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. something to do with my gender, in that they did not take me as The ethnographic field, for me, is not only a source of the a threat since I am a woman. unknown known, it is also a place that keeps the known To my surprise, the monks and businessmen also proved to unknown. There are things that I had to bury in the field even be helpful, facilitating contacts and appointments. As my before I left, as I promised my interlocutors not to reveal their fieldwork matured and I became increasingly familiar with the secrets. They cannot be cited or mentioned directly in my networks of people involved in these movements, I noticed that writing, due to my obligation to maintain confidentiality. My everyone was known to each other despite their different time in the field raised many challenging questions about how associations, which overlapped with state structures. Once the to communicate my research findings, and the implications of executive director of one of the main organizations invited me these choices. To whom should I be loyal when my interlocutors to his office, which was actually in one of the core ministries of themselves become perpetrators of violence? How should I the government. Only after meeting him did I realize that he is write about such perpetrators, who are in some sense also an advisor to a Minister, a fact that was unknown to me as a structural victims? regular citizen. Further, my American education, gender, origin, nationality This kind of knowledge of the publicly unknown was and religion allowed me to conduct the research without much revealed to me through repeated visits to places and people. For difficulty, as my identifications were acceptable in my example, a well-known mosque, called Kechchimalei, is located interlocutors’ eyes. However, my interlocutors employ those on a rock foundation directly south of the harbor in Beruwala, same identities to demarcate the boundaries between them and on the south coast. People believe it goes back to the 11th their “others” to define what, and who, is properly “Buddhist.” century, as does the Sinhala and Muslim coexistence in this These preconditioned characteristics of any field reminded me area. of what Hannah Arendt called the “banality of evil.” Evil exists However, both the mosque and the harbor claimed ownership not in the way we often think of it, as an obvious evil form, but of a one-acre parcel of land. The dispute reached the courts, and in the very manner that things exist as normal. the harbor authority won the case. Initially, the harbor staff

3 THE COURAGE & ENDURANCE of the Lantangpa By Austin Lord

Earthquake survivors waiting to be evacuated on April 26, 2015 (Photographs by Austin Lord).

On April 25, 2015, I was in and interviews with Langtangpa friends over the years, retraces the Langtang Valley at the some of the moments and feelings that have gathered around moment when the earth each anniversary of the earthquake, as they were observed in shook. The earthquake the Langtang Valley, over the past five years: released a massive, roiling avalanche from the slopes YEAR 1. Awash in uncertainty and emotion, without of Langtang Lirung, homes, the people of Langtang gathered. Most of them had carrying half the force of only recently returned to the valley, disoriented and struggling an atomic bomb. The to begin again. Foreigners came from around the world, Inside Langtang Gompa the night earthquake brought loss before the 2015 earthquake bringing a feeling of solidarity and care. A tangle of people beyond words or and torn lives, gathered in the lap of the mountain, at the edge comprehension, and even now, so much remains unspeakable of the scar the avalanche created in the landscape. On April and unknowable. Surviving those unstable moments and all 25, we gathered at the foot of the avalanche, in front of a that followed has changed my life and my worldview, forever. recently built mani wall inscribed with the names of the Since that day, I have returned to Langtang again and again, deceased and the phrase “forever in our hearts” written in and have remained engaged with post-earthquake recovery eleven languages. A moment of silence at 11:56 am, and then and the Langtangpa community in a variety of ways. It has twelve minutes to read all the names of the dead, as I was been an immeasurable privilege to see and feel Langtang asked to do. come back to life. A video projection of old Langtangpa songs and Disasters can shift, warp, and fold our sense of time in photographs. Laborers walked by carrying building materials. complex and unexpected ways. Anniversaries and other Both of the gompas (temples) in the Langtang Valley had been moments of mutual reflection, ceremony, or commemoration destroyed, and there was no place to conduct a puja on the can help us mark time and reorient ourselves in the wake of earthquake anniversary. A few days earlier, the Langtangpas disaster. Five years after the earthquake, fundamental questions had gathered for a puja that Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche about the time of disaster persist. How and when does a disaster conducted in a field above the village. One turn around the sun, truly conclude, and for whom? In what ways do we navigate the and many of us were still broken. A year of grief and absence, tangled temporalities that shape the aftermath of disaster, or followed by gathering and presence. Time flowing around our the multiple pasts of our present moment? As Nepalis know, we varied and imperfect attempts at beginning. do not all account for time in the same ways. Therefore the “anniversary” of the earthquake is itself is referred to as “April YEAR 2. Small houses, a community center, a larger 25,” “Baisakh 12,” and “Bö da sumbatsebadün” in the Gregorian, gathering of Langtangpa. “We had made some progress Nepali, and Tibetan calendars. This year, each date fell on a rebuilding, but it was still a very emotional time.” Chökyi different day, and so the anniversary is (perhaps, rightfully) Nyima Rinpoche came to Langtang again on the Tibetan distributed over an entire week. earthquake anniversary and conducted a puja for the protection The following reflection, based on dozens of conversations of the village. “This puja gave people some mental support, it

4 Chowki Nyima Rinpoche visits Langatng on the first year anniversary, 2016 helped us deal with all the tension.” Tearful speeches in the the coming year would be even better, like they were before community center, bittersweet reflections on change. A large the earthquake. prayer wheel spun inside the recently built Memorial Stupa, sending out prayers for all the deceased in their new lives. The YEAR 5. The time of the virus, a kind of bardo all its herders moved more confidently this year, as a Japanese NGO own. On March 9, almost all of the Langtangpa gathered in had helped them replace some of the animals that had died Langtang village for a public celebration of the final day of during the disaster. The prayer flags of the prior year were taken Lhosar, for the first time since the earthquake. A large puja was down and burned, and new flags hung. The rhythms of the planned for April 25 with many high lamas, but it was valley were slowly layering onto each other again. cancelled due to the pandemic. “We were hoping that this would be the last collective puja for the earthquake YEAR 3. The three-year period of collective mourning anniversary.” A large group of foreign mourners and survivors, came to an official and imperfect end. The gompa at Kyangjin as well as some Langtangpa, some of who had cancelled their had just been rebuilt. Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche came again to plans to return to Langtang for this anniversary, gathered lead the ceremonies in this beautiful new space. Most of the virtually at 11:56 am on April 25. We read the names of the official work of reconstruction had been completed, and the dead, tried to honor the memories of those who died, and cheese factory had also been rebuilt, so people finally felt some reflected on time gone by, sharing some of ourselves again. sense of material comfort. The night after the puja, some People called each other throughout the week, seeking people were singing, for the first time since the earthquake. A connection across social and physical distance. “We hope that few days later, Drukpa Rinpoche, who had lived here earlier in we will be able to host the Rinpoches later this year, on an his life and also in one of his past lives, returned for the first auspicious date, or maybe on the sixth-year anniversary,” they time in many years. After these ceremonies, many people said said. “Whenever we are able to do this puja, then that will be that they could see that everyone’s hearts were lighter, there the last ceremony for the earthquake, maybe… possibly.” was a little more hope. These days, the Langtangpas, like many of us, are both YEAR 4. A different kind of ceremony, and a return to looking backward and looking forward. Amid the confusion more conventional ritual rhythms. The community organized a and liminality of the pandemic, there are some silver linings. puja and a seven-day reading of the Kangyur (a set of 108 Many of the children and youth of Langtang are back home, canonical Buddhist texts). There was laughing and dancing in reconnecting to the place, speaking their mother tongue. the evenings when the ritual labor was done. There were more Recently, many people in Langtang have again begun planting tourists in the valley. Carefully, the Langtangpa continued the fields that have lain fallow since the earthquake. Looking out at slow work of reweaving their lives back into more familiar these fields and the children working alongside their parents, tempos. A few weeks later, the last of the compacted ice still some people are saying, “it feels like before.” remaining in the avalanche zone finally melted. We celebrated The wind comes. Rivers and glaciers carve through Drukpa Tse Shi again during the summer, and this time some of mountains forever rising and falling apart. Pasts and futures the archery competitions were held. Everyone said this year’s flow together and eddy around us, today and every day. festival was better than the last, but also that the festivals of Original version appeared in Nepali Times (April 25, 2020) 5 Towards New Wildlife Health Partnerships in a Changing World By Martin Gilbert

