Sussex J, Korf B and Spencer J (eds) (2011) Aid, Impact conflict and peacebuilding in Sri Lanka. Planning Commission of India - Preparation ‘Groundwater Regulation: Rethinking Caught in the Peace Trap Routledge, of Tweflth Plan Member, Working group on the Model’, Seminar on Strategies for UK; Goodhand, J (2010) ‘Stabilizing a water governance for the twelfth Five Year Groundwater Management, ACWADAM, Victor’s Peace? Humanitarian action Plan 22-23 May 2011, PunePresentation and and reconstruction in eastern Sri written paper: ‘Right to Water – From Lanka’ Disasters vol 34, pp. s342-s367. Convenor, Sub-group on legal issues Judicial Pronouncement to Implementation’, related to groundwater management and Workshop on ‘Exploring Possibilities Besides completing an ESRC-funded regulationMember, Sub-group on national of Research on Water Justice in South research project on Conflict, Community and water framework law Asia;’, 18-21 April 2011, Soppecom and Faith in Eastern Sri Lanka (in collaboration Wageningen University, Pune with Edinburgh, Zurich and Peradeniya Organisation Universities) he led a multi-donor funded Organisation of the workshop: ‘Right to Strategic Conflict Assessment (including Sanitation: Lessons from India’, 27-28 David Rampton at SOAS) and has been the January 2011, International Environment deputy team leader for a NORAD funded House, Geneva, organised by IELRC & SOAS, evaluation of the Norwegian role in the Sri ielrc.org/activities/workshop_1101/index. Lankan peace process. htm

9 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON MEMBERS NEWS

Michael Hutt Hanna-Ruth Professor of Nepali and Himalayan Studies Thompson Senior Lector in Bengali

Michael Hutt has had a very busy and July; and attending functions of the recently Hanne-Ruth Thompson spent most of productive sabbatical. In 2010 the British resettled Bhutanese refugee community September 2010 in Dhaka and Kolkata on a Academy awarded a South Asia Partnership in Manchester. His book entitled The Life new research project comparing the linguistic Project grant to Dr Pratyoush Onta of Martin of Bhupi Sherchan: poetry and politics in differences between the two standards of Chautari and Michael for a project entitled post-Rana Nepal was published by Oxford Bengali in East and West as well as giving ‘The construction of public meaning in University Press in New Delhi last October lectures on her new approach to Bengali Nepal’. This enabled him to visit Nepal twice and an article entitled ‘Singing the New grammar. The project is being financed (in September-October and February-March) Nepal’ is forthcoming in Nations and through the Faculty Seedcorn Research to pursue his own research, and also enabled Nationalism. Grant. A report of her findings is being Dr Onta and Mr Devraj Humagai (a specialist prepared for publication. in the history of radio in Nepal) to visit the UK in April, giving talks and presentations at SOAS and in Cambridge. In September Subir Sinha 2011 the project will hold its first workshop in Kathmandu and a second workshop will be Senior Lecturer in held at SOAS in 2012. Institutions and Development During December-January Michael also travelled to Darjeeling and Sikkim to meet local writers, visit Sikkim University and In November 2010 Subir Sinha was give a public talk at Rachna Books, and at invited by the Government of Brazil and the end of April he visited Kathmandu for the International Fund for Agriculture and a third time to receive the award of the Nai Development to report on small farms and Derukha Prize. During his visits to Nepal he food security in India, which formed part of has been gathering materials and conducting the status paper released at the workshop. Hanna-Ruth Thompson in Dhaka in September 2010 interviews for four research papers: these are on recent Nepali novels, memoirs by In February 2011 he read a paper entitled In March 2011 she gave a paper entitled Maoist ex-combatants, palace massacre ‘The End of Environmentalism in India?” at “Developing a Language Pedagogy for conspiracy theories, and the legend of the the Department of Geography, King’s College, Bengali” at the World Language and Society rebel renouncer Yogmaya. London. Education Center conference at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. At the beginning of the year he took on the In March-April 2011 Subir presented a paper chairmanship of the Britain-Nepal Academic at the Annual Conference of the Association Two new dictonaries, a Bengali Dictionary Council, and during the course of the year of Asian Studies held in Honolulu, Hawaii, on and Phrasebook as well as a more the BNAC held its annual lecture and three new subalterns in South Asia. seminars at SOAS, plus the annual Nepal substantial Practical Dictionary are being published by Hippocrene, New Study Day, organised over two days by This year, his paper “The Long March from York in February 2011 and July 2011 colleagues in Cambridge. the Margins” was published in a volume respectively. Also in preparation is a new entitled “The Borders of Justice” edited Bengali Script Tutor, which will enable Other activities have included chairing a by Etienne Balibar, Sandro Mezzardra and students to practise the script and sounds of one-day workshop on Nepal’s peace process Ranabir Samaddar, published by Temple Bengali on-line. at Chatham House (19 October); editing University Press. two issues of the European Bulletin of Hannah is currently working on an academic Himalayan Research; working with Professor Subir is currently working on two projects: Bengali grammar for the London Oriental and Trevor Marchand to develop a new two- revising a paper on transnationality in African Language Library, published by John years Masters degree in Anthropological social movements of those involved in small Benjamins. Alongside her linguistic work she Research Methods and Nepali, which comes scale fishing; and on the conditions for the is also preparing a practical student grammar on stream at SOAS this autumn; preparing production of the commons in neoliberal and workbook of Bengali. for the official launching of the Hodgson India. Archive catalogue at the British Library on 25

10 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Stephen Hughes Lawrence Saez Lecturer in Social Anthropology Senior Lecturer in Comparative and International Politics

For the academic session Stephen Hughes Lawrence Saez published a new book, The returned to SOAS after a year of research South Asian Association for Regional Coop- based in Chennai, India on an American eration: An Emerging Collaboration Archi- Institute of Indian Studies Senior Long- tecture (Routledge 2011). The work aims to Term Fellowship funded by the US National evaluate what scope there is for formal insti- Endowment for the Humanities. The project, tutions, like, SAARC, to provide a permanent entitled “Itineraries of Film: distribution, regional security architecture within which exhibition and audiences in south India” was South Asian countries can effectively address a study of cinema business records relating important issues. to the financing, distribution and exhibition of Tamil films during the 1940s that are held by Given his expertise on fiscal federalism, the Roja Muthiah Research Library (RMRL) in Lawrence has been involved in engaging in Chennai. knowledge transfer with various factions of the leading political parties in Nepal. On He attended the 39th Annual Conference on behalf of the CSAS, he hosted a luncheon at South Asia at the University of Wisconsin, SOAS with leading Nepalese politicians. At Madison and was also the principal organizer the invitation of the Nepal High Commission of a conference, The Future of Early Tamil in London, he has attended numerous func- Cinema, which was funded by the Indian tions to provide advice on various matters Foundation for the Arts and held at the Roja • Hughes, Stephen Putnam (2011) of national importance as Nepal seeks to Muttiah Research Library, Chennai, India over ‘Iyantirap piratiyākkattin kālattil icai: draft a new constitution. Lawrence will be two days, February 17 and 18 2011. The nādakam, kirāmapōn, tamizh cinimāvin attending the UK-Nepal trade delegation to project will continue in the form of a special tuvakkangkaḷ (part 1)’ Kaatchipizhai, Kathmandu later in October. issue of the SAGE journal BioScope: South 2, January, pp. 40-49. [Translated Asia Screen Studies, scheduled for 2013. into Tamil by Vaḷarmati from Hughes, In 2010, Lawrence was appointed to the Stephen Putnam (2007) ‘Music in World Economic Forum’s India Regional Recent Publications the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: Council. He represented SOAS at the World • Hughes, Stephen Putnam (2011) ‘Film Drama, Gramophone and the Economic Forum (WEF)’s India Economic genre, exhibition and audiences in Beginnings of Tamil Cinema.’] summit held in New Delhi in November 2010. colonial south India.’ In Richard Maltby, He later represented SOAS at the WEF’s Daniel Biltereyst, and Philippe Meers, • Hughes, Stephen Putnam (2010) ‘The Global Agenda Summit held in Dubai in De- (eds.), Explorations in New Cinema Lost Decade of Indian Film History’ cember 2010. Lawrence has been particu- History: Approaches and Case Studies. Journal of the Moving Image, 9, larly involved in the area of good governance Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, pp. 295-309. December, pp. 72-93. and its relationship to energy, food, and water security in India. He was re-appointed to the • Hughes, Stephen Putnam (2011) • Hughes, Stephen Putnam (2010) ‘What India Regional Council for the 2011-2012 ‘Media anthropology and the problem of is Tamil about Tamil Cinema?’ South year. audience reception.’ In: Banks, Marcus Asia Popular Culture, 8 (3), October, pp. and Ruby, Jay, (eds.), Made to be Seen: 213-229 Lawrence also was appointed to lead a Work- Perspectives on the History of Visual ing Group on civil society, non-state actors Anthropology. University of Chicago • Hughes, Stephen Putnam (2010) ‘When and energy security in Asia. His working Press. Film Came to Madras’ BioScope: South group forms part of the ECAF/IDEAS project, Asian Screen Studies, 1 (2), pp. 147- a 1.2million euro ‘coordination and support’ • Hughes, Stephen Putnam (2011) 168. action, whose primary aim is to bring the ‘Iyantirap piratiyākkattin kālattil icai: ECAF concept to life, and to enrich European nādakam, kirāmapōn, tamizh cinimāvin Asian studies in the process. ECAF/IDEAS tuvakkangkaḷ (part 2)’ Kaatchipizhai, is an European Commission-sponsored 2, February pp. 41-48. [Translated project funded under the auspices of the FP7 into Tamil by Vaḷarmati from Hughes, framework. Stephen Putnam (2007) ‘Music in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: Drama, Gramophone and the Beginnings of Tamil Cinema.’]

11 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON MEMBERS NEWS

Chandra Lekha Crispin Branfoot Werner F Menski Senior Lecturer in Professor of Sriram South Asian Art South Asian Laws Professor of Law & Archaeology

Chandra Lekha Sriram joined SOAS as a Crispin Branfoot was on sabbatical from Werner Menski, apart from continuing an Professor of Law in September 2010. Prior October 2010 to April 2011, spending over active teaching programme at all levels, to SOAS, she was Professor of Human Rights five months in India researching a new continued to edit South Asia Research (SAGE, at the University of East London School of research project, funded by the Leverhulme New Delhi), and published a large number of Law, where she founded and directed the Trust, entitled Construction, renovation, papers on South Asian laws, comparative law Centre on Human Rights in Conflict www.( conservation: the Hindu temple in Tamil and legal theory: uel.ac.uk/chrc), an interdisciplinary, policy- south India 1870-1920. oriented research centre. She has received ‘Hindu law’. Law & Justice. The Christian numerous grants and awards, and has held Following extensive research on 16-17th Law Review, 164 (Hilary/Easter 2010), a British Academy large grant on rule of law century Hindu temple architecture in pp. 45-62; ‘Fuzzy law and the boundaries promotion in African countries emerging southern India, this research examines the of secularism’. Lecture for RELIGARE, from conflict (2007-2009), and has been continuity of temple building into the modern London, 24 June 2010. [See www. a workpackage leader as part of a larger era, the historiography of the Tamil temple religareproject.eu/workingplace]. podcast European Union Framework VII project on and colonial archaeology in south India. Many at: www.law.qmul.ac.uk/podcast/index. building a just and durable peace in the temples were constructed or renovated, html#religare; ‘Sanskrit law. Excavating Middle East and Western Balkans (2008- often resulting in wholly new temples on Vedic legal pluralism’. SOAS School 2011; www.justpeace.eu). She is currently old sacred sites, from the late 19th century, of Law Research Paper No. 05-2010. the principal investigator on a United States not by major royal donors as in the past but [Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/ Institute of Peace grant on transitional by emergent merchant classes, especially abstract=1621384; ‘Law, state and culture: justice and peacebuilding (2010-2012) and the Nattukkottai Chettiars. Unlike many of How countries accommodate religious, co-investigator on a Social Sciences and north India’s ancient monuments, many cultural and ethnic diversity. The British Humanities Research Council of Canada south India temples remained in use and and Indian experiences’. In: Marie-Claire grant on the International Criminal Court so the colonial conservationist agenda had Foblets, Jean-François Gaudreault-Desbiens and Kenya (2009-2012). She is the author to engage with the ‘living’ tradition of active and Alison Dundes Renteln (eds.) Cultural of three monographs: Peace as governance temple patronage and continual renovation. diversity and the law. State responses (2008), Globalizing Justice for Mass The extensive renovations aroused the ire of from around the world. Brussels: Bruylant Atrocities (2005) and Confronting past colonial archaeologists but were the catalyst and Ėditions Yvon Blais, 2010, pp. 403- human rights violations (2004). to the hasty photography of many previously 446; ‘Slumdog law, colonial tummy aches unrecorded temples, the documentation of and the redefinition of family law in large numbers of historic inscriptions and India’. Review article. South Asia Research, During term 1 2010, Chandra was on the dispersal of temple sculpture. He was 30.1 (February 2010), pp. 67-80. research leave at the Institute for the Study affiliated to the School of Arts and Aesthetics of Human Rights at Columbia University in at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New His most recent work begins to develop the New York, conducting research for her next Delhi during his time in India, giving seminar model of legal pluralism, earlier depicted project on human rights, transitional justice, papers at both JNU and Delhi University. as a triangle, in more elaborate form as a and peacebuilding. His research included work at the National kite (patang), whose skilful legal navigation Archives and the Archaeological Survey of requires legal actors (and thus all of India in Delhi, the State Archives in Chennai us) to balance competing expectations. and extensive fieldwork. Extensive lecture tours on this kite model in various universities (Baku, Osaka, Tokyo His latest publications include: “Minaksi’s Metropolitan, CUSAT in Cochin, Rome, wedding: painting the sacred marriage in Lausanne, Cape Town) served to publicise early modern Madurai” in Anna L. Dallapicc- the emerging new pattern of analysing legal ola (ed.), Indian Painting: The Lesser Known pluralism in action, a model inspired not Traditions (New Delhi 2011); “In a Land of only by South Asian patterns, but of global Kings: donors, elites and temple sculpture” in relevance. Anna L. Dallapiccola & Anila Verghese (eds.) South India under Vijayanagara: Art and Archaeology (New Delhi 2011); “Iconography and Images: Art” in Knut Jacobsen (ed.), Brill Encyclopaedia of Hinduism, Vol. II: Texts, Rituals, Arts, Concepts (Leiden 2010).

