SOUTH ASIA PROGRAM 2018 BULLETIN Ali Kazim (Pakistan), Lover’s Temple Ruins (2018). Site-specific installation in Lawrence Gardens, Lahore TABLE OF CONTENTS FEATURES 2 TRANSITIONS 28 Are You Even Indian? ANNOUNCEMENTS 29 Island Country, Global Issues The Sri Lankan Vernacular The First Lahore Biennale Tilism Rohingya Refugee camps Chai and Chat 170 Uris Hall NEWS 10 50 Years of IARD Cornell University President Pollack visits India Ithaca, New York 14853-7601 ACHIEVEMENTS 32 Embodied Belongings Phone: 607-255-8923 Faculty Publications Sri Lanka Graduate Conference Fax: 607-254-5000 TCI scholars Urban South Asia Writ Small [email protected] FLAS fellows South Asian Studies Fellowships Recently Graduated Students Iftikhar Dadi, Director EVENTS 17 Visiting Scholars Phone: 607-255-8909 Writing Myself into the Diaspora [email protected] Arts Recaps SAP Seminars & Events Daniel Bass, Manager Phone: 607-255-8923 OUTREACH 22 [email protected] Going Global Global Impacts of Climate Change sap.einaudi.cornell.edu UPCOMING EVENTS 26 Tagore Lecture South Asian Studies Fellows Ali Kazim (detail) From the Director Iftikhar Dadi uring the 2017-2018 generously supported by the United I express deep appreciation to academic year, the South States Department of Education under Professor Anne Blackburn for her strong Asia Program (SAP) the Title VI program. The Cornell and leadership, vision, and commitment mounted a full program Syracuse consortium constitutes one of to SAP during her tenure as director of talks and lectures, only eight National Resource Centers during the past five years. The Program hosted international for the study of South Asia. I am very has developed many new initiatives Dscholars and artists, and supported pleased to note that our application under her able guidance, including the faculty and student research. We also for the next four-year cycle, which Tamil Studies Initiative, the South Asia undertook extensive outreach efforts to begins in Fall 2018, was recently Fellowship program that brings scholars, K-12, community college and teacher approved. This marks another milestone artists, and writers from South Asia to education communities in central New in our record of continuous success Cornell (see p. 16), and faculty research York state. Furthermore, SAP has since 1985 as recipients of the Title VI grants that have enabled the research continued to provide FLAS fellowships award, and is a result of the precise and travel of many faculty members. to students to learn South Asian and detailed application that outgoing Anne has also worked to protect and languages that are critical for a deep SAP director Anne Blackburn and strengthen language offerings, advocate understanding of the region. program manager Daniel Bass put for the importance of retaining and This Bulletin offers a snapshot together in collaboration with our developing faculty expertise on South of the breadth and dynamism of our consortium partners at the South Asia Asia at Cornell, and diversify SAP’s engagements. The acclaimed novelist Center at Syracuse University, Director engagement across Cornell’s various Shyam Selvadurai delivered the Carol Babiracki and Associate Director colleges and programs. annual Tagore Lecture in Modern Emera Bridger Wilson. On a personal note, I have Indian Literature (see p. 17), and There is no doubt, however, that returned to teaching and to my new Cornell Library mounted an ambitious the Program’s future consolidation responsibilities as the incoming director exhibition of the primary archives of and growth depends on fostering new of the South Asia Program after a Spring Bombay poets from its holdings (see p. resources and opportunities, beyond the 2018 sabbatical, during which I was 10). The Sri Lanka conference supported provisions of the Title VI program and involved with the inaugural Lahore graduate research across North America in addition to the support by the Mario Biennale, a large-scale event planned (see p. 13), and the Urban South Asia Einaudi Center for International Studies every two years. During its two-week conference included participation by and Cornell University, more broadly. run in March, the Biennale exhibited numerous international experts (see p. 14). Given the national political headwinds contemporary art by over fifty artists. I A testimony to the range and depth in recent years, U.S. government support organized a program of daily talks by of Cornell’s South Asia Program was for international programs cannot international scholars and experts, many offered by the team of external peer be assumed to be available eternally. with Cornell affiliations. And with my reviewers, who after their visit in 2017, SAP has recently convened an external artistic collaborator, Elizabeth Dadi, we noted that they “had an excellent Advisory Council whose members are created a site-specific neon installation opportunity to see why Cornell is among accomplished leaders and public figures, that responded to historical references the world’s leading universities for and from whose