Amir Sadaula collecting blood from an immobilized rhino, (Photographs by Jessica Bodgener)

As I write this in summer 2020, it is almost six months since local veterinary colleges have emphasized the care of production the first reports that a mysterious new pathogen was emerging in animals and pets, and future veterinarians have had little the Chinese city of Wuhan. Following early connections with the opportunity to specialize in techniques more appropriate to trade in wildlife, few of us remain unaware of the omnipotent wildlife. Few local laboratories, for example, are equipped to reach of wildlife-origin microbes to disrupt our health, our receive wildlife samples and access to international specialists is economies and our liberty. Of course, for those of us who encumbered by the red tape of wildlife trade legislation. have built a career in wildlife health, this news has come as no surprise at all. We have spent our lives tracking how But thankfully times are changing… environmental degradation disrupts pathogen ecology, with repercussions not only for human society but perhaps more often My own engagement in Nepal began through an email for the domestic animals and wildlife that live alongside us. exchange with Nepali veterinarian Amir Sadaula, based at We now know that pathogen emergence is not a random event Chitwan National Park with the not-for-profit National Trust for and is in fact concentrated in the tropics and lowlands where Nature Conservation. He had been following my research in large numbers of people intensively interact with a rich diversity Russia assessing the growing conservation impacts of canine of wild species. At the feet of the Himalayas, Nepal’s Terai is a distemper virus (CDV) infection on populations of Amur tigers. fine example, where half of the country’s 26 million people make He expressed concern that Bengal tigers in Nepal may be facing a living alongside some of Asia’s richest protected areas, similar issues and was eager to begin work to assess the potential supporting a diversity of wildlife, from dolphins to tigers. While risk. Together, and with support from the Cornell Feline Health Nepal has a proud history of conservation and environmental Center, we have now successfully equipped a local laboratory at protection, it has given wildlife health comparatively little the Agricultural Forestry University with protocols for testing attention until recently. Responding to everyday challenges, tiger blood samples for signs of CDV exposure as a first step to

6 Maya Cubs, Bengal tiger (Photograph by R. Gilbert)

assess the level of threat the virus poses. developing opportunities for Cornell veterinary students to As is so often the case, introductory lines of research branch partner with our local collaborators on short-term research into new and sometimes surprising avenues of inquiry. In recent projects, as well as engaging clinical faculty and wildlife health years Nepal has seen an alarming increase in mortality affecting colleagues in Nepal to promote professional exchanges and populations of greater one-horned rhinoceros. This highlighted seed new collaborative research initiatives. the need to support the development of local skills in mortality If the coronavirus pandemic has taught us anything, it is that investigation, particularly in wildlife pathology. Through a we truly live in a One Health world, where an Asian bat virus grant from the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, we can devastate the health of New York City, while also enlisted the help of renowned wildlife pathologist Carol threatening the survival of critically endangered gorillas in Meteyer to visit Nepal to review rhino tissue samples and assist Uganda. Our partnership in Nepal will contribute to meeting us to design a new program to develop local expertise in these challenges, strengthening collaborations that bridge veterinary and wildlife pathology. We are now seeking funding national borders as well as professional disciplines in support of to implement this program, equipping rangers and field a new generation of wildlife health specialists who can work to veterinarians with the skills to investigate ongoing wildlife promote conservation and public health in the world’s most disease events, as well as to boost the capacity of local biodiverse regions, where the need is also the greatest. universities and students to carry this into the future. Now we are looking at ways to strengthen this engagement and in 2019 were fortunate to welcome two Nepali graduate students to enroll in PhD and Masters programs at Cornell’s Department of Natural Resources. We have also been actively

7 HUNGER FUGITIVES: Covid-19 lockdown and migrant workers’ exodus from Delhi By T G Suresh

Do public health responses to Covid-19 expose differentiated longer served any purpose. Defying the lockdown order, an outcomes in societies? We now have mounting evidence that anxious multitude, carrying only frugal possessions in plastic reveals how stay-at-home orders and economic closures have bags and carrycases, streamed into the streets. affected differentially endowed communities and classes. In A stoic resignation writ large was on their faces as they were India, where economic and social divides form deep fault lines, united by a singular objective to reach their native villages. the outcomes of the pandemic containment measures have been An overpowering sense of urgency to leave Delhi drove many far more devastating than elsewhere. Migrant workers’ exodus to undertake risky expeditions. Small vans and trucks were from Indian cities starkly illustrates how unplanned lockdowns waylaid and crammed full. Some contrived frugal trans- can push vulnerable social groups into the edges of poverty and portation by converting bicycles into family carriages. instill profound existential anxieties. Thousands of migrant But the most extreme form of desperation was the long trek workers defied stay-at-home orders and poured into city streets, of migrant workers to faraway villages in Uttar Pradesh, desperate to travel home. A formidable labor force for years, the Bihar and Rajasthan. In simmering heat, long lines of sari- lockdown reduced migrants to urban hunger fugitives. wrapped women, stoic men, and hungry children walked In Delhi, the looming human tragedy was foretold in the along the highways. Their passage across a vast territory March 22 lockdown order. It contained no plan for the millions took many days and entailed unknown dangers. It was a of migrant workers who lived in the city’s shantytowns and long odyssey of hunger fugitives. squatter settlements. It is a customary institutional practice in Why did the migrant workers flee Delhi during lockdown? Delhi to simply overlook migrant workers when the government The exodus was a collective act by a social class who, until then, formulates any public policy. The pandemic lockdown was no were Delhi’s productive force. It was their labor that ran exception. For these workers, the prospects looked grim as the factories, construction, manufacturing, and warehouses. While lockdown brought factories, workshops, construction, their numerical strength and industrial participation made transportation and all forms of economic exchange to a halt, them a formidable social class, they felt wretchedly vulnerable. ending any wage-earning opportunities. What made them to take such risky journeys, as if escaping Delhi’s migrant workers are seldom known for industrial Delhi was their only chance of survival? A collective act like actions. The city’s labor history registers few instances of this is well beyond psychological explanations, and its reasons defiance when workers confronted the authorities or employers. cannot be attributed to the “mental makeup” of rural itinerants. Their collective inclinations have usually been timid. But as the When forced to the brink, migrants appear to have relied on weeks passed this spring, this long tradition of acquiescence no their innate precepts for survival.

