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SOUTH ASIA PROGRAM 2020 BULLETIN Mythically the Vaitarna river does not contain water, it is a river full of blood, pus, with heaps of rotting bones and flesh on its banks, mud of blood, mucus, pus, seething with smoke, fumes, decay and misery. Sifting carrion, worms, maggots, insects, scavenging birds and animals crowd its bank. It is impossible to cross this river to enter heaven, as one is obstructed by one’s deeds, karma in this life. Thirsty and hungry at its bank you will drink blood flowing in the river. You will fall into it with no rescuer; the hundreds of whirlpools in the river will take you further, to the lowest depths, to rise again in filth of our own creation. We are all in Vaitarna and there is no other bank. These works came about from images shot following the Vaitarna river north of Mumbai to its Dam, a source of water to most of Mumbai. Atul Bhalla, 2020 SAP Virtual Artist in Residence TABLE OF CONTENTS FEATURES 2 ANNOUNCEMENTS 28 Ethnographic Fieldwork in Sri Lanka SSRC Fellowships The Courage and Endurance SAP Occasional Papers of the Langtangpa Wildlife Health Partnerships ACHIEVEMENTS 29 Hunger Fugitives Selected SAP Faculty Publications 170 Uris Hall Women’s Empowerment & Nutrition TCI Scholars Cornell University Recently Graduated Students Ithaca, New York 14853-7601 NEWS 11 FLAS Fellows Phone: 607-255-8923 Acquisitions Trip 2020 Visiting Scholars [email protected] New SAP Faculty South Asian Studies Fellows Iftikhar Dadi, Director Locked-down at Cornell Phone: 607-255-8909 Experiential Learning Program [email protected] Tamil Studies Visiting Scholar EVENTS 18 Daniel Bass, Manager Arts Events and Concerts Phone: 607-255-8923 2019 Tagore Lecture [email protected] Modern Art Histories Iftikhar Dadi Plenary Address einaudi.cornell.edu/programs/ Cornell India Law Center Launch south-asia-program SAP Seminar Series and Events 2019-20 Cover: Atul Bhalla OUTREACH 23 Vaitarni-I, 36x54 inches Community College Collaborations Archival Pigment Print 2018 Welcoming a Decade of Unknowns This page: True Blue Travels Atul Bhalla Hunger Around the World Untitled, 30x54 inches Archival Pigment Print 2011 p.27 From the Director Iftikhar Dadi he 2019-2020 academic year planning, and the humanities. Research with scholars before and after their was radically transformed in and engagement by our faculty and presentations, and the challenges of mid-March due to the spread of students will undoubtedly address many connectivity and technology. On the COVID-19 in the United States, of the transformations wrought by the other hand, because the presenters and T virus on the region and beyond in the the audiences for an online event can be and the steps that Cornell University took to address the challenges it years to come. anywhere in the world, we are now able presented. Classes had to shift to online Before the lockdowns began, the to invite speakers from diverse locations, instruction, events were canceled or South Asia Program had been fully and our audience now includes students, postponed, and most students vacated engaged in supporting teaching and faculty, and researchers residing in South the campus and left Ithaca in March. research on South Asia, including Asia and elsewhere. All of this felt unprecedented at our hosting several South Asian Studies Keeping this in mind, we moved the university, with its history of over fellows (see p. 14-15), and an active series time of most of our presentations during 150 years, and the regularity and of seminars and events (see p. 18-22). the fall semester to 11:15 a.m. Ithaca time, systematic continuity with which it Notable events in the 2019-2020 in order to make it easier for South normally operates. academic year included our annual Asia residents to attend and participate. COVID-19 has indeed created Tagore Lecture in September 2019, in Indeed, our first presentation by major challenges for the whole world. which novelist Anuradha Roy discussed Sarah Besky, a new faculty member in Writing this note some six months her fictional writing based on aspects the School of Industrial and Labor after the lockdowns began at Cornell, of the life of Rabindranath Tagore (see Relations, drew much of its audience one sees how unevenly the virus has p. 19). We also sponsored the screening from Kalimpong and Darjeeling, West impacted individuals and communities. of the film Reason by the acclaimed Bengal, India, the site of Besky’s field Nevertheless, the world now faces an documentary filmmaker Anand research (see p. 12). We also plan to intensified ensemble of inter-linked Patwardhan, who was present for the collaborate with institutions based “wicked” problems, including climate event and led a discussion of the film across South Asia in planning our change, inequality, access to healthcare, after its free public presentation at events schedule. economic downturn, and