12 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON RESEARCH ASSOCIATES

Eleanor Research Associates Maha Aziz Research Associate Newbigin Dr Shuja AL-HAQ Lecturer in the History BA MA(PUNJAB) PHD(LONDON) of South Asia in the 8 December 1997 - 31 August 2011 Modern Period [email protected] Eleanor Newbigin joined the SOAS history Maha Hosain Aziz, Senior Teaching Fellow department in September 2010 as a lecturer in the Politics & International Studies Ms Maha AZIZ in the history of modern South Asia, from Department, researched key political BA(PROVIDENCE) MSC PHD(LSE) Trinity College, Cambridge where she was a risk factors in South Asia in 2010-11. 6 July 2010 - 31 August 2011 junior research fellow. She presented some of these findings [email protected] in her Asia Insight column in Bloomberg Her research explores ideas and practices Business Week. of citizenship in India, especially during the Dr Avril POWELL subcontinent’s transition to independence. In one piece, she investigated how the MA(CANTAB) PGCE PHD(LONDON) She is currently working mere perception of ethnic inequality could 1 February 2011 - 31 August 2012 on a book about the codification of religious challenge booming growth in post-war Sri [email protected] personal law in early twentieth-century India Lanka. In particular, she highlighted three and its impact on structures of democratic subsets of the Tamil minority that the representation in government should target: unemployed post-colonial India. youth, non-LTTE militants and victims of the January floods. She advised that “Sri This year, Eleanor has presented material Avril Powell Lankan leaders would be wise to focus from this project at the LASSnet (Law and Research Associate some energy on explicitly connecting the Social Science Network) Conference in Pune, country’s high growth to the Tamil minority India and the British Association of South that historically has felt marginalized.” Asian Studies Conference in Southampton; she will also be a panel speaker at the In her next piece, she considered the Commission on Legal Pluralism Conference potential for frustrated, unemployed Publications during 2010-11 include, to be held later this year at the University of youth of South Asia to engage in unrest Scottish Orientalists and India: The Muir Cape Town, South Africa. like in the Arab Spring. Although not Brothers, Religion, Education and Empire an imminent threat, she suggested (Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 2010), pp. that the “demographic time bomb” 318. could eventually go off in the region if Peter Robb more youth jobs were not created; one Guest editor of a Special Issue of South Professor of the solution she proposed was vocational Asia Research: Knowledge, Pedagogy entrepreneurship so jobless youth could History of India and Muslims in Colonial North-West India, be “taught new vocations, along with the Vol. 31, No.1 (February 2011), consisting necessary entrepreneurial skills to create of articles by Gail Minault, Jeffrey M. their own employment in those specific Diamond, Alan M. Guenther and Iqbal vocations.” In September Peter Robb attended an Singh Sevea. international workshop, at the invitation of Other highlights from her column include the University of Nice, on ‘Europe in Asia ‘Creating Christian Community in Early- an analysis of the geopolitical economy during the Age of Revolutions, c. 1757 to Nineteenth-Century Agra’, in Richard Fox of Osama bin Laden’s demise for c. 1858’. A second extended edition of Young (ed) India and the Indianness of Pakistan and how the country’s massive his A History of India has been published by Christianity: Essays on Understanding … floods provide an opportunity to tackle Palgrave Macmillan. in Honor of Robert Eric Frykenberg feudalism. (William B. Eerdmand Publishing Oxford University Press (New Delhi) are Company: Grand Rapids, Michigan/ publishing two related books of his later Cambridge, U.K., 2010), pp. 82-107. this year: Sex and Sensibility and Sentiment and Self, both with the same subtitle: Served as a Council Member of the Royal Richard Blechynden›s Calcutta Diaries, Asiatic Society and as a Trustee of the 1791-1822. The first is about proprieties, Charles Wallace (Pakistan) Trust, UK. customs, and emotions relating to the wives and (mostly) the concubines of Europeans. The second, focused on servants and children, argues for links between identity and feelings, in regard to culture, honour, and corruption.

13 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON ANNOUNCEMENTS

Professor Nirmala Rao Awarded OBE for Services to Scholarship

rofessor Nirmala Rao, as a Lecturer in Politics at Goldsmiths Pro-Director (Learning College. From 1999 to 2002 I served as and Teaching) at the Head of Department of Politics and was then School of Oriental and appointed to a personal Chair in Politics. I African Studies, has been progressed to take over as Pro-Warden for awardedP an OBE for ‘services to scholarship’ Academic Affairs in which capacity I served in the 2011 Queen’s Birthday Honours list, the College for three years. I then left to join published on Saturday 11 June. the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) as Vice Principal in September 2008. “Nirmala richly deserves this honour, and not only for her scholarship,” said SOAS My academic experience at JNU was a Director Paul Webley. “She has been a true rigorous one that prepared me well for leader at SOAS, particularly in developing the transfer from Indian to British higher the range and quality of our teaching and in education. I have published widely in the modernising our practices and procedures.” field of urban politics and governance, most Professor Rao is a distinguished academic recent being Cities in Transition: Growth and who has made a major contribution to our Change in six Metropolitan cities (2007). It understanding of the way local government was a comparative study of cities located and local democracy work, particularly in in different parts of the world and included major cities such as London. Among her the Indian city of Hyderabad. I am currently many published works, she is the author of working on a project on Reshaping City eight books, including Governing London Governance in Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad (with Ben Pimlott, Oxford University Press, and London to be published by Routledge 2002) and, most recently, Cities in Transition: in due course. I have also gained valuable Growth, Change and Governance in Six in which I was able to work closely, for more experience by serving on a range of public Metropolitan Areas (Routledge, 2007). than two decades, with Professor Ken Young, bodies as a lay member of the General who inspired and supported me selflessly Council of the Bar, a non-executive director of Her work has had an impact beyond throughout. He always believed in me and Ealing Hospital NHS Trust and an appointed academia, affecting public policy on such taught me everything I needed to know. I member of the Architects Registration matters as local-government reform and benefited enormously from his advice and Board. I have also served in an advisory lowering barriers for citizens to participate in experience, not just as a social scientist but capacity to a range of bodies including the political decision-making. as an academic manager. He continued to be UK Audit Commission and the Office of the a friend and mentor for many years and I owe Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM). In India, On being asked to comment on how it feels a deep debt of gratitude to him.” I have worked closely with the Centre for to win such a huge honour Nirmala replied Good Governance, Hyderabad, advising them “I am humbled and privileged to have been Nirmala said “I was born in Hyderabad and and collaborating on a number of research recognised in this way. I have to say that it grew up in Chennai (then Madras) where projects. would not have been possible without the I attended Kendriya Vidyalaya school. I support and encouragement of my family came to Delhi in 1976 for my undergraduate I find my job at SOAS extremely rewarding and colleagues over the years.” studies and graduated with BA (Hons) and my colleagues very supportive. The Economics in 1979. I subsequently received challenges facing the School currently, as Nirmala said that if she would single out my MA (1981) and MPhil (1983) from with all other higher education institutions one person to dedicate the award to she Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. I in the UK, are many and there is much to be would choose Professor Ken Young, her one came to the UK in the late 1980s and accomplished here. My future plans are to time supervisor and guide. “I have been took up my first research post at the Policy return to my roots in India although, at this fortunate to have had an enjoyable and Studies Institute. In 1993 I was awarded my point in my career, it is impossible for me to successful career in UK Higher Education PhD and the following year I was appointed predict as to when that will come about.”

14 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON अ ब क Dr Ian Matthew Paton Raeside, 1926-2011

an Raeside joined SOAS द ए फ in 1954 as an assistant lecturer in linguistics, afterwards becoming Lecturer and Senior LecturerI in Gujarati and Marathi. He was ग ह इ appointed Acting Head of Department for the four years prior to his retirement in 1991 and also served as Senior Tutor and Dean of Undergraduate Studies. ज क ल Dr Raeside was born in Coventry and educated at King Henry VIII School in that city and afterward Rydal Penros School in North Wales, following evacuation. After म ओ प one term as student of French at University College, London, then evacuated to Bangor, he was called up and served first in the Welsh Guards and then as an officer in the Intelligence Corps in Egypt and Greece. On क़ र स resuming his studies at UCL in London he met fellow student Valerie Wall, his wife of 57 years who survives him. They were married in 1953. In 1955 he took his PhD in Medieval French Literature, having at that त उ व time already been appointed at SOAS, after which he began his study of his two specialist languages. He was given tenure in 1960. The bulk of his published work focuses on क्ष य the close analysis and translation of texts in Marathi. In the case of supposed histories his aim was often to discover their degree of historical reliability. This scholarly approach was one he first developed as a postgraduate झ student, his PhD thesis establishing that a purported medieval history was largely invented. Works In Marathi was republished as a In the late 1990s, after several years of separate text in Bombay in 2003 because of happy and active retirement, he began to His own aptitude for the languages he its outstanding usefulness to scholars in the show signs of the vascular dementia that was taught is proven by his winning a prize for field even 40 years after initial publication. eventually the cause of his death, and which his translation of a short story from Marathi His final major work was a translation of caused him to withdraw from contact with after only having studied that language for Gadyarāja, a Fourteenth Century Marathi his friends and colleagues inside and outside three years (later published in the collection Version of the Krsna Legend. academia in later years. The Rough and the Smooth). He was also commissioned by UNESCO to translate a Dr Raeside visited India on several occasions He died peacefully at home on novel by the Marathi writer Shripad Narayan after his initial year of study leave in 1957 January 30th, 2011. Pendse Wild Bapu of Garambi [Garambica and made many friends there. Bapu]. His Bibliography Of Mahanubhav

15 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON ANNOUNCEMENTS

Poeta Scholasticus, by William Radice

Poeta scholasticus is fascinated me ever since I started not a particularly rare reading as a postgraduate student of breed. There are plenty of Bengali at SOAS 1972-4. I can vividly poets teaching in English remember my teacher, Dr Tarapada departments at British Mukherjee, reading the opening lines universities.P In the USA poets teach Creative to me, and taking me down to the Writing. In Bangladesh, most professors of Library to find a copy of Madhusudan’s Photo taken by Sophie Baker in the 1990s Bengali seem to be poets. For all of them, extraordinary English letters. My DPhil university employment solves a fundamental at Oxford was on Madhusudan, and I’ve problem: how to earn one’s living? For some, finally this year brought out my complete like Philip Larkin stolidly working in the Hull translation of the epic, with copious Dr William Radice retires University Library while writing poems or jazz annotations that took me through all the reviews, a complete separation of the poetic epic poems both Indian and Western Dr William Radice has long pursued from the academic is a way of managing that were his models. With Tagore, what he terms a ‘double career’. one’s twofold existence. For me, it has never however, there can be no such closure. been as simple as that. After twenty-three He wrote so much, and his poetic A scholar and translator of Bengali, he years as a lecturer at SOAS I’m leaving to universe is so vast and various that even has taught at SOAS for 23 years, his focus on the creative side of my life. But if my work on him continues for another first and only academic home after separating the poetic from the scholarly twenty years, I shall still feel that I’m just earning his D.Phil in Bengali Literature won’t really be any easier than it was before. beginning. at Oxford in 1987. With a number of translation and research projects in the pipeline, I’ll have to go on 3. There have always been links between In his other career William is a poet, riding two horses, and maybe the race will my poetry and my translations, but the author of nine published volumes, end with a photo finish. often I don’t see them till many years including Strivings (1980), Louring later. I’m currently assembling my Skies (1985), The Retreat (1994) There are a number of ways in which my ten published books of poems into a and Green, Red, Gold: A Novel in 101 life as a poet and my life as a lecturer have Collected Poems. If it gets published Sonnets (2003). been closely connected, and I’ll always be and noticed, critics and maybe even grateful to SOAS for making that possible. a PhD student one day will be able As a translator of the Bengali poet Let me bow out with some brief reflections to explore those links. In a lecture in Rabindranath Tagore, however, he has on connections that may or may not have Kolkata in December 2009 I found managed to merge both careers. been apparent to colleagues and students, parallels between Tagore’s way of and which I was not always conscious of forming a sequence of poems and the In 1913 Tagore was awarded the Nobel myself, but which now seem to give shape endless poem that since February 2009 Prize in Literature for Gitanjali (1912), and meaning to my SOAS career. I’ve been writing on Twitter. Completing a collection of 103 poems translated my new translation of Tagore’s most into English. Tagore translated them 1. Poetry has always been at the heart famous book, Gitanjali – in September himself, but they were edited by W.B of what I’ve taught. Bengali culture and October 2010 in India, with one arm Yeats, who also wrote the preface to the is highly poetic: poets are given high after falling and breaking my right wrist volume. social status, and it’s normal to refer – was such an intense and personal to a poet as ‘Kobi [poet] X’. I often experience that it’s difficult for me (and In honour of the 150th anniversary of get letters with that title, even from maybe for readers too) to tell where Tagore’s birth, William has produced a the Bangladesh High Commission. Radice ends and Tagore begins. new translation of Gitanjali, which has Although not all students start learning just been published by Penguin India. Bengali with a desire to read poetry, I’ve 4. Teaching has always been for me a usually found ways of slipping it in, even highly creative activity. The way in which Wiliam said that “For me, the great very early on, and have won quite a few a class forms in my mind before I teach thing about SOAS is that it has enabled converts. it, then unfolds with unexpected twists me to ride these two horses—the and turns, and the part it plays in a academic and the literary. Bringing 2. The two Bengali writers that I’ve larger sequence or ‘course’ – all of this scholarship and creativity together: concentrated on in my books and seems not very different from writing that is what my work at SOAS has been research, Rabindranath Tagore (1861- a poem. How this works, and how all about, and that was Tagore’s aim 1941) and Michael Madhusudan students learn, is often very mysterious. too in his own educational work.” Dr Dutt (1824-1873) are both poets I’ve felt this especially in recent years Radice retired from SOAS at the end of on a massive scale. Madhusudan’s in the supervision of research students. August 2011. epic poem Meghnādbadh kābya has Although a thesis is not a poem, and has