8 Photographs by T G Suresh

The majority of migrants in Delhi come from India’s northern bastis (shanties), adjacent to the construction sites where they provinces. In their home villages, they own small agricultural are continuously exposed to fly ash and other toxins. The lands where they cultivate seasonal crops. A good harvest year workers set up these bastis themselves, using corrugated steel, from these meager village plots allows them to store up some tarpaulin sheets, rags, and bricks, which the contractor food provisions. Such homestead enterprises do not provide supplies. This crude dormitory accommodation has diffused much cash income. In order to earn cash, they have to search across Delhi’s industrial scene, delivering further anxiety to for wage work in the cities. They are farm workers during migrant workers. agricultural seasons, and are available for factory work at other Informal actors, such as labor contractors, not only mediate times. This round-tripping between countryside and towns the wage-labor exchanges among Delhi’s urban employers and renders much of India’s labor migration circulatory. As seasonal peasant migrant workers, but they also establish the customary sojourners, migrants possess extremely weak ties with Delhi’s norms and wage rates that underlie them. The Delhi govern- urban life and have become unwelcome outcasts. ment is largely absent from these exchanges, and local labor Secondly, an array of interlocutors mediates rural peasants’ laws have little regulatory impact on migrant workers’ lives. migration to Delhi, including village elders, labor contractors, This institutional absenteeism has left migrant workers and community strongmen. In fact, for most migrants, the exposed to predatory employment practices. labor contractor is their de facto employer. Be it in construction A perilous recipe of subsistence-level wages, slum-quarter sites, small factories, workshops, or in the myriad backyard housing, dependence on labor contractors, and government production units, a contractor hires migrant workers, pays their absenteeism have led migrant workers into situations of despair. wages, supervises their work, and provides them with housing. The lockdown only exasperated their sense of vulnerability, as The labor contractor is thus a migrant’s employer, benefactor, labor contractors, employers and the government all deserted mentor, and, at times, tormentor. This dependence on contrac- them. It did not take much imagination to see how easily they tors prevents them from developing any direct connections become hunger fugitives in the city. Survival, then, meant a to the city. long odyssey to a distant home. Restricted access to housing is a crucial factor that heightens migrants’ sense of vulnerability. A labor contractor gives workers temporary housing near their worksite for the duration of their employment. For instance, construction workers live in

9 View from Ajmer Fort, Women’s focus group with Preethi Ravi, Rural Tamil Nadu (L-R).

Women’s Empowerment and Nutrition By Preethi Ravi

I walked out of the arrivals terminal of Rajiv Gandhi aims specifically to address the aforementioned disconnect and International Airport to be greeted by the unyielding August to probe the relationship between women’s knowledge, humidity and an unwavering sense of nostalgia. A newly minted resources, agency, and nutritional outcomes, such as dietary Fulbright-Nehru student researcher, I arrived in Hyderabad, diversity and body mass index. eager not only to start my project, but also to discover my city Accompanied by an enumerator, who proved invaluable in anew. Hyderabad, the capital of the south Indian state of bridging communication and cultural deficits in my knowledge, Telangana, is a sprawling and ever-changing metropolis, I conducted six focus group discussions in each of the two distinguished by enduring historic landmarks like Charminar Telangana villages in my sample during the preliminary stages and Golconda Fort, amongst otherwise rapid urbanization. of my project. With the information I gleaned, I modified The surrounding region, dotted with smaller cities and indicators within the index and gained a deeper understanding villages, comprises part of India’s semi-arid tropics and is of the contexts in which I was working. Finally, alongside two characterized by low, highly variable rainfall and poor soil enumerators, I implemented household and individual-level quality. Initially planning on studying the relationship between surveys, and collected individual anthropometric data from gender and nutritional outcomes, I soon came to understand members of sixty households across the two villages. the inextricable link between agriculture and nutrition in India, Although my time in India was cut short due to the primarily within communities relying heavily on crop yields for COVID-19 pandemic, I have continued to work remotely, their livelihoods. analyzing the data to better understand the predictive In India women are generally at an increased risk of capabilities of WENI in a semi-arid region. Through this malnutrition, however, interventions to increase livelihood experience, I have not only had the opportunity to learn more opportunities for rural women do not necessarily yield about the multidimensional intersection of gender and improvements in nutrition. Under the supervision of Padmaja nutrition, but have also come to better comprehend India’s rich Ravula at my host institution, the International Crops Research social, political, and cultural landscapes. Day to day, I haggled Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), I finalized a with auto rickshaw drivers, rode the public bus, discussed research proposal, aiming ultimately to investigate the complex public policy with my Indian friends, and refined my daal association between women’s empowerment and nutritional recipe. As I reflect upon those seven months, demarcated by outcomes in Telangana. I utilized the Women’s Empowerment sustained personal and professional growth, I cannot help but in Nutrition Index (WENI), developed by fellow Cornellian Dr. anticipate my return: Bharat desh, main vaapas aa rahee hoon! Sudha Narayanan at the Indira Gandhi Institute for (India, I am coming back!). Development Research and her team. As a measure, WENI

10 NEWS

South Asia Acquisitions Trip 2020

outh Asia Program supported South Asia Curator and the new nation’s early years. Another set of 48 modern Bronwen Bledsoe’s three-week acquisitions trip to posters from a right-wing political organization, encountered at North India in January 2020. The purpose of such trips the Delhi Book Fair, carries forward some of the same martyr- is twofold, primarily to acquire library materials for heroes, along with heroes of the Vedic imaginary. S In Lucknow the librarians visited the Martyrs Memorial teaching and research that are not easily obtained through normal channels of supply. Additionally, librarians liaise with Library, which has recently digitized issues of the serial Viplavi colleagues in South Asia Trekta for inclusion in the South Asia Open Archive. Cornell is a and explore the universe of publishing there. Travelling with founding member of this new open access project, hosted by Mary Rader, South Asian Studies librarian at the University JSTOR, and it was good to meet and thank our content of Texas, Austin, Bledsoe visited three major sites, Delhi, contributors in person. As a bonus, the Martyrs Memorial is Lucknow, and Varanasi. richly decorated with freedom-fighter portraits. Acquisitions on this trip are all specialty printed materials In Varanasi attention turned to publications in Sanskrit. unavailable and/or undiscoverable in the US, on topics of Important works in authoritative editions have been printed in particular relevance to Cornell’s distinctive collection on South Varanasi since the mid-19th century, and US libraries are Asia. One category of special interest these days is visual routinely well-supplied with the publications of major presses. materials, valuable as primary sources or ‘texts’ in their own For Cornell, Bledsoe sought out more obscure regional right, and well-suited to online display and promotional editions, in particular the output of Durga Sahitya Bhandar, purposes. Language specialization also distinguishes which specializes in Sanskrit texts with introductions, institutions and libraries, and Cornell is especially strong in commentaries, and glosses in Nepali. Cornell is the only Sinhala and Nepali. library that collects these inexpensive popular editions in The most notable purchases this year are additions to the Nepali. Their bright covers and simple language may suggest a Indian Political Poster collection begun in 2019, with the help of cultural shift away from priestly religiosity and towards a more visiting scholar J. Daniel Elam. A set of 43 vintage posters do-it-yourself approach. continues the theme of the struggle for Indian independence

11 New SAP Faculty

In Fall 2020, SAP welcomes two anthropologists to the SAP faculty: Sarah Besky, Associate Professor in the Departments of International and Comparative Labor & Labor Relations, Law, and History in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and Natasha Raheja, Assistant Professor in Ethnographic Filmmaking and Visual Anthropology, in the Department of Anthropology.

Sarah Besky is a cultural anthropologist several articles based on this subject. She whose research uses ethnographic and is currently working on a long-term historical methods to study the ethnographic and historical project about intersection of nature, labor and the colonial concept of “settlement” in capitalism in South Asia, particularly the Kalimpong, West Bengal, on the India- Himalayas. She is interested in how Bhutan border. materials and bodies take on value under She comes to Cornell following a stint as changing political economic regimes, as the Charles Evans Hughes 1881 Assistant well as the diverse forms of labor that Professor of Anthropology and make and maintain that value. She focuses International and Public Affairs at Brown on everyday commodities and all of the University. Besky earned both her work that goes not only into producing doctorate and her master’s degree in them, but also into valuing and circulating anthropology from the University of them. Besky has done research on the Wisconsin-Madison after attending Indian tea industry since 2006 and Connecticut College as an published two books, The Darjeeling undergraduate. In October 2018, SAP Distinction: Labor and Justice on Fair Trade hosted Besky as part of the Tea High and Tea Plantations in India and Tasting Low: Elixir, Exploitation and Ecology Qualities: The Past and Future of Tea, and conference.