challenges Cornell Cinema (see p. 19). Given the nature of the challenges we to democratic participation. In South Our last event was on March 6, and face today, it is apt that the cover image Asia, the impact of COVID-19 has we were forced to cancel or postpone of this Bulletin presents an artwork by been serious, and we will probably subsequent programs during the spring the Delhi-based artist and photographer, not understand its full consequences 2020 semester. Starting this fall and in Atul Bhalla, who has long engaged with for some time. accordance with Cornell guidelines of issues of environmental degradation, All of this underscores the crucial inviting no physical visitors to campus, community life, and the play of need for expertise in South Asia across all SAP events are online, utilizing the destruction and regeneration in disciplines and geographies, since the Zoom platform. Please visit our newly contemporary South Asia. Bhalla will be arrival of this deadly virus has multiplied revised website, einaudi.cornell.edu/ our Virtual Artist in Residence in the fall ongoing challenges to people’s lives. programs/south-asia-program, for 2020 semester, virtually visiting classes The research and study of South Asia at up-to-date information. and making presentations at Onondaga Cornell spans multiple fields that include The hosting of online events has many Community College and Cornell in the natural sciences, agriculture, the drawbacks, such as the inability for October and November. social sciences, city and regional students and faculty to meet informally 1 FEATURES “Wear something proper – Buddhist proper!” Ethnographic Fieldwork in Sri Lanka By Geethika Dharmasinghe “Come tomorrow. You can meet the dayakas (the patrons of the When I came out of the office later, the receptionist temple) and the teachers of the Daham pasala (Sunday School) approached me apologetically and said “Sorry Miss, I didn’t and get the information you want. When you come, wear know that you study in America. My family also lives there.” He something proper,’’ the Chief Prelate of Maharagama suddenly treated me as if I were special because I am based in Vajiragnana temple, located 15 miles away from Colombo, the the USA. This hybrid status played a significant role throughout capital, said to me. When I went there the following day, the my research. temple was crowded with over 6,000 white-clad students, at the This experience at the temple was from the first week of my biggest “Sunday School” in Sri Lanka. fifteen months of fieldwork in Sri Lanka on militant, ultra- Before I entered the main office, the receptionist, a man about nationalist Sinhala Buddhist movements. These newly formed 65 years old, questioned my attire. I was wearing a nearly groups articulate a shared worldview that associates Muslims, knee-length white kurta over blue jeans. He said, angrily, it is their businesses, and their cultural practices with Muslim not allowed for women to wear jeans in the temple. When I was fundamentalist terror. Proponents of these new movements stoke explaining my lack of awareness of the specific dress code, the fear and go so far as to claim a willingness to die and kill for the Chief Prelate intervened and let me in. “I said proper!” he cause of combating anticipated “Muslim terror” to protect declared. I explained that I was unaware of jeans being Buddhist teachings and institutions. My dissertation explores improper, as I thought to myself, “I am a Sinhala Buddhist, I how these groups, under the leadership of Buddhist monks, know what proper is!” These days, who defines what proper is interrupt the power of the state, and discusses the mechanisms and what that means is increasingly being manipulated and that these groups use to mobilize anti-Muslim sentiments groups polarized. in local settings. 2 Photographs by Geethika Dharmasinghe I expected that it would be difficult to contact people told me that winning was important since the fishermen needed associated with these movements and to converse with them, the land. But at a later meeting, the harbor director shared with but they were generally comfortable talking to me. I believe this me that “they [Muslims] never stop asking for more land. So was due to the fact they saw me as an authentic Sinhala winning the case was important.” From this perspective, the Buddhist from a southern rural village. The majority of the victory was more than winning a piece of land, it was fighting leadership of these groups is from the south and was willing to what he perceived as Muslims’ “conspiracy” to take over the trust me due to this shared regionalism, even going so far as to country. This transformation of public discourse in which divulge secret organizing mechanisms used against imagined everything is understood and interpreted in ethnic and/or “Muslim expansionism.” Perhaps, the trust they held in me had religious terms has become the norm.