16 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON The Ladder Of Love

shields upon shields shells within shells havens not cages

partners and families to meet objective scholarly standards, 1. I’m looking again at my accumulated friends and colleagues I nevertheless strongly feel that it must SOAS poems – nearly 60 of them – houses, communities be creative too. My role as a supervisor with a view to a possible Collection cultures and languages has primarily been to help the student or Selection of them (timed for the nations and destinies find the creative heart of the work, the SOAS centenary). Just as there are planet and oxygen engine that drives it along. Sometimes links between my translations and sun and inventiveness it takes them more than two years to poems, so I suspect there are many hope and the universe find it, but when they do, the thesis unconscious connections between my pretty well writes itself. published books of poems and my or parallel stream of occasional poems. 5. Even administration can be creative. Even the most frivolous of them have locks upon locks When I once asked my wife, who serious undercurrents. Ultimately, walls around walls was formerly an English teacher but in a fully creative life, everything is dogmas and bigotry for the last thirteen years has been connected. guns and dictators a headmistress (she’s retiring too hatred and fear this year, as Head of Haberdashers’ Being creative also means knowing when violence and cruelty Aske’s School for Girls), what was most to stop. When I read my final SCR poem, darkness and hunger appealing about her very arduous ‘The Marmite Mysteries’, at the Strawberry gaoling not healing job, she thought for a moment and Tea on 15 June, I was pleased that I held said, ‘It’s creative’. My experience of the large audience’s attention: by the blessings in one administration is much more limited end of the poem, everyone was still and doom in the other than hers – just my three years 1999- silent. I also felt, ‘I can’t do this again. 2002 as head of the Departments of Most of the people here don’t know me, here we are lucky South and South East Asia – but the and I must seem like a weird relic of the rungs of the ladder creativity of the job was what appealed previous century.’ But on 21 June, at a always supportive to me too: the ingenuity one needed to delightful farewell organized for me by onwards and upwards achieve results, the subtle interactions the South Asia Department, I managed shells to break out of with colleagues and students, the one last poem (reproduced here). It’s a steps not barriers interplay between tactics and strategy. serious one, really. The two streams – if If I had one guiding principle, it was they were ever truly apart – have come simply to try to ensure that colleagues together in an expression of gratitude for maybe in essence were in roles that suited them best – no the home that SOAS has given me, the that’s what we do here square pegs in round holes! That was haven it is for all who work and study add a few steps not so different from ensuring that every here. It’s deliberately written in an easily rungs to the ladder word in a poem is in the right place and translatable form and style. A poem for climbing through working to maximum effect. SOAS translated into all the languages knowledge we teach? That would be a dream come stages of wisdom 6. Somehow a role for me at SOAS true: a lasting confirmation of purpose increase of kindness developed that was explicitly poetic. and meaning in the years I Alongside my ‘serious’ poems, I found have spent here. to myself writing numerous verses, for SOAS events, for colleagues when they [William Radice’s latest books are his that we don’t know retired, for neighbours at meetings translations of Michael Madhusudan all that we do know where I felt bored or frustrated and Dutt’s The Poem of the Killing of diverted myself by writing a scurrilous Meghnād, Rabindranath Tagore’s is limerick. I’ve also written numerous collected brief poems (The Jewel occasional poems for friends and family That Is Best), and Tagore’s Gitanjali, cages and gaolers outside SOAS, and when I made my all for Penguin India; an edition of bombs and tyranny quixotic bid for the Poet Laureateship Gandhi’s autobiography The Story of hunger and misery in 2009 – cheerfully backed by many My Experiments with Truth for the Folio can’t be the way SOAS staff and students, though Society; and Complete Bengali, an everyone knew it would fail – one of expanded edition of his Teach Yourself and my motives was to challenge the rather Bengali for Hodder. His username on prissy assumption that poets ‘can’t write Twitter is ‘Billthequill’.] here we are free of them to order’. If painters and composers can carry out commissions, why can’t poets? W. R. 21.6.11

17 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON ACADEMIC EVENTS SEPT 2010 - AUG 2011

1-5 September 2010 Symposium 18 March 2011 The 5th Medieval Tibeto-Burman Langauges 30 November 2010 Co-hosted with the V&A Symposium and The 16th Himalayan Centre of South Asian Studies Seminar Languages Symposium Annual Lecture Unique Specimens of Sikh Period Wall Paintings in Maharaja Ranjit 3 November 2010 Does the Mahabharata Approve of Singh’s Samadhi The Shruti Foundation International Lecture Ekalavya cutting off his Thumb? and Dr Nadhra Shahbaz Naeem Khan Communications and Culture: Other Tales of Dalits in Ancient India (SOAS Charles Wallace Fellow 2011-12) Tradition, Modernity and Post-Modernism in Indian Cinema Professor Wendy Doniger Shyam Benegal (Mircea Eliade Professor of the History 22 March 2011 (Director and screenwriter) of Religions at the University of Chicago Co-hosted with Tongues of Fire and author of The Hindus: An Alternative Nargis Dutt Lecture History (OUP, 2010)) Business of Making Films Anusha Rizvi (Director/Writer)

Sharmila Tagore retrospective Co-hosted with the Nehru Centre 18 February 2011 24 March 2011 Seminar Co-hosted with the SOAS Centre of 16 November 2010 Blasphemy and the erosion of Gender Studies Film Screening democracy and secular space in Pakistan: Seminar Apur Sandar (The World of Apu) a blueprint for the future How do we understand the Mad Satyajit Ray (Director) Najam Sethi Woman’s Speech? Women’s Novels (Editor-in-chief of Friday Times, Award (50s-60s) and their Cinematic 17 November 2010 winning Pakistani journalist) Re-Creation in South India Film Screening Dr P. Radhika Devi (Charles Wallace Indian Fellow 2010- Satyajit Ray (Director) 23 February 2011 11) Co-hosted with the SOAS Department of 18 November 2010 the History of Art and Archaeology Film Screening Seminar 2 April 2011 Aradhana Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s Samadhi: Co-hosted with London Chhalphal Shakti Samanta (Director) the last great example of indigenous 4th London Himalayan Film Festival architectural style in the Punjab Himalayan culture and society: 18 November 2010 Dr Nadhra Shahbaz Naeem Khan practices past and present Discussion (SOAS Charles Wallace Fellow Sharmila Tagore in conversation 2010-11) with Sangeeta Datta 18 April 2011 Debate 8 March 2011 The Radio in Nepal: Film Screening Contemporary Debates Frozen Devraj Humagain, ‘The Policy Environment Left Politics in South Asia Shivajee Chandrabhusha (Director) for Independent Radio in Nepal, 1991-2011’, Pratyoush Onta, ‘Independent Radio and 30 November 2010 the Public Sphere in Nepal’, Rama Parajuli, Lecture 9 March 2011 ‘Doing Print and Radio Journalism in Nepal: The Left and Tamil Self-Determination Seminar A Practitioner’s View’, Bhagirath Yogi, “BBC in Sri Lanka Mirza Waheed (author of The Collaborator) Nepali Sewa: Touching the Lives of Millions” Dr Vickramabahu Karunarathne in conversation with Kamila Shamsie and chaired by Professor Michael Hutt (General Secretary of the New Sama (SOAS) Samaja Party (NSSP)) 11 March 2011 9 December 2010 Film Screening Seminar Life Goes On - followed by a The Vicissitudes of Leftist Politics discussion in Pakistan: Expressions of “Self-Defeat” Sangeeta Datta (Director), Tehmina Kazi in the Politics of the 1960s (Director, British Muslims for Secular Atiya Khan (University of Chicago) Democracy) and chaired by Professor Rachel Dwyer (SOAS)

18 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON SOAS, Centre of South Asian Studies In collaboration with The Nehru Centre Sharmila Tagore retrospective

Special Event The legendary actress, Sharmila Tagore, in conversation with Sangeeta Datta

5 pm on Thursday, 18 November 2010 in the Khalili Lecture Theatre Himalayan LEFT Film Screenings Apur Sansar Languages Symposium Director Satyajit Ray, 1960 7-9pm on Tuesday, 16 November, Room KLT POLITICS

Devi Director Satyajit Ray, 1960 in South Asia 4-6pm on Wednesday, 17 November, Room B102

Aradhana Director Shakti Samanta, 1969 2-5pm on Thursday, 18 November, Room 4421

Image credit: Vipul Sangoi All welcome

The Himalayan Languages Symposium is an annually convening, open scholarly forum for scholars of Himalayan languages. The Himalayan Languages Symposium serves as a podium for contributions on any language of the greater Further info: Centres & Programmes Office, SOAS, University of London Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, Himalayan region, whether Burushaski, Kusunda, a Tibeto-Burman language, an Indo-Aryan tongue or other language. LEFT POLITICS IN SOUTH ASIA ~ DAY ONE [email protected] / 020 7898 4892 London WC1H 0XG Linguists as well as specialists from related disciplines like philology, history, anthropology, archaeology and prehistory www.soas.ac.uk/southasianstudies/events/ www.soas.ac.uk are welcome to make their contributions to the study of Himalayan languages and Himalayan language communities. THE LEFT AND TAMIL SELF-DETERMINATION IN SRI LANKA 3 May 2011 Sponsored by the Nehru Centre Dr Vickramabahu Karunarathne (General Secretary of New Sama Samaja Party (NSSP)) Poster Design: JS, Centres & Programmes Office, SOAS Keynote Address: Martine Mazaudon Tuesday, 30 November 2010 at 5:00pm “Dialectology and language change: paths to tone in Tamangish languages" Room V111, Vernon Square Campus, SOAS Forum Enquiries: David Rampton, [email protected] 2-5 September 2010 or Centres & Programmes , [email protected] / 020 7898 4893/2 SOAS, University of London SOAS of South Asian Centre Studies BBC South Asian Language Enquiries/Registration LEFT POLITICS IN SOUTH ASIA ~ DAY TWO www.soas.ac.uk/Himalayan-Languages-Symposium THE VICISSITUDES OF LEFTIST POLITICS IN PAKISTAN: Centres & Programmes: [email protected] / 020 7898 4892/3 EXPRESSIONS OF “SELF-DEFEAT” IN THE POLITICS OF THE 1960S Service - what future? School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG Atiya Khan (University of Chicago) Design: JS, Centres & Programmes , SOAS 2010 Photographs by Nathan Hill Thursday, 9 December 2010 at 7:00pm Room 4421, Main Building, Russell Square Campus, SOAS William Crawley (co-author of Satellites Centre of South Asian Studies Annual Lecture Enquiries: Whitney Cox, [email protected] or Centres & Programmes, [email protected] / 020 7898 4893/2 All Welcome Professor Wendy Doniger Design: RB, Centres & Programmes Office, SOAS, 2010 / Printed by SOAS Print Room over South Asia: broadcasting, culture, and Mircea Eliade Professor, University of Chicago and author of The Hindus: An Alternative History (OUP, 2010) the public interest (2001), Professor Marie Gillespie (Open University), Aamer Ahmed 5th Medieval Tibeto-Burman Khan, Head of Urdu Service (BBC), Priyath Languages Symposium CENTRE OF SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES, SOAS

Whereas Indo-Europeanists are aware of the essential FILM SCREENING Liyanage, Head of Sinhala Service (BBC) and role the study of ancient languages have in comparative linguistics, up till the present time Tibeto-Burman scholarship has not tended to share the same insight, and the older languages of the Tibeto-Burman family have chaired by Francesca Orsini (SOAS) been unjustly neglected. The Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages Symposium has the aim of raising the methodological rigour of Tibeto- Burman historical linguistics to the standards of better studied language families such as Indo-European or Uralic. This fifth meeting of this series will be held as a one day 11 May 2011 panel of the 15th Himalayan Languages Symposium at SOAS on 1 September, 2010. A major aim of this meeting is to stimulate interaction Co-hosted with the Britain-Nepal Does the Mahabharata Approve of Ekalavya among scholars working on different languages in Tibeto-Burman and approaching them from different cutting off his Thumb? perspectives. Papers of any kind dealing with primary texts in the older Tibeto-Burman languages are welcome, 11 March 2011 Academic Council (BNAC) and and Other Tales of Dalits in Ancient India whether the focus be linguistic, philological, textual, historical or literary. Also welcome are contributions on Khalili Lecture Theatre any Tibeto-Burman languages with a pre-modern literary tradition. These include but are not limited to Bailang, Russell Square, SOAS Peace Brigades International (PBI) 7 pm on 30 November 2010 Burmese, Lepcha, Manipuri, Nam, Naxi, Tangut, Tibetan, Yi, 1 September 2010 in the Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS and Zhangzhung. SOAS, University of London Screening: 2-4 pm Seminar All Welcome, but registration essential Discussion: 4-5pm Sangeeta Datta (Director) www.soas.ac.uk/southasianstudies/events/ Tehmina Kazi (Director, British Muslims for Secular Democracy) Enforced Disappearances and Dr Rachel Dwyer (Chair) Further Information: School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG Centres & Programmes Office, [email protected] or 020 7898 4893 State Accountability in Nepal Design: JS, Centres & Programmes Office, SOAS 2010 www.soas.ac.uk

Design: JS, Centres & Programmes, SOAS 2010 Mr Ram Kumar Bhandari (Chairman Keynote Address Photographs by Nathan Hill The use of numerals as abbreviations in Old and Middle Burmese Prof Rudolf Yanson (St Petersburg State University) of the National Network of Families of Enquiries/Registration www.soas.ac.uk/Tibeto-Burman-Languages-Symposium Disappeared): Forced Disapperances and Centres & Programmes: [email protected] / 020 7898 4892/3 SOAS Centre of South Asian Studies and CRESC School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG Impunity in Nepal and Ms Iona Liddell present All Welcome / Free / No Registration Required SOAS University of London Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square (Advocacy Director, PBI Nepal): PBI Nepal: BBC South Asian Language Service For more information contact [email protected] London WC1H 0XG - what future? Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi Supporting Human Rights Defenders in * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * CENTREBengali * OF SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali *& Tamil BRITAIN-NEPAL * ACADEMIC COUNCIL Nepal Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali 25 May 2011 Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali Seminar Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Moth Smoke and Pakistan Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * Tamil * Urdu * Nepali * Nepali * Sinhala * Hindi * Bengali * after Bin Laden 6pm on 3 May 2011 Mohsin Hamid (Author) and chaired Room G2, SOAS, University of London Panelists William Crawley (Co-author, Satellites over South Asia: broadcasting, culture, and the public interest (2001) by Dr Amina Yaqin (SOAS) Professor Marie Gillespie (Open University) THE RADIO IN NEPAL: Aamer Ahmed Khan (Head of Urdu Service, BBC) Priyath Liyanage (Head of Sinhala Service, BBC) [Chair] Francesca Orsini (SOAS) Contemporary Debates

The event is free but booking is essential: www.soas.ac.uk/southasianstudies/events/ 18 April 2011 / 6pm / Room G2 SOAS University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG Ground Floor, Main Building, Russell Square, SOAS, London WC1H 0XG Design: JS, Centres & Programmes Office, SOAS 2011 SPEAKERS 13 June 2011 Devraj Humagain, 'The Policy Environment for Independent Radio in Nepal, 1991-2011' Pratyoush Onta, 'Independent Radio and the Public Sphere in Nepal' Rama Parajuli, 'Doing Print and Radio Journalism in Nepal: A Practitioner's View' Co-hosted with the Britain-Nepal Bhagirath Yogi, “BBC Nepali Sewa: Touching the Lives of Millions” [Chair] Michael Hutt (SOAS)

The seminar is part of a series of events supported by a three-year grant from the International Academic Council (BNAC) and the Partnerships Scheme of the British Academy. The UK partner is the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London and the Nepali partner is Martin Chautari in Kathmandu. All Welcome / Free UK Constitutional Law Group Organiser: Centres & Programmes Office The Shruti Foundation International Lecture Sponsor: International Partnerships Scheme of the British Academy Poster: RB, Centres & Programmes (REO) 2011, SOAS Seminar Communications and Culture: Constitution Drafting, State Tradition, Modernity and Post-Modernism Restructuring And The Peace in Indian Cinema Process In Nepal: What Next? Moth Smoke General Sir Sam Cowan, Professor David 13th LONDON ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2011 Gellner, Professor Peter Leyland, Dr Mara and Pakistan Presents Nargis Dutt Malagodi, Dr Sara Shneiderman, Professor Inaugural Annual Lecture Surya Subedi and chaired by Professor after Bin Laden ‘BUSINESS OF SHYAM BENEGAL MOHSIN HAMID (Author) Michael Hutt (SOAS) 25 May 2011 @ 6:00 PM MAKING B102, Brunei Gallery, SOAS One of the pioneers of the new cinema in India, Shyam Benegal FILMS’ has been considered one of the leading filmmakers of the country With director Anusha Rizvi ever since his first feature film, ANKUR was released (PEEPLI LIVE) To celebrate 100th Anniversary of 15 June 2011 6.30 pm on 3 November 2010 International Women’s Day Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, SOAS Tuesday 22 March 2011 at 6pm www.soas.ac.uk/southasianstudies/events/ Co-hosted with Framing Muslims ‘Sharply observed, powerful, evocative’ - Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, SOAS Financial Times

School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London Panel discussion to be chaired by Book Launch All welcome Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG The author Mohsin Hamid will read from Professor Rachel Dwyer (SOAS) Design: JS, Centres & Programmes Office (REO), SOAS www.soas.ac.uk his recent book, Moth Smoke. A Q&A session will follow the reading and will Ziauddin Sardar Book Launch be chaired by Dr Amina Yaqin (SOAS).