12 Natasha Raheja is an ethnographic Hindu refugee-migrants in India. This filmmaker and visual anthropologist work builds on her dissertation, which whose work focuses on the intersections examined the relationships between of migration, bureaucracy, and nationalistic policy, state machinery, and nationalism in India and Pakistan. She is modes of religio-national belonging in interested in questions of mediation, the context of India’s special visa and mobility, and cross-border belonging. In citizenship regimes for religious her ethnographic film practice, she takes minorities from Pakistan. She has an observational approach that conducted collaborative documentary foregrounds presence and feeling over filmmaking workshops with Pakistani explanation. Her films have screened at Hindu middle-school students to colleges and festivals nationally and understand and amplify their internationally and her publications have perspectives on life in India. been featured in the Journal of Refugee Raheja earned a BS in Biology, a Studies, American Anthropologist, and BA in Asian Studies, and an MA Visual Anthropology Review. in Asian Cultures and Languages at Raheja’s first ethnographic film, Cast the University of Texas at Austin, in India, raised questions around the and her PhD in PhD Anthropology relationship between built infrastructure and Graduate Certificate in Culture in New York City and labor and Media at New York University. infrastructure in Howrah, India in the For the past two years, she has been a context of everyday urban objects such Postdoctoral Associate in Anthropology as manhole covers. Her current video at Cornell. SAP screened Raheja’s film, project visualizes the everyday effects of Cast in India, in March 2019. state forms of recognition on Pakistani

NEW SOUTH ASIAN LANGUAGE FACULTY

In Fall 2019, SAP welcomed two new Education, University College London Hom Acharya faculty members in the Department as a Centenary Scholar. received his M.Ed. of Asian Studies: Senior Lecturer As a Fulbright Foreign Language in Nepali of Bengali Razima Chowdhury and Teaching Assistant, she previously taught Language Lecturer of Nepali Hom Acharya. Bangla at Syracuse University, and at Education from This past year, they have taught Bangla Cornell, via video-conferencing. From Tribhuvan and Nepali at Elementary, Inter- 2010 to 2016, she taught, administered, University, Nepal, mediate and Advanced levels, both and developed intensive immersion an MS in Japanese Language and in-person and via video-conference. language programs for Bangla at the Sociocultural Studies from Shimane Razima Independent University, Dhaka as the University, Japan, and his Ed.D. in Chowdhury Institute Director for the Critical Educational Leadership from Oklahoma received her Language Scholarship program and State University. BA in English during academic year long programs for He began teaching Nepali to both Literature & Fulbright, Boren, and FLAS award native and non-native speakers of Nepali Language and recipients. She also taught elementary in 1997. He has taught individuals and MA in Applied and intermediate Bangla and served as groups in Nepal, Japan and the United Linguistics the Pedagogy Coordinator for Less States, from single lessons to year-long and English Commonly Taught Languages at the courses for beginners, intermediate, and Language Teaching from the University South Asia Summer Language Institute advanced learners. He has taught Nepali of Dhaka. She also received an MA in at the University of Wisconsin-Madison at Tribhuvan University in Nepal and Teaching English to Speakers of Other from 2016-2019. Shimane University in Japan. Languages from the Institute of

13 South Asia Program Fellows Find Focus at Cornell By Megan DeMint Photograph by Nipun Prabhakar

Delicate, feathered eyelashes in a green outline frame the orange irises of wide-awake eyes. Bushy orange eyebrows

leave space for a third central eye.

Taking a step back, these details take shape – the upper half of its implications as much as he did. “It is deeply reassuring,” he an uncanny face – on a door in Kathmandu. said, “to see that great institutions value academic excellence, Nipun Prabhakar is an independent photographer and irrespective of position, location or other markers.” architect from New Delhi and was a visiting scholar at the South Prabhakar’s interests lie in diverse topics, including Asia Program in Fall 2019. For Prabhakar to find his focus on photographic-anthropological documentation, migration and his photo essay “Portrait of Nepal through its Doors,” he needed human interaction with built spaces. His photography is the months of dedicated work time he has enjoyed at Cornell. inspired by time spent in rural parts of India and Nepal as an His time as a South Asian Studies fellow offered opportunities architect serving displaced communities. As he worked to retain he couldn’t find elsewhere. “For most of the academic local design symbology and aesthetics in Kathmandu, Nepal, fellowships, I am a textbook misfit,” he said. “The South Asia he recognized the cultural importance of “one of the most Program’s fellowship accommodates not just academics … but important elements of the Nepali vernacular architecture: also writers, curators and artists.” the door.” The two- to four-month fellowships support emerging scholars The fellows have found community at Cornell. “Though we and creative people from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, work in entirely different fields, we have several common India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. This year’s interests that we keep exploring together,” Chetan explained. cohort was the program’s third. “The fellowship program was “We have explored a lot of Cornell together, from its libraries to started to engage with innovative scholars, writers and artists its theaters.” With this flexibility to explore and pursue open- who have not been recently exposed to the resources at a major ended and cross-disciplinary work, Chetan and Prabhakar are American research university,” said SAP Director Iftikhar Dadi. jointly auditing classes, including game theory, and psychology The benefits are bilateral for fellows and the Cornell community, and cinema. Dadi said, including “individual and institutional partnerships, “My artistic projects and creative pursuits depend on the advances innovative work in the region and helps Cornell environment I am in,” Prabhakar said. “The environment of faculty and students to stay abreast of latest developments in scholarship at Cornell gives me a chance to both deeply engage these fields.” with and purposely divert from the research I am undertaking.” When 2019 fellow Achyut Chetan learned of the fellowship, he In working with Chetan, Prabhakar said he has found a friend was interested in the potential to access resources that are and mentor: “He has been a great help in showing me the usually unavailable where he lives and works. “I work in a rather different modes of academic engagement with one’s subject. I marginalized part of South Asia, teaching some of the most am learning a lot just by seeing the rigor he puts into his work.” deprived kids in a minor institution,” said Chetan, who teaches Both visiting scholars shared their projects with the Cornell English at Santal Parganas College in Dumka, India. community, presenting in the SAP weekly seminar series. In the In fall 2019, Chetan was in the final stages of writing and spring, Cornell welcomed a third visiting scholar – Kanchuka revising a book that rediscovers India’s “founding mothers” Dharmasiri, a senior lecturer in the English department at the – intellectuals and leaders in women’s organizations who shaped University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka. the Indian constitution, which was adopted in 1949. Chetan said Originally appeared in Cornell Chronicle (October 30, 2019) Cornell believed in the intellectual promise of his research and