advice the Program and sensory environment of the research and programs on South Asia.” hopes to draw upon in developing new cavernous Mughal-era Summer Palace And the importance of South Asia to initiatives (see p. 11). The retirement of under the Lahore Fort. Cornell was underscored by the fact that many distinguished faculty members The focus of Cornell’s South Asia Cornell President Martha Pollack chose with South Asian expertise in various Program is across South Asia. In keeping to make her first international trip of her programs and colleges across Cornell with this spirit, pages 6-7 and the covers tenure to India in January 2018 (see p. 10). also poses an ongoing challenge, as of this Bulletin reproduce works by Language teaching, student fellow- their departure creates gaps that are not some of the South Asian artists who ships, and other programs have been guaranteed to be automatically filled. participated in the Lahore Biennale. 1 FEATURES Are You Even Indian? By Mariangela Mihai “Is this even India?” my friend Anirudh asked, and social projects meant to protect Mizo nationhood and with a frustrated smirk on his face, after the fifth store owner identity. The struggle over historicity, land rights, resources, informed us he did not have either black pepper or garam and cultural, political, and economic and social self- masala powder. We were at the end of a long day. Upon his determination punctuates Mizoram’s social milieu at entry in Mizoram, Anirudh had been profiled at the airport. every turn. Although an American citizen, because his parents are “Mainland Indians,” he received only a seven-day Inner Line Khuangchera, a Mizo only hero (August 2016) Permit (ILP), instead of the two-weeks he requested. We In August 2016 Indian officials claimed a Mizo hero, Pasaltha then spent two hours in the Foreigner’s Office, where I tried Khuangchera, as an Indian freedom fighter against the to explain to Mizo officials that Anirudh’s legal “foreigner” British. After an emergency meeting, the largest Mizo student category was no different than mine, also an American citizen. organizations decried the move and demanded the Indian It took a long time for the Mizo officials to extend his permit, government rectify its grave mistake: “KHUANGCHERA DID for they could not quite comprehend how someone like him NOT DIE FOR INDIA BUT FOR THE MIZO PEOPLE. PASALTHA would not require an ILP. They were not able to see him as an KHUANGCHERA AND ALL OTHER WARRIORS THAT FOUGHT American citizen first; all they saw was a mainland Indian. THE BRITISH WERE NOT INDIANS AND THEY DID NOT FIGHT There’s a context to this. A northeast Indian state situated FOR INDIA’S FREEDOM. THEY WERE THE DEFENDERS OF THE ZO on the border with Burma and Bangladesh, Mizoram has COUNTRY FROM THE INVADING AND OCCUPYING FORCE AND historically and politically positioned itself at the edges of THEREFORE SHOULD NOT BE COUNTED AMONG THE FREEDOM empires and states. While a nameless land before the FIGHTERS FOR INDIAN INDEPENDENCE. DURING THAT TIME, British “discovered” it, postcolonial Mizoram fought for KHUANGCHERA, OR ANY MIZO, DID NOT KNOW ANYTHING self-determination. In 1986, after twenty years of armed ABOUT INDIA, LET ALONE FIGHT FOR ITS FREEDOM.” resistance against the Indian state which culminated with (Press Release, August 17, 2017) India bombing Mizoram’s capital city, Aizawl, Mizos acquired Within hours, around two thousand students blocked the partial autonomy and indigenous land rights. While the peace airport road where the Indian Minister of State for Railways accord put an end to the armed conflict, Mizos, who became was to pass on his way to the village where he was to offer Christian in the 19th century, continue to resist against Indian tribute to Khuangchera. assimilation and engage in a creative constellation of political 2 Mizo resistance against the Indian airbrushing of history is Big Deal: Are You Indian ( July 2018 ) not uncomplicated, though. In the weeks following, countless In their anti-racist hip-hop song, “Are You Indian,” Big Deal official statements from Mizo state and non-state actors revealed and Gubbi present a fictional scene in which mainland Indians Mizo historical memory is not as short as the Indian state had go through a long list of stereotypes and prejudices against anticipated. In response to activists’ virulent resistance, the Northeast Indians. The video begins with four Mainland Indian government retracted its claim to Khuangchera. It did, and three Northeast Indians, pictured right, sitting across a however, manage to dig from the annals of history another dinner table, in an empty room. Gubbi breaks the silence with Mizo hero, Darthawma, who, by all means, did fight for Indian a common provocation most Mizos hear in Mainland India: Independence. Although most Mizos wanted the distinction “WHO ARE YOU? WHAT YOU EVEN DOING IN HERE? PARDON between the two freedom fighters to be properly understood, MY IGNORANCE, BUT LATELY TOO MANY IMMIGRANTS IN they seemed undoubtedly proud of both men’s heroisms.