‘Reading the Quran’ with Merryl Davies & REGISTRATION The event is free and open to all.

Amina Yaqin followed by Q&A Organiser: Centres & Programmes Office, SOAS [email protected] or tel: 020 7898 4892/3 Screening of Peepli Live ~ 21 March, 2011, 6:30 pm, Apollo Cinemas, Piccadilly, London Merryl Wyn Davis & Dr Amina Yaqin (SOAS) Poster: RB, Centres & Programmes, SOAS~2011 CONTACT: [email protected] SOAS University of London Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square London WC1H 0XG

19 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON EVENT REPORTS

The 5th Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages Symposium /16th Himalayan Languages Symposium 1-5 September 2010

The 5th Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages presentations focusing on languages Symposium and the 16th Himalayan or language communities of the Languages Symposium were held at School Greater Himalayan Region, repre- of Oriental and African Studies, Univer- senting contributions from linguistic, sity of London, UK, 1-5 September 2010. anthropological, historical, and The efforts of convener Dr. Nathan Hill archaeological perspectives. (senior lector in Tibetan, Department of the Languages and Cultures of China and Inner The title of Mazaudon’s keynote Asia) yielded a successful pair of event. The address was “Dialectology and participants of the symposia appreciated the language change: path to tone warm hospitality and assistance provided in Tamangish languages”. This by the staff of the SOAS Centre of Chinese presentation provided an insightful Workshop particpants enjoying a break Studies and Centres and Programmes overview of tone in Tamangish Office. The two events attracted circa 60 languages and demonstrated participants, representing thirteen countries recent findings on various aspects ject/object marking, subject/topic markers, (Australia, China, Finland, France, Germany, of tone in these languages using acoustic ergative/absolutive markers, nominative/ac- India, Japan, Malaysia, Poland, Singapore, measurements. Mazaudon emphasized the cusative markers, systematic/non-systematic Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United following three points: the different dialects patterns, tense/aspect split and attention States). have each found their own way of dealing flow. In her concluding remarks, Gwendlyn with the progressive shift from initial con- Hyslop summarized the factors conditioning The 5th Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages sonant voicing to breathy phonation and to ‘optional’ case markings. They are person; Symposium, held on the first day, comprised pitch contrast; breathy phonation, which ap- tense/aspect; volition, control, expectation, pears as in intermediate stage between initial consequence or effect on the world; directed consonant voicing and phonologised pitch, activity, directed mental state, creation can co-occur with high tone only under some and transformation; animacy, topicality, phonological conditions which are not met by prominence; role of other arguments in the Tamangish languages; and the theoreti- clause; proximity of NP to predicate, semantic cal status of “emergent tones”, the existence clause of verbs; relationship to previous sub- of a prolonged fluctuating equilibrium ject, length of NP, and argument number. between segmental and suprasegmental cues to tone leads to the conclusion that The remaining parallel and joint sessions “tone” may be included more than thirty papers. Among defined by these, there were five presentations on Bhu- multiple cues tanese languages, (one on Gongduk, one two and not by on Tshangla, one on East Bodish in general, pitch alone. and one on Mangde), seven on Tibetan or other Bodish languages, five on Nepalese lan- Symposium participants listening intently On 3 guages, three on Burmese languages, eight September on languages in India, one on language in six presentations on a variety of languages 2010, there Pakistan and one on a language in Malaysia. including Tangut, Lepcha, Yi, and Old Tibetan. was an all-day These presentations, mostly based on the workshop Next year’s HLS will move from London to philological study of historical documents, on optional Kobe, a city full of exotic atomosphere in treated varied phenomena including lexical case marking Japan. Kobe City University of Foreign Studies studies, syntax, phonology, religion, and arranged by (organizer: Tsuguhito Takeuchi) will host the discourse. Shobhana 17th Himalayan Languages Symposium and Conference organiser, Dr Nathan Hill Chelliah it will be held 6-9 September 2011. On 2-5 September 2010, various papers (University of were presented at a joint sessions and paral- North Texas) Information regarding HLS and upcoming lel sessions at the 16th Himalayan languages and Gwendlyn Hyslop (University of Oregon). symposium can be obtained at: symposium. The symposium, featuring a Ten papers presented were presented, deal- www.himalayansymposium.org/ keynote address by Martine Mazaudon and a ing with syntactic behavior, meaning and workshop on optional case marking, included function of optional case markers in various Fuminobu Nishida (Akita University) languages using from the viewpoints of sub-

20 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Framing Muslims

This past year has proved to be very exciting for the Framing Muslims research network. We have focussed on the production and publication of our written outputs as well as organising a short series of book launches. The list below outlines our main activities for the year.

24 September 2011 The Centre for Cultural, Literary and Postcolonial Studies, SOAS and Framing Muslims International Research Network collaborated for a combined launch of the special issue of Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies ‘Muslims in the Frame’ edited by Peter Morey and Amina Yaqin and Still Not Easy Being British: Struggles for a Multicultural Citizenship By Tariq Modood (Trentham Books, 2010). The event was introduced by Professor Robert Young (New York University) followed by presentations from Dr Amina Yaqin, Dr Peter Morey, Professor Tariq Modood, and Dr Katherine Brown (King’s College, London).

Interventions, 12:2, July 2010 Muslims in the Frame This special issue of Interventions focuses on the contemporary representation of Muslims cutting across the disciplinary boundaries of sociology, political science, film and television, photography and fashion, exploring representation in both its cultural and political senses. Its incisive essays delineate a limiting and limited ‘frame’ surrounding public discourses about Islam and Muslims, and present a snapshot of a contemporary landscape coloured by concerns about national identity, integration and security, in which Muslims constitute an object of study and, increasingly, answer back to misinformation and stereotypes. Contributors include Tariq Modood, Ziauddin Sardar, Emma Tarlo, Tim Smith, Katherine Brown, Ziauddin Sardar, Merryl Wyn Davies, Peter Morey and Amina Yaqin.

Still Not Easy Being British The late 1980s and early 1990s in Britain saw the fracturing of a political ‘black’ identity; ethnic minority assertions to be British and about remaking what it is to be British; the manifestation of the social mobility of Indians and, above all, theemergence of Muslim identity politics in the Rushdie Affair. These issues were the subject of Tariq Modood’s Not Easy Being British, one of the first books to note these developments and analyse their implications. In this new collection, Modood returns to some of these topics, considering especially the growth of Muslim political assertiveness and the reactions to it in the context of rethinking multiculturalism and Britishness.

AbdoolKarim Vakil (King’s College, London), co-editor of Thinking Through Islamophobia: Global Perspectives, Hurst 2011 and Julian Petley (Brunel University) co-editor of Pointing the Finger: Islam and Muslims in the British Media, Oneworld, 2011 on 19 May 2011 This seminar brought together two of the latest publications on Islamophobia. AbdoolKarim Vakil summarized the wide variety of available studies on Islamophobia and spoke of the relevance of his co-edited volume which draws on international case studies to explore the contested meanings of the term. Julian Petley offered an incisive critique of the British media’s treatment of Muslim stories and the prevalence of a views led journalism which often pays less attention to the task of reporting and relies more on opinion making.

Mohsin Hamid seminar on 25 May 2011. ‘Mothsmoke and Pakistan after Bin Laden’ The Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid was in conversation with Amina Yaqin about his book Moth Smoke which has been reissued by Penguin this year. He talked about writing in English, the troubled masculinities in his novel and the repercussions of the on-going War on Terror for people in Pakistan.

Ziauddin Sardar spoke from his book, Reading the Qur’an and was in conversation with Merryl Davies and Amina Yaqin on 15 June 2011 A deeply spiritual endeavour, Zia’s book is in dialogue with the many translations of the Qur’an in English engaging with the work of a range of translators from Marmaduke Pickthall to Abdel Haleem. He spoke of the relevance of his book for a contemporary Muslim audience who access the Qur’an in many different languages and wish to understand how to approach it in a modern context.

Publication of Framing Muslims: Representation since 9/11 came out in June with Harvard University Press, Peter Morey and Amina Yaqin The book is a comparative study, though with a predominant UK focus, on the caricatures and stereotypes used by the media to construct “frames” through which Muslims are represented. Claire Chambers reviewing it for The Times Higher Education Supplement has described it as ‘Groundbreaking...Drawing on their diverse backgrounds in English and Urdu literary and cultural studies, Morey and Yaqin examine...[how] veils, beards, men at prayer, and minarets stand in for Muslims in all their heterogeneity and complexity...[An] illuminating work …[which] gives me renewed excitement about academia, especially the emerging field of representations of Muslims. Morey and Yaqin explore complex ideas about important issues in writing that is absorbing and jargon-free.’ The book has also been favourably reviewed by The Saudi Gazette and Frontline Magazine, a supplement of The Hindu.

Moshin Hamid (Credit Ed Kashi) Jacket Photo: Celia Peterson/Getty Images, From left: Ziauddin Sardar, Amina Yaqin and Merryl Davies Jacket Design: Jill Breitbarth

21 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON EVENT REPORTS

Shruti Foundation International RSAA & SOAS Presentation Lecture by Shyam Benegal for Sixth Form Students 3 November 2010 9 November 2010

The Centre was delighted to host One hundred and thirty students from 18 the Shruti Foundation International schools and colleges, together with several Lecture by Shyam Benegal: teachers and members of the RSAA and “Communications and Culture: SOAS attended the day of presentations for Tradition, Modernity and Post- sixth formers held in the Brunei gallery. Modernism in Indian Cinema”. The day started with a welcome and introduction from Adrian Steger on behalf Many admirers of Shyam’s work of both the Royal Society for Asian Affairs braved the cold weather and travelled (RSAA) (whose Council he is on) and Profes- across the country to hear the sor Nimala Roa of SOAS. He gave a short out- lecture. line of the history and activities of the RSAA and a brief description of SOAS, the courses Shyam Benegal’s name is it offered, its academic excellence and synonymous with what is known reasons to study there finishing by exhorting as ‘middle’ or ‘parallel’ cinema in those interested to do so. India. This realist cinema eschews the Bollywood melodrama, raising The first speaker was the Director of the sensitive social issues on community, part televised series of Jawaharlal Nehru’s Japanese Embassy’s Information and gender, class and caste. Mr Discovery of India in between 1986 and Cultural Centre. Mr. K Okinawa gave Benegal’s films are too many to list, 1991. a persuasive power point presentation but among his most acclaimed are Ankur of Japan’s current efforts to apply high (1974), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976), Shyam Benegal has also been Chairman of technology to the resolution of the problems Bhumika (1997), his trilogy of Muslim the Film and Television of Institute of India, arising from rapid climate change. He socials (Mammo, Sardari Begum, Zubeidaa), and is now a member of the Rajya Sabha, the covered all the major areas of development and his biopics of Gandhi and Bose. His Indian Parliament’s Upper House. His many including carbon recovery, the intensified 2008 Welcome to Sajjanpur was a great hit awards include the Padma Bhushan (2001), use of solar and nuclear power and the with a new generations of fans. the Indira Gandhi National Integration Award application of intelligent robots, ending with (2004) and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for a fascinating account of plans for a Japanese Shyam Benegal has also made many Lifetime Achievement (2005). space station which would transmit a laser documentaries, as well as fiction for beam back to earth in order to produce huge television. He also made a landmark 53- Professor Rachel Dwyer (SOAS) quantities of electricity Mr. Okinawa admitted, however, that the practical application of this idea was still some way off. Asked in question time to compare Britain’s approach to spending on science and technology to Japan’s, he commented that in sharp contrast to Japan, which had very few surviving old buildings but which invested massively in new technology-being second only to the United States in this regard - we seemed to prefer to devote much of our resources to the preservation of our built heritage. A double-edged compliment?

This was followed by language ‘tasters’, Here students get a short tutorial on some Asian languages from tutors in SOAS; Dr. Lianyi Song; Mandarin, Mr. Krishna Pradhan; Hindi and Mr. Mohamed Said; Arabic.