14 Locked-down at Cornell

By Kanchuka Dharmasiri

It supposedly started with a small bat. A highly contagious could have stopped me. The world I knew receded as I rose up virus. Travelers were advised to take precautions. So, I boarded above the clouds. Then, I saw the waves, the ripples and the the flight from Sri Lanka in late January 2020, with a small rivers that the clouds had created. Nothing mattered, the packet of face masks just in case of an emergency. Little did I universe was expanding before me.” know that those masks would define my stay at Cornell as a Surpanaka accidentally comes to 21st century Sri Lanka. The South Asian Studies Fellow. story is about her friendship with Janaki, an artist, and her The Kroch Asia library was an absolute treasure house. In my encounters with several other characters. The play alludes to curiosity to learn more about reimaginings of Ravana in Surpanaka’s ability to transcend time, a secret that was kept contemporary Sri Lanka, I read about Thai, Cambodian, and from her in fear that she would become uncontrollable. Vietnamese retellings of the Ramayana. I strived to understand My days in Ithaca were mostly spent writing the play, reading how the ten-headed powerful villain in the North Indian epic and walking. I walked for miles every day in the Cornell transformed in color and form in various cultural milieus and Arboretum and encountered the most breathtaking sites. The historical contexts. I tried to connect these images with the daffodils “fluttering and dancing in the breeze”, the pristinely one-headed, neatly groomed, calm and white ash trees, the lemon-yellow spiritual Ravana that is increasingly weeping willow rocking in the wind, the being promoted in Sri Lankan popular pink cherry blossoms reflected in the culture, pictured here. The process of water, and the stunning yellow and losing his heads and gaining a new orange feathers that adorn the image as a sage and superhero seemed red-winged black bird remain vividly unique to Sri Lanka. painted in my mind. In February, while I eagerly While I started seeing life anew, I also devoured books about Ravana, little was constantly reminded of the did I know that the world would come transience of existence as news of death to a halt, and that entire systems would came from all directions. The virus made be put into question. COVID-19 came us question life over and over again. It raging and the library closed on made social inequality all the more March 16. Work became remote. We pronounced and struck a blow at the heard of people dying all around us. It capitalist system that focused on profit felt dystopian, apocalyptic and over human life. intensely lonely. As I walked along Ithaca’s magical In response to all this, I started gorges with gushing water, I sometimes writing a play. I imagined a Ravana imagined Surpanaka flying across the who was going through an identity crisis because he was unable mesmerizing skies in Ithaca. She was trying to absorb every to cope with the different ways in which he was portrayed. Who detail around her. In the play, Surpanaka tells Ravana: “I was he? He navigated disparate ways of being: a carnivore, a watched as the elegant swan disappeared among the cotton-like vegetarian, a villain, a god, a lover, a musician, and a scientist. clouds. As she soared higher, her body became lighter, and she As the play started materializing, all that I had been reading in floated seamlessly. What did she see below? Did she feel like a the previous few weeks came up in a different guise. cloud herself? I tried to become the swan. I saw the spreading Then, to my absolute surprise, one day, I discovered that the banyan trees and the majestic mahogany trees from up above. play was no longer about Ravana. It was not about Rama or The leaves, in different shades of green, fluttered in the wind.” Sita, either. Instead, the play was about Surpanaka, Ravana’s Spring created a new palette in the Ithaca skies: yellow, sister. She was the transgressor, the one who could not be orange, pink, a touch of red. Among and between the clouds contained. Her desire for Rama, her articulation of that desire, was a figure of a woman flying away gleefully. Banyan and na and her eventual disappearance from the narrative, interested trees sprung up amidst the maples and oaks in the Cornell me. She was unafraid and was given one of the worse Arboretum as it interspersed with the Asoka Garden. punishments, disfigurement. In the play, Surpanaka secretly flies away in Ravana’s pushpaka vimana: “I had wanted to fly the pushpaka vimana for the longest time, since I was a little girl, and that day, no one

15 Karthikeyan Palanisamy, left, of Regal Chocolates speaks with IARD students at his cacao farm in India. (Photograph by Chris Knight). Experiential Learning Program Celebrates 20 Years in India By Kelly Merchan

Jessica Snyder knew she wanted to make an impact in the sixteen students from four universities in India were sponsored world. The big question: Where to start? That question was by the Sathguru Foundation to travel to Cornell for a short- answered over two weeks in January 2020, as she and seventeen term course in the fall, and to take part in the India field trip. other Cornell students, along with a nearly equal number of “This trip has been an amazing, eye-opening, impactful Indian students, traversed nearly 1,000 miles across India as experience,” said Kamala Eyango, a SAP FLAS fellow and part of coursework for the International Agricultural and Rural IARD Master’s student. “I was exposed to extensive knowledge, Development (IARD) major. At more than fifty years old, IARD expertise and people that I never even imagined I would see.” is Cornell’s longest-running experiential learning program. Students had the opportunity to select one of three Students experienced the agriculture systems, rural specialized tracks: agricultural systems, rural infrastructure, or infrastructure and economic development of the subcontinent. value addition. Site visits explored diverse cooperative farming “This experience was phenomenal,” said Snyder, an IARD systems, agribusinesses, local communities, producers, major. “Being able to witness what is happening on the ground irrigation schemes and other topics across Tamil Nadu. “It’s is a critical first step for us, as students and future professionals, been a life-changing experience,” said Vivekanand Karagi, from to develop viable solutions that will make a difference in the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad. “We are not developing countries. That is something that just can’t be exposed to our own agriculture systems, even though we live fowund in any book.” and study in India. Here we’ve been given the chance to learn The IARD course launched in 1968 with annual trips to in our own country and at Cornell, thanks to the Sathguru countries around the globe. This year’s trip marked twenty Foundation, which will push us to improve agricultural systems years of partnership between Cornell, Sathguru Management and yields in India and beyond.” Consultants, the Cornell Sathguru Foundation for This course gives both Cornell and Indian students the Development and universities in India. Since establishing an opportunity for cultural immersion and experiential learning. annual presence in India in 2000, the course has brought “The diversity of students enriched the experience for together more than 750 Cornell and Indian students for everyone,” Tucker said. “We are fortunate to bring together a cross-cultural exchange and in-depth experiences on many multidisciplinary group from around the world with several aspects of development. “This partnership has endured thanks different sets of lenses on development issues.” “This experience to excellent partners on the ground,” said Terry Tucker, IARD has been inspiring for me in every aspect of my career,” said undergraduate studies director. Juan Luis Gonzalez, a doctoral candidate in plant pathology. This year’s program brought together Cornell students “My time in India will lead me toward working more ranging from undergraduates and master’s students to doctoral passionately in international agriculture in my future.” candidates and Hubert H. Humphrey fellows. In addition, Originally appeared in Cornell Chronicle (February 20, 2020)

16 TAMIL STUDIES VISITING SCHOLAR DELON MADAVAN

In early March, SAP welcomed Delon Madavan to Cornell as When the campus closed due to the pandemic in mid-March, our 2020 Tamil Studies Visiting Scholar, to teach ASIAN 4437 SAP had to cancel two events in which Delon Madavan was Topics in Tamil Studies: Tamil Migration and Integration in Urban involved, a screening of two short films by the Paris-based Sri Contexts, a seven-week, two-credit course. Madavan completed Lankan Tamil director Pradeepan Raveendran and a his PhD in Geography at Paris-Sorbonne University in 2013. He presentation on his own research at the SAP seminar series. is currently Researcher Fellow at the Centre of Studies and After several weeks of uncertainty, Madavan returned to Paris Researches on India, South Asia and its Diaspora, University of in late March, being the only passenger on the last Campus-to- Québec-Montréal and Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Campus bus from Ithaca to New York City, and then was Centre of Studies and Researches on India and South Asia, aboard the last Air France flight from JFK. In the process, he École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Centre National was impressed by Cornell’s ability to mobilize staff and provide de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris. resources to faculty to adapt to online teaching platforms. For In the class, Madavan shared his expertise on migrations and the remainder of the semester, he stayed up past midnight in Tamil urban worlds, exposing students to a wide variety of Paris to continue teaching his class to students at Cornell who places (Sri Lanka, India, France, UK, Germany, United States, had scattered to multiple places. Canada, Norway, Denmark, Mauritius, Malaysia & Singapore) “It was a lifetime experience!” Madavan said, adding that his and topics (forced migration due to war or the eradication of time at Cornell “allowed me to discover another way of slums, caste migrations, skilled and unskilled professional thinking about teaching and also to exchange on my research migration, diaspora religiosity, diaspora identity and integra- subjects with colleagues of world renown.” He said that he was tion, and more). Teaching in the US was a new experience for surprised by the simplicity and the availability of colleagues, Madavan, with its emphasis on in-class discussion, in contrast and the “real family spirit” at Cornell, opening up the potential to the emphasis on lectures and tutorials in France, though his to weave a network of possible future collaborations. interactions with the “very curious” students were “very exciting and stimulating.”