Francesca Orsini, Shyam, Rachel, Lady Shruti Rana, Nirmala Rao and Mr and Mrs Katira

22 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON The next speaker was Oliver Bullough, an of their skill and talent in the new ‘Bric”’ old friend of the Societys, and a former economies than in western Europe and the Reuters’ correspondent in Moscow. He spoke US. These newly confident states constituted eloquently to the question, “The Caucasus the real wave of the future: the nature of - Is Peace Possible?” Drawing on a wealth their development during the coming century of recent personal experience, he focused would have massive consequences for us on the history and contemporary condition all. The sixth formers listened and watched of Chechnya and Daghestan emphasizing in rapt silence as this striking scenario was how far apart these two nations were from unveiled. There is little doubt that all went indigenous Russians in their understanding away with a radically changed perspective on of their proper place in the world and the kind the challenges which would face them in the of future they desired. Until the two sides years ahead. could agree on a common version of the events of the past two or three centuries the Adrian Steger welcoming the students to the event Each talk was followed by five to ten present conflict was likely to continue. But minutes of lively, informal and well informed despite these huge problems he still believed discussion between audience and speaker. that a peaceful settlement could ultimately The day finished with Mr. Steger thanking be reached. the speakers, those who had participated in discussion and the staff of SOAS for their An excellent buffet lunch prepared the help, in particular Jane Savory. audience for a fascinating, well-illustrated account by Daniel Metcalfe, again based Judged from the atmosphere on the day on personal experience of travel in the and the feed back forms the day was a region, about the ‘lost peoples’ of central great success. The number and variation of Asia. Most of these were now grouped in the subjects covered being the most appreciated former Soviet provinces east of the Caspian aspect of the day (rather than any particular Sea. They included the Jewish community talk) followed by the language tutorials. of Bokhara, now much diminished, and Attendance levels were higher than the last the former Volga Germans, transported to two years.

Kazakhstan by Stalin in 1942/1943. He also The sixth formers participating in the language tasters spoke of the Hazaras, an ancient people The next schools’ meeting will be held on now living mainly in Afghanistan, many of Wednesday 30th November 2011 and details whom were managing to adapt successfully can be found on the SOAS website. to a complicated modern world. He ended his talk by stressing how important it was to The following schools and colleges were deal with all these groups without conveying represented: any sense of patronage or giving them the impression that they were living in some kind • Abingdon School of museum. • Anglo European School, Essex • Canon Palmer Catholic School The final presentation of the day was • City of London School for Girls given by the Society’s Chairman, Sir David • Cotswold School, Glous. John, called in at short notice to replace • Cranbrook School a scheduled speaker who was unable to • Dulwich College attend. He spoke very much from his own • Hampstead School Mr Ken Okinawa, Director of the Japanese Information and experience as someone who had grown Cultural Centre of the Japanese embassy giving the opening talk • Haydon School up in a world dominated by the economic • Kensington and Chelsea 6th and political power of the United States but form College which was now changing at lightning speed • Lambeth Academy as China and India in particular, moved • Lampton School rapidly to replace the US in the economic • Orleans Park School pecking-order. Illustrating his thesis with • St Clare’s, Oxford a series of readily understandable graphs • Varndean College Brighton covering the major areas of change and • Welling School, Bexley growth over the next 30/40 years, Sir David • Westminster argued that many of those in his audience • Wimbledon High School would find more opportunities to make use Adrian Steger (RSAA)

23 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON EVENT REPORTS

Sangeeta in conversation with Sharmila Sharmila Tagore Retrospective where Sharmilaji talked frankly for nearly two hours about her career, from her first familiar name to world audiences. November 2010 film with Satyajit Ray, through her career as top Hindi film star, to her current work in Cast in Shakti Samanta’s Evening in Paris- films and as Chair of the Censor Board. The Sharmila made her entry in Hindi films audience, who filled the Lecture Theatre to with a bang. Her best known films were The Centre was delighted to host the London capacity, had an opportunity for questions with Samanta when she teamed up with section of the nationwide Sharmila Tagore and also to meet Sharmilaji at the reception Rajesh Khanna as the lead romantic pair in retrospective sponsored by the Nehru Centre, after the talk: excited fans queued up for Hindi films- Aradhana, Amar Prem. Winner High Commission of India. Three films were autographs and photographs with Sharmila. of Filmfare awards for best actress, her screened but the high point was Sharmila performance in Safar, Daag were critically Tagore’s visit. Dr Sangeeta Datta, filmmaker SOAS would like to thank Dr Monika Mohta of acclaimed. and film historian, led the conversation the Nehru Centre and Dr Sangetta Datta for making this event such a huge success. Under Gulzar’s direction, she gave another powerful performance in Mausam which Rachel Dwyer (SOAS) fetched her the National Award for best actress. She also won the best supporting Sharmila Tagore, legendary actress from actress award for her role in the Ray sequel India, holds an unique position in the world made by Gautam Ghosh – Abar Aranye. of Indian cinema. She is known both for her Cast in her first British film Life Goes On involvement in the films of Satyajit Ray as (directed by Sangeeta Datta) she works with well as the Bombay Hindi film world where her daughter Soha for the first time. The film she reigned as glamour queen in the 70’s is slated for release in November 2010. and early 80’s. Married to cricket star Mansoor Ali Khan Hailing from the well known Tagore family Pataudi, mother of Bollywood stars Saif Ali of Calcutta, Sharmila made her Khan and Soha Ali Khan, Sharmila is the debut at the age of 14 in Satyajit Chairperson of the Indian Film Censor Board Ray’s Apur Sansar. She went and Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF working on to star in the well known Ray for AIDS related issues in north India. films: Devi and the Calcutta city films- Seemabaddha (Company Her work has been celebrated in various Limited,), Nayak (The Hero) and countries in retrospectives and festivals – the best known Aranyer Din Ratri chiefly at the Lincoln Centre, New York, and (Days and Nights in the Forest). Singapore.

These films have made her a Sangetta Datta

Sharmila taking tea with Nirmala Rao and Rachel Dywer

From left: Rachel Dwyer, Sharmila Tagore, Nirmala Rao

24 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Centre of South Asian Studies Annual Lecture Professor Wendy Doniger Wendy Does the Mahabharata Approve of Ekalavya cutting off his Thumb? and Other Tales of Dalits in Ancient India November 2010

On the evening of 31 November, the Centre Wendy Doniger’s research and teaching Rachel Dwyer and Wendy for South Asian Studies was honoured to interests revolve around two basic areas, welcome Professor Wendy Doniger for the Hinduism and mythology. Her courses occassion of the 2011 annual lecture. The in mythology address themes in cross- lecture was chaired by the Centres Deputy cultural expanses; her courses in Hinduism Chair, Dr Witney Cox, with SOAS’s Director cover a broad spectrum that, in addition to and Principal, Professor Paul Webley, giving mythology, considers literature, law, gender, the introductions. and ecology. Cross-cultural offerings have included courses about death, dreams, evil, Wendy began by explaining how Ancient horses, sex, and women. Sanskrit texts were usually recorded by Brahmin scribes, but because oral and Among her many books published under the Wendy and Whitney talking questions folk traditions were often assimilated into name Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty are three Sanskrit texts, the lower castes (the people Penguin Classics: Hindu Myths: A Source- now generally called Dalits, formerly called book, Translated from the Sanskrit; The Rig Untouchables) do speak in them, not always Veda: An Anthology, 108 Hymns Translated in voices recorded on a page but in signs that from the Sanskrit; and The Laws of Manu we can read if we try. She explained that one (with Brian K. Smith). She has also published way to look for this submerged information Śiva: The Erotic Ascetic; The Origins of Evil is in texts about dogs. Many of the lowest in Hindu Mythology; and several books with castes were called “Dog-Cookers” (Shva- the University of Chicago Press: Women, Pakas), because high caste Hindus thought Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts; that these people ate dogs, who in turn ate Dreams, Illusion, and Other Realities; Tales anything and everything, and in Hinduism, of Sex and Violence: Folklore, Sacrifice, and you are what you eat. But texts covertly Danger in the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa; and Other critical of the caste system reverse the Peoples’ Myths: The Cave of Echoes. Under Paul Webley and Wendy symbolism of dogs and speak of breaking the the name Wendy Doniger, she has published rules for dogs, treating them as if they were Splitting the Difference: Gender and Myth not impure. Tracing these stories through the in Ancient Greece and India; The Bedtrick: centuries, we can see how attitudes to Dalits Tales of Sex and Masquerade; The Implied shifted. A dog plays a central role in the story Spider: Politics and Theology in Myth; a new of the low-caste archer Ekalavya who cuts off translation of the Kamasutra (with Sudhir his thumb at the command of his high-caste Kakar); The Woman Who Pretended to Be teacher, a tale told very differently first in the Who She Was; and The Hindus: An Alternative Mahabharata, then in a medieval Jain text, History. In progress are Hinduism, for the then in contemporary Dalit poetry, and now Norton Anthology of World Religions (2011); in a Bollywood film. Faking It: Narratives of Circular Jewelry and Deceptive Women; Horses for Lovers, Dogs Wendy’s remarks provided rich food for for Husbands (a novel); and a memoir. though and provoked a lively dicsusion following the lecture. The event attracted an Jane Savory (SOAS) Wendy signing the latest copy of her book overflowing house with many people having to stand.

25 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON EVENT REPORTS

Left Politics in South Asia The Vicissitudes of Leftist Politics in Pakistan: Expressions of The Left and Tamil Self-Determination “Self-Defeat” in the Politics in Sri Lanka by Dr Vickramabahu Karunarathne of the 1960s by Atiya Khan 30 November 2010 9 December 2010

In the opening session of the series of In an enlightening paper, Atiya Khan, a research lectures on leftist politics in South Asia, scholar at the University of Chicago, traced the Dr Vickramabahu Karunaratne, the leader defeat of leftist politics in Pakistan in the 1960s. of Nava Sama Samaja Party of Sri Lanka, highlighted the relevance of leftist politics Khan highlighted how the Left aligned itself with the and ideals of social equality in contemporary concept of democratic reformism in the wake of the Sri Lanka. Dr Karunaratne founded the crisis of Marxism in the 20th century. Accordingly, Nava Sama Samaj Party in 1977 after the socialist elements in different countries tried his fall out with the Lanka Sama Samaj to find their own routes to socialism. Following the Party. He underlined the relation between Partition, the communists of East Bengal, now leftist politics and the Tamil demand for East Pakistan, maintained links with West Bengal. All this while, there was a self-determination. The Tamil demand for The Left in West Pakistan failed to form a broader lot of violence unleashed self-determination needs to be understood national coalition or state-sponsored labour unions. against socialist forces. in the context of the history of discrimination In both East and West Pakistan, the National In an armed attack, the against the Tamil and Muslim minorities Awami Party led by Maulana Bhashani fought for Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna in Sinhala-dominated Sri Lanka. The initial the abolition of the zamindari system (a feudal (JVP) killed members of the struggle of the Tamils against discrimination system of land ownership) and enjoyed the support United Socialist camp. The in the 1950s led to a demand for regional of teachers, nurses and workers. However, during Nava Sama Samaja Party autonomy for the Tamil-dominated areas. the imposition of martial law by successive military has been attempting to fill The lecture outlined the social void left by dictators in the 1960s, the Left was unable to unite up this social void created the lack of coordination between the leftist on a single platform. parties and the parties struggling for the by the lack of unity among socialist forces. Karunaratne rights of Tamils. The CPI(M) initially defended Khan, in her paper, underlined the absence of also critiqued the neo-liberal Tamil rights, only to unite with the Sri Lanka a sound theory in the practice of the Left as the economic policies of the Freedom Party later to campaign against the reason for the lack of a coordinated action. The new present regime of Sri Lanka devolution of power. Subsequently, there Left was characterised by an aversion to theoretical under President Mahinda was no united effort by the Left to stand for analysis of its actions. The new Left privileged action Rajapaksa. He stated that the Tamil right to self-determination. Though over ideology. As development was understood as blind implementation of IMF a large section of the Sri Lanka Freedom an economic problem, revolution only seemed like policies, in response to global Party was of the opinion that the demands a distant possibility. In the development of Paki- capitalist pressure is resented for autonomy of the Tamil homeland should stan during the years of the military regime of Ayub by large number of workers be accepted, there was massive resistance Khan, local resources were not utilised. There was who are drifting towards to such demands from other quarters. a conspicuous absence of workers, students in the socialist parties. Karunaratne emphasized the rise of the agenda for development. The initial outburst of en- armed conflict under the LTTE in the 1980s ergy during the students and workers’ movement in Sagnik Dutta (SOAS Masters, as a consequence of the failure to meet Tamil the 1960s gradually dissipated. The collapse of the South Asian Area Studies) demands through other channels. Left also opened up possibilites for Islamist forces leading to reactionary movements in Pakistan. The ethnic divisions in the Left facilitated the collapse of the Left in the 1960s and 70s.

Sagnik Dutta (SOAS Masters, South Asian Area Studies)

26 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Nepali delegation led by Mr Arjun Narasingha K.C. Mirza Waheed in conversation with 22 February 2011 Kamila Shamsie 9 March 2011

A group of Nepali dignitaries visiting the Hindu monarchy until 2006, when a On 9 March the Centre hosted the event, UK on a business trade mission paid the decade-long civil war ended with the king “Mirza Waheed in conversation with Kamila School a courtesy call in February. ceding power. Nepal is now a democracy, Shamsie”. The main impetus for this talk was but the government has experienced to celebrate the publication of Mirza book, The delegation was led by Arjun Narasingha political deadlock for several years over ‘The Collaborator’ which has been described K.C. , Nepal’s former Minister for the adoption of a new constitution by the by its publishers Penguin/Viking as a “heart- Education, Health, Housing and Physical Constituent Assembly, Nepal’s parliament. breaking and shocking story of what happens Planning and currently the Joint General The new constitution was supposed to to a community, and a family, that must live Secretary and Spokesperson for the Nepali be drafted by 2010, but the deadline for through a conflict that is all too real”. Congress Party. completion has now been extended twice, most recently in May of this year. Mirza Waheed was born and brought up in The visit included a tour of the Russell Srinagar. He moved to Delhi when he was 18 Square campus and a lunch with SOAS A major sticking point has been the fate to study English literature at the University academics and officials, including of 19,000 Maoist combatants of the civil of Delhi and worked as journalist and editor SOAS Director Professor Paul Webley, war. The Unified Communist Party in the city for four years. He went to London Dr Lawrence Saez, Senior Lecturer in of Nepal (Maoist), who control 38% of in 2001 to join the BBC’s Urdu Service, Comparative and International Politics and the seats in the Constituent Assembly, where he now works as an editor. Waheed Chair of the Centre of South Asian Studies has been accused by other political has been writing since he was ten and “The and Dr Mara Malagodi, Postdoctoral parties of maintaining the combatants Collaborator” is his first novel. He has started Associate in the South Asia Department, as a private army. work on a second novel, a young girl’s love story spanning Kashmir, Delhi and Pakistan. The Congress Party, which is Nepal’s main opposition party, has long expressed doubts about the Maoists’ willingness to resolve the impasse.