17 EVENTS ARTS EVENTS & CONCERTS

As in previous years, Cornell student and faculty groups were active in 2019-2020, bringing distinguished performing artists from South Asia and the diaspora to the Cornell campus, until the campus closed in March 2020. SAP was proud to support and co-sponsor these events.

n September 2019, Ronu Majumdar performed on the the 2016 International Songwriting Competition and Best India Hindustani flue, accompanied by Amit Kavthekar on tabla, Act at the 2016 MTV Europe Music Awards. I organized by the Cornell chapter of the Society for the In February 2020, violinist Arun Ramamurthy held a Promotion of Indian Clacssical Music And Culture Among residency on campus, hosting a raga improvisation master class Youth (SPICMACY). Majumdar is firmly rooted in the Maihar and an open rehearsal before a concert of Western Classical and gharana tradition and has also created a niche for himself in the Indian Carnatic music at the Carriage House, with Ariana Kim, field of contemporary popular music, exemplified by his Associate Professor of Music (pictured above). The Brooklyn- Grammy nomination in 1996. Kavthekar is the last ganda- based Ramamurthy is co-founder and Artistic Director of bandhan (ordained disciple) of Alla Rakha Khan and a Brooklyn Raga Massive, a collective of forward-thinking prominent disciple of Zakir Hussain. musicians rooted in and inspired by the classical music of India. SPICMACAY put on a second concert, in October 2019, a At their concert, Ramamurthy and Kim dueted and improvised Carnatic violin duet with the Lalgudi siblings, Lalgudi GJR together, even employing tape loops in their performance. Krishnan and Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi, children and disciples of Lalgudi G. Jayaraman. Between them, they have received awards such as Padma Shri, Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and Kalaimamani award. Akshay Anantapadmanabhan accompanied them on mridangam. Before this concert, Akshay Anantapadmanabhan held two lecture-demonstrations on campus (pictured right). He first spoke at the Hans Bethe House on “What is Rhythm? A discussion Between the Talking and Harmonic drums of India,” and then at an open session of the Department of Music’s Analyzing World Music class, on “An Insight into Classical Indian Rhythm, Music, and Pedagogy.” These interactive performances allowed a broad range of students to hear Carnatic music, learn about Indian rhythmic forms, and perform their own “konnakol” (vocal percussion solfege). In November, the Indian singer-songwriter Prateek Kuhad performed a benefit for Asha Cornell, in a concert entitled, “100 Words of Hope.” On top of being awarded Indian Indie Album of the Year 2015 by iTunes, Kuhad has also won first place in

18 ANURADHA ROY DELIVERS 2019 TAGORE LECTURE On September 20, 2019, Anuradha Roy delivered the 11th Rabindranath Tagore Modern Indian Literature Lecture, “The Clay Typewriter.” Roy spoke to a capacity audience in A. D. White House, starting with a discussion of her experiences as a potter and how it relates to her writing. She examined how earth, water, air, and fire fusing to create pots is a metaphor for the way in which real and imagined archives can come together in a writer’s imagination and result in fictional worlds. She expanded on this metaphor by talking about how one particular fictional world, in her most recent novel, All the Lives We Never Lived, came about for her through the discovery of the German artist Walter Spies and his connections with Rabindranath Tagore. She explored how these and other historical figures entered her book and helped her to make sense of the political and moral place of the writer in cclaimed Indian documentary today’s world. filmmaker Anand Patwardhan Anuradha Roy is the author of An Atlas of Impossible Longing and was on campus in October The Folded Earth, as well as Sleeping on Jupiter, which won the DSC 2019 to screen his latest film Prize for Fiction 2016 and was longlisted for the Man Booker Reason at Cornell Cinema. Prize 2015. Her latest novel, All the Lives We Never Lived, was AReason is divided into eight chapters and published worldwide in 2018 and has won the Tata Book of the “sets out to chart what he sees as India’s slide Year Award. It has been nominated for the International Dublin away from the complex tumult of a secular Literary Award, Walter Scott Prize, the DSC Prize, the JCB Prize, democracy towards hardening divisions of and the Hindu Literary Award. She works as a designer at power, caste, and religious belief-lines that Permanent Black, an independent press she runs with Rukun are enforced increasingly by violence” Advani. She lives in Ranikhet, India. (Toronto International Film Festival). Reason This lecture series is made possible by a gift from Cornell won the Best Feature Length Documentary Professor Emeritus Narahari Umanath Prabhu and the late Mrs. Award at the International Documentary Sumi Prabhu to honor Rabindranath Tagore, a celebrated writer Festival in Amsterdam, where it was and musician, and one of the great luminaries of the late 19th and described as “a broad-ranging examination early 20th centuries. of Indian society, in which secular The 2020 Tagore lecture has been postponed until SAP is able rationalists are hunted down as they attempt to host a writer on campus. to stem the rising tide of religious and nationalist fundamentalism.” A rapt audience stayed for the four-hour film, as well as a complimentary meal during intermission. During a Q&A after the screening, Patwardhan expressed his hope for India, despite all the injustices that he has documented over the decades, pointing to student activists featured in the film.

19 Modern Art Histories The Hong Kong workshops occurred amidst pro-democracy in and across Africa, protests and the Dhaka program occurred against the backdrop of the emerging coronavirus pandemic. Yet careful organization and great flexibility ensured that the workshops were successful. South and Southeast MAHASSA seeded many ideas and fostered relationships across geographies and disciplines, which will contribute to new MAHASSA initiatives on individual and group levels. For example, Asia ( ) MAHASSA opened up the eyes of young Bangladeshi scholars Modern Art Histories in and across Africa, South and Southeast to other, less Eurocentric modes of thinking, teaching, and Asia (MAHASSA) was a collaboration of the Dhaka Art Summit, connecting, while simultaneously providing entry points for Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong, and the Institute for emerging international scholars to connect to the rich art and Comparative Modernities (ICM) at Cornell University, funded architecture history of Bangladesh. by the Getty Foundation’s Connecting Art Histories initiative. Speaking more broadly, the single most significant SAP Director Iftikhar Dadi led a team of international faculty accomplishment of the MAHASSA program was bringing and emerging scholars to investigate parallel and intersecting together young scholars of Africa, South Asia, and Southeast developments in the cultural histories of modern South Asia, Asia. Scholars at the start of their careers based in comparatively Southeast Asia, and Africa. MAHASSA brought together 21 under-resourced institutions in Africa or Asia benefited greatly participants for two ten-day workshops, the first in Hong Kong from the experience. Not only did the two-part programs in in August 2019 and the second in Dhaka in February 2020. Hong Kong and Dhaka afford many of these scholars with an Shaped by shared institutional and intellectual developments occasion to experience firsthand, frequently for the first time, the that are closely related, these regions are marked by similar cultural resources in these locations, but it also gave them each experiences during the twentieth century, including the rise of other. Now, scholars in South Africa can dialogue with their peer modern art practices, the founding of art schools and museums, from Sri Lanka to think together about the Indian Ocean as a and increasing exchange with international metropolitan connecting sea; a scholar working in Bangladesh can reach out centers. This program emphasized a connected and to peers in Zambia when a question about modern architecture contextualized approach, rather than traditional, national art arises. Scholars rarely have the kind of experience that builds histories, to better understand both common developments as these kinds of networks, these kinds of communities, especially well as divergent trajectories. By presenting two papers during so early in their careers, and it will be exciting to see the impact the course of the program, early career scholars pursued their that MAHASSA will continue to have in their intellectual research informed and enriched by the theoretical and art careers, and in the discipline as a whole. historical contexts of this project. Core faculty lectures, seminar discussions, and field trips during rounded out the workshops.