“The Maoist militias that fit the standards (From left: Lawrence Saez, Bigyan Parsai, Paul Webley , Arjun Narsingha KC, Mara Malagodi, Kul Acharya, Prashant Kunwar of the national From left: Kamila Shamsie, Rachel Dwyer and Mirza Waheed army could be integrated,” Teaching Fellow in the School of Law and Mr Narasingha said, adding that the Kamila Shamsie is the author of 5 novels, Treasurer of the Britain-Nepal Academic Maoists must prove they are committed to including ‘Burnt Shadows’ which was Council. democracy and the peace process and not shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, just in consolidating their power. and is translated into 23 languages. She “The School of Oriental and African Studies grew up in Karachi, and now lives in London. is a well-known university in Nepal ,” Mr Following his visit to SOAS, Mr Narasingha Narasingha said during his visit, adding and his delegation travelled to The event was very well attended, drawing at that there was a great deal of scope for Westminster, where he met with Richard least 60 people. British higher-education institutions such Ottoway, MP, Chairman of the House of as SOAS to strengthen ties with universities Commons Select Committee on Foreign Jane Savory (SOAS) in Nepal. 2011 is Nepal Tourism Year, Affairs. though building tourism in the country is a major challenge given the political stability Bill Friar (SOAS Press Officer) it currently faces. Nepal was ruled by a

27 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON EVENT REPORTS

Film Screening of Frozen Film Screening of Life Goes On 11 March 2011 11 March 2011

The screening of the filmFrozen (2007, The Centre was delighted to host another two dir. Shivajee Chandrabhshan) was held on film events in Term 2, celebrating the work of 8 March 2011 as part of the SOAS Centre two women Indian film makers, building on of South Asian Studies seminar series. our close academic and personal links. The event was co-organised with Satsang Productions, a London-based independent The first event, ‘Life goes on’, a film by production company incorporating visual, Sangeeta Datta, was screened at SOAS, audio and web-based media, who organises March 11, the day of the UK release of the Himalaya Film and Cultural Festival. the film. Dr Sangeeta Datta has a long association with SOAS, and we were delighted to host a panel with Dr Datta, Prof Rene Weis (Dept of English, UCL/ Shakespearean studies scholar,) who also plays King Lear in the play within the film, Tehmima Kazi (British Muslims for Secular Democracy) and Dr. Mukulika Banerjee (Dept of Anthropology, LSE) who has a major role in the film.

The film stars Sharmila Tagore, a recent visi- tor to CSAS, her daughter Soha Ali Khan, as well as the leading figure of Indian theatre, Girish Karnad, who was closely associated most important were the following three with SOAS during his tenure as the Head of factors she said. the Nehru Centre in London. “One was Islamophobia, even in a city like London after 9/11 and definitely 7/7. Secondly, I was toying with the idea of looking at King Lear with a more contemporary way, The screening was preceded by a brief in a British Asian context. introduction to the political situation in the Indian region of Ladakh by Dr David Taylor Thirdly, a far more personal reason, as a (SOAS). Shot in the icy Winter of Ladakh, Diaspora we live thousands of miles away in India’s far north, Frozen is the story of a from our immediate families. There was a small family left without a mother. In debt time when my mother was not keeping too and with few sources of income, Karma has well. So there was this anxiety of parental difficulty supporting his two children Lasya loss. These factors made me write very and Chomo. Their lives become even more urgently,” said Dutta. difficult when the army sets up camp a stone’s throw from their house. Frozen is shot Reviews of the film included one by Philip entirely in black and white, emphasizing the French (Observer), who said ‘A modern- cruel beauty of the landscape, where people Rachel and Sangeeta day London setting and a happy ending are living at an altitude of almost 5000m lend a certain charm to Sangeeta Datta’s above sea level. This family live at the edge of adaptation of King Lear’, while Derek India both geographically and culturally, and Dr Rachel Dwyer started the session by Malcolm (Evening Standard) wrote, ‘Sangeeta the film gives a thoughtful insight into their asking Dr Sangeeta Dutta, the director Datta’s debut feature is one of the best non- relationship with their own land, and how the film came to be. Dutta had various Bollywood Indian films of its year.’ the country to which it belongs. reasons which led to making this film, but Rachel Dwyer (SOAS) Mara Malagodi (SOAS)

28 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Nargiss Dutt Lecture by Anusha Rizvi 22 March 2011

The Centre has been closely involved with (who visited SOAS to find a language coach Tongues on Fire, the Asian Film Festival in for his Oscar-nominated film ‘Lagaan’), and 13th Jaina Studies Workshop: London, since its first festival 13 years ago. the less than ideal working conditions she We were honoured to host the First Nargis had to face to make the film. This was Jaina Narratives Dutt Annual Lecture, given by Anusha Rizvi, followed by a panel discussion “Are 18 March 2011 the director of ‘Peepli Live’ to celebrate Independent Films the Future of Cinema?” the 100th Anniversary of International with Ms Rizvi, Sandy Lieberson, former Women’s Day. Anusha Rizvi, an alumna of President Worldwide Production at 20th St Stephen’s College, Delhi (as are many Century Fox, and Hamish Moseley, the Vice The workshop on Jaina Narratives in March of our SOAS students), is a journalist, who President of Theatrical Sales, Momentum 2011 attracted a large audience of scholars realised her dream of making a film which Pictures, Robert Walak, SVP Acquisitions at and the general public eager to listen to the raises issues of poverty in rural India in a Alliance Films, both of whom were involved in Annual Lecture, delivered by Professor Robert satire on the ethical issues of the media the recent Oscar-winning ‘The king’s speech’, Zydenbos of the University of Munich who turning the issue of farmer suicides into and Sanjay Suri, who produced and acted in spoke about the writings of the Kannada poet entertainment. In a talk entitled the ‘My brother Nikhil’, the first Indian film with Ratnākaravarni who presented a picture of ‘Business of Making Films’, Ms Rizvi gave an openly gay hero. Jainism that hardly fits the austere stereotype an amusing and insightful account of her of this religious tradition. His argued that the efforts to secure the support of Aamir Khan Rachel Dwyer (SOAS) literary masterpiece, the Bharatēśavaibhava, is an illustration of what freedoms poets have allowed themselves with traditional narrative materials, and the controversy around this work shows which limits the religious public would like to impose on their poets.

Fifteen conference papers by distinguished speakers from Belgium, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan and the USA were delivered during the workshop. The workshop was funded through Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Fellowship AH/I002405/1 and a grant of the V&A Jain Art Fund.

For a detailed conference report see the forthcoming CoJS Newsletter Vol. 7: www.soas.ac.uk/jainastudies/

During the opening ceremony, the print edition of the International Journal of Jaina Studies Vol. 4-6, ed. P. Flügel (Mumbai: Hindi Granth Karyalay, 2011) was launched.

13th Jaina Studies Workshop Attenders: Jaina Narratives

29 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON EVENT REPORTS

The 4th London Himalayan The Radio in Nepal: Film Festival Contemporary Debates 2 April 2011 18 April 2011

The film festival organised in SOAS received This seminar was organised by the Centre Sawal’ discussion programme (2007-2009) praise from more than 70 viewers who came and the Britain-Nepal Academic Council. It and for Kantipur, Nepal’s leading newspaper to enjoy and learn about the Himalayan way was one of a series of events supported by (1996-2007). Pratyoush Onta is a historian of life. a three-year grant from the International based at Martin Chautari in Kathmandu. He Partnerships Scheme of the British Academy, has co-edited several books related to the The fourth London Himalayan Film Festival to support a partnership between SOAS in history of radio in Nepal. He is also the editor organised by London Chhalphal and the London and Martin Chautari in Kathmandu. of the journals Studies in Nepali History and Centre of South Asian Studies took place at The presenters were Devraj Humagain (‘The Society (est. 1996) and Media Adhyayan (est. SOAS on Saturday, 2nd of April, 2011. Policy Environment for Independent Radio 2006). Bhagirath Yogi has worked in the in Nepal, 1991-2011’), Pratyoush Onta, print, radio and online media in Nepal for 17 The Nepal facing discussion forum featured (‘Independent Radio and the Public Sphere years, most recently with the BBC Service in five highly acclaimed films that included in Nepal’), Rama Parajuli, (‘Doing Print and Kathmandu and London, where he has been ‘Puneko Pant’ (Pune’s Trousers) directed by Radio Journalism in Nepal: A Practitioner’s based for the last five years. He has also Mohan Mainali, ‘Fairytale of Kathmandu’ View’) and Bhagirath Yogi, (‘BBC Nepali Sewa: worked as editor of www.nepalnews.com, directed by Neasa Ni Chianin, ‘Chaukath’ Touching the Lives of Millions’). The event the leading online Nepali news portal. He (Threshold) directed by Deepak Rauniyar was chaired by Michael Hutt. has published numerous articles on political and ‘Sacrifice of Serpents: The festival of economy, human rights and development Indrayani’ directed by Dr Dirk J. Nijland, Dr Devraj Humagain is a media researcher issues have been published in leading Bal Gopal Shrestha & Dr Bert van den Hoek at Martin Chautari in Kathmandu. He has magazines and newspapers in Nepal. and the Oscar nominated Himalaya (originally co-edited several books written in the Nepali Caravan) by Eric Valli. language including The Social History of This was a rare opportunity to learn about Radio Nepal (2004), Radio Journalism: News this topic from Nepal-based practitioners ‘London Chhalphal is really pleased with and Talk Shows on FM Radio (2005) and Ten and researchers. The richness of the our fourth film festival and we feel proud to Years of Independent Radio: Development, presentations and discussion made up for promote Nepal, Nepali identity, Nepali culture Debates and the Public Interest (2008). He the small size of the audience (20 people), and tradition as well as Nepali films and is currently writing a book on the history of and those who missed this event may still documentaries. We would like to thank SOAS broadcast policy in Nepal Rama Parajuli is listen to its proceedings on the podcast at who provided us with the venue and all the a journalist currently working for the BBC directors who generously donated us the film World Service’s Nepali Programme team http://soasradio.org/radio-nepal-and-bbc- and gave us the opportunity to show a bit in Kathmandu. She has previously worked south-asian-language-service of Nepal to the outside world,’ said Pratima for the BBC World Service Trust in Nepal as Joshi, coordinator of the Film Festival. a senior producer of its celebrated ‘Sajha Michael Hutt (SOAS)

‘The feedback we have received from this festival has been very positive and as we have received requests for more film screenings, we are hoping we will be able to make this a regular event,’ the organisers said.

30 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON BBC South Asian Language Enforced Disappearances and Constitution Drafting, State Service - what future? State Accountability in Nepal Restructuring And The Peace 3 May 2011 11 May 2011 Process In Nepal: What Next? 13 June 2011

On 3 May the Centre brought together the panelists William Crawley (co-author of This seminar was organised jointly by the This roundtable discussion was organised by Satellites over South Asia: broadcasting, Britain-Nepal Academic Council (BNAC) the Britain-Nepal Academic Council and the culture, and the public interest (2001), and Peace Brigades International (PBI) as UK Constitutional Law Group, for the Centre Alasdair Pinkerton (Royal Holloway, University part of the Seminar Series of the SOAS of South Asian Studies, SOAS. It was chaired of London), Priyath Liyanage, Head of Centre of South Asian Studies and included by Professor Michael Hutt. The purpose of Sinhala Service (BBC), Richard Ottaway, MP a screening of the short film ‘Shadows of the meeting was to exchange views on where (Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee) Hope: Missing Persons in Nepal’, made Nepal’s peace process stood in the wake and Chair, Dr Francesca Orsini (SOAS) to by the International Committee of the of the second extension of the term of the discuss how the resources of the BBC South Red Cross. It was intended that Mr Ram Constituent Assembly on 28 May. Asian Language service are under threat and Kumar Bhandari (Chairman of the National the challenges and possibilities faced. Network of Families of the Disappeared) The following speakers addressed issues would speak on 'Forced Disappearances including constitution-drafting, state and Impunity in Nepal' but he was unable restructuring, ethnic federalism, and the to attend in person because he was held integration of the Nepal Army and the up in Germany waiting for his UK visa. He Maoist PLA: Surya Subedi (Professor therefore recorded a brief talk on video of International Law at the University of and this was screened as a part of the Leeds), Mara Malagodi (Ph.D SOAS 2009 programme. The other speakers were on ‘Constitutional Nationalism and Legal Iona Liddell (Advocacy Director, PBI Nepal) Exclusion in Nepal (1990-2007)’, currently a and Mara Malagodi (SOAS). Michael Hutt Teaching Fellow in the Departments of Law chaired the discussion. After the event a and South Asia), David Gellner (Professor number of participants and speakers then of Social Anthropology, All Souls College From left: William Crawley, Paul Webley, went to the House of Commons for an event Oxford), Sara Shneiderman (Ph.D Cornell Mara Malagodi, Francesca Orsini, Alasdair Pinkerton hosted by the All Party Parliamentary Group Priyath Liyanage University 2009 for ‘Rituals of Ethnic- on Human Rights on 'The Constitution ity: Migration, Mixture and the Making of Conundrum: The Elusive Search for Justice Thangmi Identity Across Himalayan Borders’, The BBC South Asian Language service, in Nepal'. The roundtable was chaired broadcasting in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Nepali, currently a postdoctoral research fellow, by Virendra Sharma MP; Ram Kumar University of Cambridge), Sam Cowan Tamil and Sinhala, has played a unique role Bhandari's video presentation was followed as the trusted source of news for millions of (Colonel Commandant of the Royal Corps of by Liz Philippson's analysis of the political Signals, of the Brigade of Gurkhas and of the people in South Asia. The first place of call implications of Nepal's peace process in times and places of conflict, it has also Army Legal Corps, Quartermaster-General and Mara Malagodi's discussion of the to the British Armed Forces 1996-8, Chief offered a running commentary on everyday obstacles to transitional justice in Nepal. events from South Asia and the world, as well of Defence Logistics until retiring in 2002), as a vital link for the South Asian diaspora. Peter Leyland (Professor of Public Law, With the development of its website it has London Metropolitan University). also become an essential tool for students and teachers, both for language learning and Despite competition from a noisy welcome for properly understanding the social, political accorded to the Minister for Higher and cultural life of the region. Education, who was speaking at the Brunei gallery at the same time, the event drew an The event attracted dissapointly low numbers audience of over 50 people and was deemed due to its scheduling near to the Easter a considerable success. holidays. It is available as a podcast at: Michael Hutt (SOAS) http://soasradio.org/radio-nepal-and- bbc-south-asian-language-servicesouth- asian-language-service

31 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON RESEARCH STUDENTS SEPT 2010-AUG 2011