20 IFTIKHAR DADI DELIVERS PLENARY ADDRESS On October 19, 2019, SAP Director Iftikhar Dadi delivered the plenary address, “The Artistry of Free Speech in South Asia and South Asian Studies,“ at the 48th Annual Conference on South Asia in Madison, Wisconsin along with Ananya Vajpeyi, Associate Professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi. Dadi analyzed the 2013 Pakistani Punjabi-language film Zinda Bhaag, directed by Meenu Gaur and Farjad Nabi. He argued that the film’s cinematic, geographical, and moral universe raises a number of critical and analytical questions for independent film-making in contemporary Pakistan. The film is part of a new wave of cinema emerging from Pakistan, termed New Cinema, but Zinda Bhaag completely sidesteps the issue of terrorism and violence, which dominates much of Pakistani New Cinema. Rather, it explores urban subaltern lifeworlds that are quite invisible to elite society on the one hand, and are not especially concerned with the problem of being Muslim on the other. Dadi’s plenary address was later published as “The Zinda Bhaag Assemblage: Notes on Reflexivity and Form” in Love, War & Other Longings: Essays on Naseeruddin Shah in Zinda Bhaag (2013) Cinema in Pakistan, edited by Vazira Zamindar and Asad Ali, and published by Oxford University Press.

Cornell Law School launches India Law Center | Cornell Chronicle http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2019/10/cornell-law-school-launches-india...

CORNELL LAW SCHOOL LAUNCHES INDIA LAW CENTER By Owen Lubozynksi

Cornell Law School launched its Cornell India Law Center on September 26, 2019, with a lecture by Richard Verma, vice chairman and partner at the Asia Group and former U.S. ambassador to India. According to Verma, who served as ambassador from 2015-17, the new center comes at a critical moment. “If there was ever a time when a center like this was needed,” he said, “it’s now.” Verma gave an overview of U.S.-Indian relations, from Eisenhower and Kennedy’s interest and support, to the lingering distrust instilled by Nixon’s hostility, to the improvement of relations under Clinton and Bush and to the breakthrough of Obama and Modi’s collaboration on the Paris climate agreement. As for the present, said Verma: “I don’t know where we are today. … The indicators, unfortunately, suggest that we are headed back down.” The Cornell India Law Center is dedicated to promoting the study of Indian law and policy in the U.S. legal academy and to fostering international collaborations among legal scholars. Guided by a distinguished advisory board and affiliated faculty from law schools in the U.S. and India, the center will offer programming including a speaker series, conferences and a visiting scholar program. The Law School will also offer a fully funded summer internship for Cornell Law students to work at a public interest organization in New Delhi, starting in the summer of 2020. The center builds on the strengths of existing India-related programs at the Law School, which partners with Jindal Global Law University in India on a fast-track dual degree program, allowing students to earn Indian and American law degrees in six years. Students enrolled in the International Human Rights Clinic regularly travel to India to conduct research on human rights issues. “We are extremely excited for this next chapter of Cornell Law School’s engagement with Indian law and legal institutions,” said Sital Kalantry, faculty director of the center and clinical professor of law. “India is the largest democracy in the world. India shares a number of similarities with the United States, including the common law heritage and a pluralistic society. Historically, however, only humanities and social sciences disciplines have studied India. We hope the center will encourage legal scholars and lawyers to consider India as a rich source for comparative studies going forward.” In his lecture, Verma noted that the current diplomatic relationship between the two countries is young and fragile, and “can’t withstand a lot of shocks.” He cautioned that the relationship could become highly transactional, in the model of U.S. relations with many other countries currently, but also emphasized that there is something special about the connection between the U.S. and India. “The fact that we are both democracies, and we have shared values, really matters,” Verma said. “And there are consequences if we cast aside those shared values.” Originally appeared in Cornell Chronicle (October 3, 2019)

21

1 of 3 10/4/2019, 9:30 AM SAP SEMINARS AND September 30: “The Influence November 4: “Colonial February 26: “The creative diaries of Local and Global Discourses Infrastructure and the Politics of of Indian poet A.K. Ramanujan,” EVENTS, 2019-2020 on Parental Beliefs and Practices Partition of Punjab,” Mubbashir Krishna Ramanujan (Science of Indian Parents,” Amita Gupta Rizvi (Anthropology, Georgetown Writer, Cornell University) September 9: “Gendered labor (Early Childhood Education, University) migration control: intermediaries City College of New York) March 2: “TB in women: Weill navigating il/legal trajectories November 11: “Sclerotic Cornell’s collaboration with BJ between Nepal and the United October 1: “Remembering the and Conflictual Ontologies of Government Medical College Arab Emirates,” Susanne Asman Present: An anthropological Nature,” Luisa Cortesi (Science (Pune, India),” Jyoti Mathad (Anthropology, University of comparison of mindfulness & Technology Studies and (Obstetrics & Gynecology, Weill Gothenburg) practices in South-Southeast Anthropology, Cornell University) Cornell Medical College) Asia and the United States,” September 9-10: Neeli Raag Julia Cassaniti (Anthropology, November 12: “Dismantling March 2: “Abundance: Sexuality, (True Blue) film screenings with Washington State University) India’s Anti-Sodomy Law - A Historiography, Geopolitics,” Director, Swati Dandekar People’s Journey in India,” Vivek Anjali Arondekar (Feminist October 3: “An Insight into Divan (Human Rights Lawyer) Studies, University of California- September 16: “In search of Classical Indian Rhythm, Santa Cruz) the Missing Mothers: The women Music, and Pedagogy,” Akshay November 15: “35 Years After members of the Constituent Anantapadmanabhan Bhopal: Lessons Learned?” March 4: “God in the Workshop: Assembly of India,” Achyut Chetan roundtable Some Ethnographic and (English, Santal Parganas College) October 4: Carnatic Violin Historical Notes on Vishwakarma concert, Lalgudi GJR Krishnan November 18: “Vocation for Worship in India,” Ken George September 20: “The Clay & Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi Travel: Catholic Seminary training (Anthropology, Australian Typewriter” Tagore Lecturer in Sri Lanka,” Bernardo Brown National University) in Modern Indian Literature, October 7: “A Window to the (Anthropology, International Anuradha Roy Doors of Kathmandu,” Nipun Christian University) March 6: “Shaping a Mystery: Prabhakar (Independent Artisans and Ancestors in India’s September 23: “Conscripting Photographer and Architect) November 19: “Moving Ellora Caves,” Kirin Narayan Kinsmen: Labor Contractors and Monuments: Colonial and (Anthropology, Australian Peasant-Workers in India and October 10: “What Turns Us Postcolonial Commemorations in National University) China,” T. G. Suresh (Centre for Violent: Sacred Emergencies,” the British Empire,” Durba Ghosh Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru Michael Jerryson (Religious (History, Cornell University) University) Studies, Youngstown State University) November 25: “Solutions to September 24: From Gulf to malnutrition in India: Evidence Gulf to Gulf film screening with October 21: “The Rohingya: from diverse approaches,” Kathryn Director, Shaina Ahmad Stalessness, Refugeehood and a Merckel & Jocelyn Boiteau ‘Subhuman’ Life,” Nasir Uddin (Tata-Cornell Institute, Cornell September 25: “Pyrrhic (Anthropology, University of University) Constitutionalism? Buddhism, Chittagong) Secularism and the Limits of Law January 27: “Conceptions in Sri Lanka,” Benjamin Schonthal October 22: “The Post- of Liberation in the Hindu (Buddhism and Asian Religions, Earthquake Dalit and Bonded Tantric Worship of the Goddess University of Otago) Labor Situation in Nepal,” Trilok Tripurasundari,” Anna Golovkova Chand-Vishwas (National Nepal (South Asia Program, Cornell September 26: “India and the Dalit Social Welfare Organization) University) United States: Overcoming the Hesitations of History,” Richard October 22: Visual Culture February 3: “Remaking Verma (Former U.S. Ambassador Colloquium, Joshua Vettivelu and Transcreating Ravana in to India) Contemporary Sri Lanka,” October 23: The Crisis in Kanchuka Dharmasiri (English, September 27: “Developing Kashmir: History, Politics and the University of Peradeniya) Climate Resilient Migrant Friendly Law,” Ananya Vajpeyi (Center for Towns in Bangladesh to Tackle the Study of Developing Societies) February 10: “Social Capital Future Climate Migration,” in Disaster Recovery: Case Saleemul Huq (International October 28: “Unruly Cinema: Studies from the 2004 Indian Centre for Climate Change and Bollywood ‘s Unlikely Emergence,” Ocean Tsunami and Eelam War,” Development, Independent Rini Bhattacharya Mehta Elizabeth Bittel (Sociology, SUNY University) (Comparative & World Literature, Cortland) University of Illinois, Urbana- September 27: “CAMP: Cinema Champaign) February 17: “‘Alexa, Was at a Time of More Cameras than Buddha Born in Nepal?’ People,” Shaina Ahmad October 28: Reason film Microcelebrity and Digital screening with Director, Anand Diaspora on YouTube,” Dannah September 27: Hindustani Flute Patwardhan Dennis (Anthropology, Hamilton concert, Ronu Majumdar College) November 1: “100 Words of Hope” Asha Fall 2019 Concert, February 17: “An Evening of Prateek Kuhad Indian Classical Music,” Arun Ramamurthy