Sanaa ALIMIA Rupa CHAKRABORTY Leon GOLDMAN Afghans in Pakistan: Reworking Citizenship Sylheti: A comparison between Standard The Avestan hymn to Justice and Sources of Political Power, 1978-2009 Bangla and one of its major regional forms Supervisor: Professor Almut HINTZE Supervisor: Dr Matthew NELSON Supervisor: Dr William RADICE Timothy GREEN Val ANDERSON Mayurika CHAKRAVORTY The Challenge of ‘Anomie’: Issues of Identity The Eurasian ‘problem’ in nineteenth Enchantment and the politics of subversion: for Christian Converts from Islam in Pakistan century India a study of fantasy fiction in Bengali Supervisor: Dr Kate ZEBIRI Supervisor: Professor Peter ROBB Supervisor: Dr William RADICE and Dr Jan-Peter HARTUNG

Sampachentin APTCHOURAHMAN Biswajit CHANDA Syed Asif HAIDER Educational rights of the Turkish Family law reform in Bangladesh: the need Muslim modernities on the Hindi Screen minority in Greece for a culture-specific legal system Supervisor: Professor Rachel DWYER Supervisor: Professor Werner F MENSKI Supervisor: Professor Werner F MENSKI Eleanor HALSELL Anwesha ARYA Mona CHETTRI German Orientalism, Indian Occidentalism: Tradition and text: Śāstra, statute and Identity Politics in the Eastern Himalayas cinematic collaboration up to 1939 the living law of dowry as sadācāra Supervisor: Professor Michael HUTT Supervisor: Professor Rachel DWYER Supervisor: Professor Werner F MENSKI Debojyoti DAS Dhivya JANARTHANAN David AZZOPARDI Contested Development: Problems Anthropology of Space and Dominance Buddhism amongst Sri Lanka and Dilemmas in Sustainable Jhum in Southern India Diaspora Communities in the UK Redevelopment in Nagaland Supervisor: Professor David MOSSE Supervisor: Dr Kate CROSBY Supervisor: Professor David MOSSE Hannah Katie JENKIN Sandhya BALASUBRAHMANYAM Jean-Philippe DEQUEN Organizing Transnational Yoga: Rent Creation, Political Clientelism and Pluralism or plurality: An assessment of Institutionalization, Globalization the Indian Telecom Sector the legal strategies regarding Muslim and Complexity Supervisor: Professor Mushtaq KHAN succession law in contemporary India Supervisor: Dr Peter FLUGEL Supervisor: Professor Werner F MENSKI Nagasena BHIKKHU Akhil KATYAL The Significance of the Sima Pragya DHITAL Same-Sex Desire and Ideas of the (Monastic Boundary) in Burmese Paper Chains: An Investigation of Translingual Self in Modern India and Bangladeshi Buddhism Commerce in North Indian Print Media Supervisor: Dr Amina YAQIN Supervisor: Dr Kate CROSBY Supervisor: Dr Rochana BAJPAI Masum KHAN Nazmuzzaman BHUIAN Ahmet Riza EMIROGLU D. H. Lawrence and the post-Tagore Press freedom in Bangladesh The Exploration of the Idea of Emanation writers of Bengali literature Supervisor: Professor Werner F MENSKI through the Comparison between the Supervisor: Dr William RADICE Islamic and Indian Philosophies with Special Upal CHAKRABARTI Reference to Ibn Sīnā and Abhinavagupta Sonia KHAN Land and ‘improvement’ during early Supervisor: Dr Jan-Peter HARTUNG Caretaker government in Bangladesh: British rule: Cuttack Division, 1803-66 and Dr Whitney COX Salvation or a recipe for disaster? Supervisor: Professor Peter ROBB Supervisor: Professor Werner F MENSKI Meenu GAUR Kashmir on Screen: Region, Religion and Secularism in Hindi Cinema (Completed 2010) Supervisor: Professor Rachel DWYER

32 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Lidia Jolanta LEWANDOWSKA-NAYAR Shamraiz QAYYUM Soofia SIDDIQUE Place and role of Narottama Dasa Thakura Muslim skilled socio-legal Remembering the Revolt of 1857 in the development of Bengali Vaishnavism navigation in Britain Supervisor: Dr Francesca ORSINI (draft title) Supervisor: Professor Werner F MENSKI Supervisor: Dr William RADICE Priyadarshini SINGH Ayaz A QURESHI Title TBC David LUNN Pakistan’s response towards HIV/AIDS; Supervisor: Dr Matthew NELSON Looking for Common Ground: Literature Institutional complexity and the and Dr Rochana BAJPAI and Journalism in Hindi/Urdu, 1900-47 politics of policy Supervisor: Dr Francesca ORSINI Supervisor: Dr Caroline OSELLA Federica SONA In the shadow of uniformity: Zaad MAHMOOD Muhammad Mahbubur RAHMAN Muslim marriages in Europe Determinants of labour reform in India Sentencing policy and practice in Supervisor: Professor Werner F MENSKI Supervisor: Dr Lawrence SAEZ Bangladesh: A study on the sentencing decisions of the Supreme Court in Alice TILCHE Anushay MALIK murder cases Struggling with culture in an Adivasi Worker activism in Lahore, 1950s-1980s Supervisor: Professor Werner F MENSKI Museum of western India (draft title) Supervisor: Professor David MOSSE Supervisor: Professor Peter ROBB Rashi ROHATGI Abhimanyu Unnuth and the World of Krishna Prasad UPADHYAYA Rastin MEHRI Mauritian Hindi Poetry International Humanitarian Law and The Zoroastrians of British Columbia Supervisor: Dr Francesca ORSINI Vulnerability: the Tharu experience of Supervisor: Professor Almut HINTZE and Dr Kai EASTON Nepal’s internal conflict Supervisor: Professor Michael HUTT Farah MIHLAR Jaspreet SANGHERA Islamic Fundamentalism amongst Hindu, Urdu and Punjabi literature written Manpreet VIRDI the Muslims of Sri Lanka by women on Post – Partition Delhi, UP, Contesting and constructing legal Supervisor: Dr Jan-Peter HARTUNG Punjab and Lahore, 1949-1959 consciousness in multicultural contexts: Supervisor: Dr Francesca ORSINI immigrant sikh women in Canada Leena MITFORD Supervisor: Professor Werner F MENSKI 19th century Urdu literature Shamaila SARWAR Supervisor: Professor Christopher SHACKLE The life and works of the twentieth Vishal VORA century Pakistani Islamic mystic, British South Asian marital practice and Aparajita MUKHOPADHYAY Sufi Abu Anees Barkat Ali (d. 1997), the English civil law Railways, journeys and the idea of space and the origins and development of Supervisor: Dr Ian EDGE in late ninteenth-century North India the khānaqah of Dār Ul Ehsān (draft title) Supervisor: Dr Jan-Peter HARTUNG Sahil WARSI Supervisor: Professor Peter ROBB Cultivating Hambastagi and Hamdardi: Sunari SENARATNE Personhood and Relatedness among Mridhula PILLAY Reconfiguring Aspiration: Post Tsunami Afghans in India Managing law and religion: Reconstruction in Coastal Sri Lanka Supervisor: Dr Magnus MARSDEN A comparative study of India and Malaysia Supervisor: Professor David MOSSE Supervisor: Professor Werner F MENSKI Arash ZEINI Sohini SENGUPTA The Pahlavi version of the Yasna Haptanghaiti Being hungry and Becoming free: Supervisor: Professor Almut HINTZE Marginality, Identity and Livelihoods in Rural Western Orissa Supervisor: Professor David MOSSE

33 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON CHARLES WALLACE VISITING FELLOWSHIPS AT SOAS

Report of Dr P Radhika Charles Wallace Indian Fellowship 2010-2011

fter many failed attempts at the Manchester Metropolitan University to forget her taking time off to catch a play or at writing a comprehensive (see link: www.rihsc.mmu.ac.uk/event_ exhibition and cook all those lovely meals!) report of my three-month news/news.php?id=102) and at SOAS (see The South Asia department seminars were London stint made link: www.soas.ac.uk/southasianstudies/ an important ground for meeting other faculty possible by the SOAS events/seminars/24mar2011-how-do- and students of the department, as well as CharlesA Wallace fellowship, I now content we-understand-the-mad-womans-speech- for valuable discussions on ongoing research. myself with partly capturing the flavour of my womens-novels-50s-60s-and-their- My presentation, “Inaugurating a Feminine tenure. Let me cinematic-re-cr.html). At both places the Public” on a much-neglected thesis chapter state at the discussions were stimulating. I would like to on Kannada women’s novels of the 1950s outset that specially thank professors Erica Burman and provided me enough inspiration to rework the academic Ian Parker at the Manchester Metropolitan the chapter and return to my thesis most value of University and professors Francesca Orsini productively. As a consequence, my book- the Wallace and Nadje-Al-Ali at SOAS who organized project took shape and I plan to submit a fellowship my seminars at the respective universities. book-proposal for publication. Prof. Lawrence cannot A direct result of the research work in Saez’s caution of not being holed up in be over- London is a course I intend to teach on archive but to make use of the opportunity of emphasised. ‘Woman, Mental Illness, Cultural-Clinical being in London to present my work to newer During histories at the Centre for the Study of audiences struck a chord and motivated me times when P.Radhika at her seminar at the Culture and Society (www.cscsarchive. to meet up other important researchers and Manchester Metropolitan University grants are org/cscs/announcements_folder/ people interested in my field. increasingly announcements.2009-11-16.7588494552/ being driven by areas that are ‘in’ in the announcement.2011-05-10.4668466191). There are many who need to be thanked academic-market, the Wallace Trust’s for those small things that go a long way! recognition of the importance of broader Jane Savory and Rahima Begum at SOAS fundamental research in the field of the always welcomed me with a smile and had social and human sciences speaks for a solution to all the problems a visitor to a its openness and value. And I am indeed new city would have; they shared a ‘secret privileged to have been selected as the India London’ unavailable to tourists. Solomon Fellow for the year 2011. Jayasingh and Gopinathan Padmanabhan of the British Council extended full help in During the three months I explored organizing my travel. Not least, I would like to conceptualizations of ‘woman’ and specially thank Richard Alford at the Charles ‘unreason’ in contexts like India through Wallace Trust who was supportive both in investigating the production of the ‘mad terms of ensuring that I was comfortable and woman’ in the clinic and in popular culture. offering timely suggestions on my research. Having partially completed my work relating From left: P Radhika with Professor Erica Burman, His sense of humour and being ever to the cultural site, i.e. Kannada literature Manchester Metropolitan University and Pauline Whelan, ready to lend an ear made him immensely and Kannada cinema, I primarily needed to Education Researcher Leeds Metropolitan University at the Pankhurst Centre, Manchester. approachable. The small and transient work on the site of the ‘lunatic asylum’ later community of friends who helped keep renamed ‘mental hospital’, specifically that The particular triad of institutions - Charles body and soul together cannot be forgotten of the National Institute of Mental Health and Wallace Trust, SOAS and the British Council - Nadhra for lip-smacking biriyanis, Preetha Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore that - that come together in instituting the for lively discussions on regional Indian goes back to the mid-nineteenth century. fellowship is ideal both for the legitimacy of writing, Ursula for conversations over British The particular cluster of the SOAS, British these institutions within the academia and Library tea and home-dinners, Flavia for the and Wellcome libraries was most useful and for assisting the Fellow at every stage during memorable ice-skating and RAH musical a pleasure to work in. The primary material - the fellowship period. SOAS houses and evening experiences, Pauline and Hannah for asylum reports and private papers of colonial invites some of the best known academics walking me through Manchester, Khatidja for medical doctors - available at the British researching on Asia. I was fortunate to be introducing me to the English national dish- Library and the excellent History of Medicine part of a discussion among Iraqi feminist the chicken tikka, Deborah for hosting me collection at the Wellcome - scholarship on academics and Prof. Nadje-Al-Ali on the en-route to the Lake District and, of course, colonial medical history and nineteenth and questions and possibilities of introducing a my home-stay hostess Karina for a warm twentieth century medical manuals and women’s studies course in Erbil, Iraq. My hearth made sweeter by English treacle textbooks - were invaluable in concretising host professor Francesca Orsini not only pudding! the direction of my research. guided me in terms of my research and future research plans but also ensured that I P Radhika I presented my preliminary research findings was stitched into the community at SOAS (not

34 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Report of Dr Nadhra Shahbaz Naeem Khan Charles Wallace Pakistan Fellowship 2010-2011

completed my PhD in 2010 Required to give one seminar during my from the University of the Fellowship, I ended up with four, all to a Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan, good number of audiences. My first talk was specializing in Sikh-period at SOAS under the auspices of the South Art and Architecture. During and Southeast Asian Art & Archaeology the courseI of my research I realized that a Research Seminar series, and the title was lot of information and material relevant to my “Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s Samadhi: the last topic was in various collections in London but great example of indigenous architectural not having the means to access it, I had to do style in the Punjab”. The second was in the without it. Luckily I came across the Charles series of the CSAS Seminar Programme, Wallace Trust Fellowship and applied and to held at the Hochhauser Auditorium, Sackler my great surprise – won it. I reached London Centre, Victoria and Albert Museum. The in the first week of January this year for three topic of my discussion here was “Unique months and had the Department of South Specimens of Sikh Period Wall Paintings in Asia at SOAS as my host institution - a dream Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s Samadhi”. The third I never thought would come true. My first was at the DeMontfort University, Leicester day at started with a warm welcome by the where I presented “Glimpses of Sikh Heritage supporting trio headed by Jane and assisted and Culture: Maharaja Ranjit Singh and his by Rahima and Jahan who were always there Lahore Darbar”. The fourth was organized by when needed whether it was planning a the Royal Asiatic Society and the title of my Farewell lunch in the Brunswick Centre (from left) Jane Savory, journey or to figure out a problem with the talk was “Wall Paintings in a Special Room Nadhra, P Radhika and Rahima Begum computer. of the Sikh Prince Kharak Singh’s Haveli”. All four sessions were followed by very The first couple of weeks just flew by trying interesting Q&A sessions. in my “to do” list that still await a tick mark. to memorize tube stations and trying out What I remember about these three months different options for a faster track which is running from one place and one thing to included getting off at the wrong stations and another – like a kid in the candy shop, trying getting on the trains headed in an opposite to put everything in my bag to take home and direction to my destination. London during enjoy but the candies were too many and my my stay was wonderful in every respect and bag of three months too small! posed just one problem that was very difficult to deal with - accommodation. If there is one I am back in Lahore with a new vigor, more thing that needs to be revised about this confidence and a long list of new friends Fellowship, it should be providing the Fellows and contacts with Radhika at the top, the with a place to live so their limited time is not Fellow from India with whom I shared my wasted on running around hunting for it. office at SOAS and an occasional dish of home-made spicy food that we both craved Guidance and suggestions by Lawrence Susan Stronge and Nadhra and missed. Charles Wallace Fellowship gave Saez, the Chairperson, Francesca Orsini, me an excellent opportunity to reach out to Head of the Department of South Asia and My time in London breezed away and left an audience receptive to my work, to find David Taylor, Senior Teaching Fellow at the me craving for more. My four talks, the time excellent research material for future projects Department of Politics and International spent at SOAS library and attending Persian and a chance to get to know SOAS and Studies helped me make the most of my classes kindly allowed by Narguess Farzad, London – the hubs of culture and learning. stay. Susan Stronge, Senior Curator of the V&A and British libraries and Reading Rooms, South Asian Gallery at the Victoria and Albert a short visit to Birmingham for a talk show Nadhra Shahbaz Naeem Khan Museum, Alison Ohta, Director of the Royal on Sikh TV, a day at Thetford with Peter Bains Asiatic Society, Elizabeth Moore, Reader in visiting Maharaja Daleep Singh’s property the Art and Archaeology of South East Asia at and graveyard and a day with Bob Scoales SOAS, Dr. Gurharpal Singh, Professor of Inter- looking at his collection of rare pictures of Religious Relations at Birmingham University Lahore was all I could barely manage, with and Pippa Verdi, Senior Lecturer in Modern no time left for some very important items South Asian History at the DeMontfort University, Leicester were equally supportive and encouraging.

35 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON RESEARCH & ENTERPRISE

Rural change and anthropological knowledge External Grant Applications in post-colonial India: A comparative ‘restudy’ 01.08.2010 - 31.07.2011 of F.G. Bailey, Adrian C. Mayer and David Pocock Kate Crosby Department of the Study of Religions Traditional Theravada A SOAS-led research project on Indian village The villages selected for this restudy display Funding body: Dhammakaya Foundation life has been awarded a £774,000 grant by the legacies of post-colonial development Date Submitted: 9 September 2010 the Economic and Social Research Council. and political policies, consequences of Fundable Amount: £35,814 economic and land reform or consolidation Dr Edward Simpson, a senior lecturer in and effects of technological and media Mara Malagodi social anthropology at SOAS, will be the expansion. They are also sites in which novel School of Law principal investigator for the project, which sociological processes are being played out Conference: The Creation of Public Mean- will begin on 1 September and run for 36 today. ing during Nepal’s Democratic Transition. months. His co-investigator will be Professor Funding body: British Academy Patricia Jeffery, a sociology professor at the In each location, there has been a growth Fundable Amount: £600 University of Edinburgh. of grassroots Hindu politics. In Orissa, land rights and tribal identities have become Richard Widdess The researchers will 'restudy' three villages in burning issues, as people have been Department of Music the Indian states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh brought into conflict with transnational Songs of Praise in the Kathmandu Valley: and Orissa that were the subject of now- corporations and extractive industries. Rapid the Dapah tradition of Bhaktapur classic 'village ethnographies' in the 1950s. industrialisation in Madhya Pradesh has Funding Body: Spalding Trust They aim to survey living conditions in the brought villagers into wage relations with Fundable Amount: £1,893 villages as well as villagers' attitudes towards India's industrial houses. In Gujarat, the social change, and then compare their village has become part of the transnational results with data from the 1950s to see how networks and nostalgic and nationalist the post-colonial Indian village has changed politics of migrants in East Africa and UK. Life socially, economically and politically. in these villages is clearly not the same as it Research and was in the 1950s. Despite a number of excellent individual Enterprise Directorate studies, surprisingly little is known about the The original village studies were undertaken change in India's half-a-million villages since independently by F.G. Bailey, Adrian C. Mayer Research and Enterprise activities are independence even though, perhaps for the and David F. Pocock (deceased) in the first central to SOAS’ mission. Not only do first time in history, solid data is available. half of the 1950s. The three went on to have they enhance teaching and learning, they distinguished careers as exponents of the are also a crucial part of the services Questions the researchers hope to answer post-colonial sociology of India. In planning that we provide to the world around us. include: What are the new sociological the new study, the researchers contacted Research establishes new knowledge realities of life in an Indian village? What Bailey and Mayer, now in their late 80s, who which extends the frontiers of human has happened to caste, patron-client and agreed to share their original fieldnotes, understanding and informs and sharpens religious systems, segregated gender roles, discuss their lives and works and to act as scholarly debate. When this knowledge is and popular religion? What will new fieldwork honorary consultants to the project. transferred externally it shapes the policy in places studied more than half a century and practice of governments, businesses, ago tell us about the changing role and form Such an approach is unusual, and is itself NGOs and informs the wider community. of the village? What new ways of looking at something of an experiment within the larger India sociologically might be suggested by project. As far as we know, no comparative The Research and Enterprise Directorate research conducted in the footsteps of the restudy has been undertaken in anthropology at SOAS works across the School to se- pioneers of the modern discipline? What of the work of other anthropologists, and cure external funding and income, to sup- methodological innovation will emerge from therefore the project will hopefully open up port research excellence and to facilitate the comparative use of anthropological space for new approaches and ideas in the knowledge transfer. material as historical data? anthropology of South Asia.

www.soas.ac.uk/reo In 1950, the children of newly-independent Further details of the project can be obtained India were born into a world where there was from Dr Edward Simpson (Email: es7@soas. no refrigeration, television or internet; there ac.uk). was no electricity for most. They could expect to live for an average of forty years. Metalled Three post-doctoral fellows will join SOAS in roads, combustion engines and plastics were October of 2011 to work on the project. They rare. India had yet to go to war with Pakistan, are: and the IR8 rice seed of the so-called Green Revolution was over a decade away.

36 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Tina Otten Tommaso Sbriccoli Alice Tilche

Dr Tina Otten will conduct research in Orissa Dr Tommaso Sbriccoli will conduct research Alice Tilche will conduct research in Gujarat on the work of F.G. Bailey (lecturer at SOAS in Madhya Pradesh on the work of Adrian on work of David Pocock. She is Italian with a in the 1950s and now a resident of Del Mar, Mayer (Emeritus Professor of SOAS). Tomma- university education in the U.K. She is pres- California). Until recently she was Lecturer in so is a political and legal anthropologist. He ently completing a PhD in Social Anthropol- the Department of Social Anthropology at the graduated at the University of Siena where ogy from the School of Oriental and African Ruhr-University in Bochum, Faculty of Social he obtained as well a Ph.D. in anthropology Studies. She has a BA in Social Anthropology Science, Department of Social Psychology in 2009. His broadest research interest has also from SOAS, and an MSc in Material and Social Anthropology. She has taught been that of pastoral communities. Anthropology and Museum Studies from courses on medical anthropology, gender Oxford University. relations, fieldwork techniques, introductory In the first years of his training he carried courses into social anthropology and courses out research and fieldwork in Israel among Her PhD is an ethnographic study of the on migration and social change. Bedouins of the Negev, and in Siena District Adivasi (Tribal) struggle for identity and among pastoralists of Sardinian origins. recognition in contemporary India. Through Before joining SOAS, her most recent Interested principally in the working and long-term fieldwork in Gujarat and western research project related to ideas, agency logics of institutional and social networks, India the project asks how groups, whose and discourse about identity and wellbeing. for his MA and PhD dissertation he moved identity is born out of a history of exclusion Between 1999 and 2006 she was a research his field of inquiry to India. He has thus and dispossession, come to make member of the German Research Community been doing field research in Northern India themselves anew, as citizens with rights and in the interdisciplinary Orissa Research since 2003, working on rural and pastoral dignity. Specifically, the research examines Program: “Contested centres: construction communities in Rajasthan, specifically among the development of an Adivasi Museum in and change of socio-cultural identities in the Raika herders. Here he has explored how a village of Eastern Gujarat, and considers Indian region of Orissa”. Since 1996 she traditional institutions, ideas about justice, its role in conceiving and transforming has regularly visited India and continues to competing normative systems and concep- historically rooted forms of marginalization. be fascinated by Orissa. In 1996/1997 she tions about person interact in shaping social In addition to a close scrutiny of the Museum, studied Ayurvedic medicine in Gujarat and and political action. In turn, the outcomes her work is located within wider processes Kerala. From 1999 until 2003 she carried of such research have led him to focus his of refiguring the ‘Tribal’ in India, including out research for her doctoral thesis. She attention on the ways in which kinship, processes of integration within a homog- obtained a Ph.D at the Free University Berlin, marriage patterns, and individual and group enous ‘Hindu Nation’, and the integration of Germany. Her thesis concerns concepts of strategies of social mobility are connected Adivasis within wider ethical communities illness among Rona of highland Orissa and to wider projects of identity crafting and and networks of indigenous people. discusses the impact of Hindu and Adivasi State policies. He has analysed such issues cultural values which structure Indian societ- carrying out ethnography both at village and Alice has been involved in the development ies and their respective health care systems. regional level. The results of his work have of a series of exhibitions, cultural and This was followed by extended field trips been published in various Italian journals and community programs in India and the UK, between 2003 and 2006, during which she collective books. with the National Museum of Man (Bhopal), investigated the new emerging performance and the Horniman Museum (London). Her of a three-month fertility ritual and oral epic In 2008-2009 he has carried out a fieldwork research combines interests in indigeneity, called Bali Jatra which is mainly carried out research in Italy on refugees and the Italian the politics of identity, social change and by women. Recent fieldwork in 2010 focused process of claiming asylum, developing rural identities, with issues of representation, on the dushera rituals in Nandapur, Jeypur together with Stefano Jacoviello, a semioti- material and visual cultures. and Koraput, and its relation to historical cian, an interdisciplinary methodological royal and recent political structure. framework of discourse analysis. The results Email: [email protected] of this collaboration have been published Tina’s theoretical interest rests on the ways with Routledge in a collective book edited by in which indigenous people conceptualise Livia Holden, “Cultural Expertise and Litiga- social identity, experience of change and tion. Patterns, Conflicts, Narratives”, and the different ways in which new ideas are are being developed in a further work within absorbed and influence ritual and political the EU project “Playing Identities. Migration, structure, medicine, and gender- and kinship Creolisation, Creation”, of which he currently relations. is Scientific Coordinator.

Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]

37 SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON CENRE FOR THE Introducing a new MA in Postcolonial Studies at SOAS - STUDY OF PAKISTAN starting September 2011 The unique SOAS MA Postcolonial www.soas.ac.uk/csp Studies Programme offers a focus on the historical relationships of power, domination and practices of imperialism and colonialism in the modern period A note from the Chair, Dr Amina Yaqin (late nineteenth-century to the present) through the study of literature and Pakistan has been in the news continuously over the past few years, what with its nucle- culture. Students will be introduced ar testing, its well documented involvement in the international ‘war on terror’, its politi- to a variety of postcolonial theoretical cal see-sawing between military dictatorships and democratic dynasties, the assassina- and methodological approaches tion of Prime Ministers, most recently Benazir Bhutto, and the continuing power struggle to literature, film and media with between the military, political parties and extremists. But while media attention projects reference to Africa, Asia, the Caribbean the image of a country always on the brink of collapse, there are other indicators and the Near and Middle East. Both that point to Pakistan as a vibrant, dynamic country. Its rate of economic growth has theoretical and cultural contexts will been remarkable, since the 1990s it has acquired a very lively media landscape— address representations of colonialism overwhelmingly in Urdu—and writing in English by Pakistani writers has recently captured and decolonisation, neo-colonialism, the attention of international publishers and readers. The Pakistani diaspora continues nationalism in postcolonial societies to grow abroad and here in the UK it has had a historic presence in both the North and and diasporic experiences, allowing us the South of the country. As a diasporic community under constant scrutiny since 9/11 to explore the heterogeneous meanings, and the 07/07 attacks it is often looked at through the lens of honour based crimes, intersections and strategies of analysis forced marriages and criminality amongst male youth. Yet, it is a highly enterepreunerial that have emerged with reference to community with very successful people in business, science, culture and the arts who postcolonial studies. have made significant contributions to British society. The Programme will consist of courses SOAS has had a historic tradition of linguistic and literary scholarship and connec- valued at 3 units and a dissertation of tions with Pakistan, with Ralph Russell, David Matthews and Christopher Shackle in 10,000 words. particular working and guiding research on Urdu, Persian, Punjabi, and Siraiki language and literature. But in more recent years a host of scholars in Politics, Law, Economics, MA Postcolonial Studies along with MA Religion, Anthropology, as well as Languages and Cultures, have made SOAS home to Cultural Studies and MA Comparative probably the largest concentration of experts on Pakistan in the world, with excellent Literature will be administered and connections with scholars and institutions in Pakistan. taught through the SOAS Centre for Cultural, Literary and Postcolonial International interest in Pakistan is perhaps at an all-time high, and yet it focuses Studies (CCLPS). The CCLPS mission is almost exclusively on politics, religion, and terrorism. In this international and national to foster innovative research in African, climate, we feel that the new Centre for the Study of Pakistan at SOAS is a much needed Asian and Near and Middle Eastern space; a clearing house of ideas for academic discussion that can play a crucial role cultures and literatures in the disciplines in shaping the future of how we study and understand Pakistan in the contemporary of Comparative Literature, Cultural world. The Centre will look toward informing and influencing public opinion on the greater Studies and Postcolonial Studies, with complexity and richness of culture, society, and politics in Pakistan and also toward the aim of pioneering new research and contributing to public policy. As Centre Chair, I look forward to establishing research pedagogy in these disciplines. It aims relationships within the academic sector as well as developing links with outside to promote comparative critical thought organizations to increase the impact of our findings. and postgraduate research in critical methods derived from the study of non- The Centre for the Study of Pakistan’s purposes are to: European literatures and aesthetic and cultural practices, in addition to written • promote research and teaching in the study of Pakistan, both contemporary and literatures in European languages. historical, across a range of disciplines at SOAS • bring together and publicise the range of work on Pakistan underway at SOAS, to Endorsement by Professor Janet build synergies between staff working on Pakistan and to encourage and facilitate Wilson of Northampton University: “As fund raising for such initiatives a programme whose different courses • work towards developing an interdisciplinary MA programme in the Study of and options interconnect diverse regions Contemporary Pakistan the school and disciplines, the MA draws on and • foster and facilitate links between SOAS and other individuals and institutions in showcases the remarkable range the UK and abroad who are engaged in academic study of Pakistan across various of teaching and research expertise disciplines available within SOAS. “ • develop outreach programmes to disseminate knowledge of Pakistan to a wider public through a variety of events including workshops, conferences, exhibitions, For enquiries about the Programme film and performance arts please contact the Programme • promote understanding of Pakistan in all its aspects to involve Pakistan Convenor: Dr Amina Yaqin, communities and diasporic groups and to organise joint events, as and when [email protected] appropriate.

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