22 OUTREACH

Community College Collaborations

In 2019-2020, SAP expanded our outreach activities with community colleges and schools of education, overseen by Post-Secondary Outreach Coordinator Kathi Colen Peck.

Our collaborations have deepened with SAP continued our Community Pierson is Professor of English at OCC, our consortium partner, the South Asia College Internationalization Fellows where he teaches English and English as a Center at Syracuse University, as well as (CCIF) and Global Education Faculty Second Language (ESL) composition and with Cornell’s Southeast Asia Program Fellows (GEFF) programs, supporting our sophomore-level literature courses. His and Latin American Studies Program. 2019-2020 fellows and welcoming a new research focuses on the relevance of We have collectively partnered with three cohort of fellows. CCIF fellow Robert Mikhail Bakhtin’s philosophy of language community colleges: Monroe Community Muhlnickel, Associate Professor of to composition and literary studies. College (MCC), Onondaga Community Philosophy at MCC, finished his project Pierson holds a PhD in comparative College (OCC), Tompkins Cortland on “Internationalizing Text Resources in literature from Purdue University. His Community College (TC3); and three Philosophy.” As part of his fellowship, he CCIF is “Internationalizing the Content schools of education: SUNY Cortland revised his textbook, Introduction to Moral of English 104: Freshman Composition School of Education, SUNY Buffalo State Philosophy, to include significantly more and Literature II.” School of Education, and Syracuse Asian material, which is now being used Alejandro Gonzalez-Suarez is a Civil University School by other MCC faculty. Muhlnickel also Engineer and earned his Master’s degree of Education. convened a faculty reading group at MCC in Environmental Engineering. He In September 2019, Indian filmmaker on “Classical Philosophy and teaches Structural Design, Surveying, and Swati Dandekar screened her film, Neeli Contemporary Education,” bringing Construction Materials for the Raag (True Blue), at all three community together faculty from History, English, Department of Construction and colleges, as well as at Cornell Cinema (see Sociology and Developmental Education Environmental Technology at TC3. p. 26). Later that month, Amita Gupta, departments. GEFF fellow Jeremy Formerly, he directed an international Professor of Early Childhood Education, Jiménez, Assistant Professor in the exchange program at Cornell and worked at City College, CUNY, spoke at Cornell, Foundations and Social Advocacy in international development projects SUNY Cortland, and Syracuse on “The Department at SUNY Cortland, related to drinking water infrastructure in Influence of Local and Global Discourse developed new course modules and Nicaragua. In January 2020, Alejandro on Parental Beliefs and Practices of assignments on environmental justice in was awarded a CAORC-AIIS Faculty Indian Parents.” In November 2019, SAP South and Southeast Asia, which he Development Fellowship to travel to India South Asian Studies Fellow gave a incorporated into the required course for as part of the Exploring Urban presentation, “A Window to the Doors of all education students, “Race, Class, Sustainability through India’s Cities faculty Kathmandu,” at OCC. Several activities Gender Issues in Education.” development seminar (see page 24). His planned for the spring 2020 term were SAP welcomed two new CCIF fellows CCIF project is entitled “Construction unfortunately cancelled or indefinitely for 2020-2021: Stephen Pierson and Technology in New York and New Delhi: postponed due to the coronavirus. Alejandro Gonzalez-Suarez. Stephen A Comparative Understanding.”

23 Welcoming a decade of unknowns: India’s cars and chaos gave me hope for the 2020s By Alejandro Gonzalez

wenty hours and counting on various forms of bridge, large or small, was left standing. Landslides swallowed transportation as I crossed an ocean, with a stop in roads. Highways sunk into rivers. a desert metropolis. Now in a taxi, on a much What started as a soft “chi-chi”, the sound of rain pattering on slower journey in New Delhi’s traffic. I am tired. I clay-shingled rooftops, left Nicaragua and Honduras with a death am in a foreign land. Why then, a familiarity? toll upwards of 18,000. The majority of the countries’ crops were An old friendly tug of recognition beckons us at destroyed, and more than a million people were left homeless. We moments of having come back to ourselves after cannot know when and how chaos will shape us. My father having been distanced for too long. These colors, these smells, declared he didn’t like that “chi-chi” sound anymore. Having Tthis collage of India’s urban sprawl is all new to me—cars beeping already lived through the upheavals of both revolution and civil in syncopated rhythms, scattered people, animals, as many carts war, what he heard in that pitter-patter was the familiar sound of as cars. The off-tune chorus of vendors cuts through my recent irreversible change on its way. memories of the United States, a country defined by order, neat Representatives of India’s government water entity introduce lawns and square blocks. Vacant roads, people tucked away neatly us to enormous challenges. New Delhi supplies 920 million in houses, and cars in garages, have, after several years, already gallons per day of drinking water to 20 million people. To put etched themselves onto me. But perhaps this mark is only surface that in perspective, New York City’s system offers 1 billion gallons deep, for it is chaos now that reaches my core, reminding me of per day for a population of 8.5 million. Water coverage in the the Managua of my youth. greater Delhi area does not include services to informal My tired eyes will record two lasting impressions of New Delhi: settlements. Not being recognized by the authorities means a lack its chaos and its cars. I let go of questioning, for the time being, of basic services. It is a permanent struggle for the people in favor of some expanding sense of connectedness, which I residing in India’s “not-notified slums” to achieve the legality of hadn’t previously known could stretch across the world and join the place where they live so that they can obtain basic services. me in this strange new place. During the seminar, a new colleague asked me, “Why the The Council of American Overseas Research Center-American obsession with water?” Though I can articulate an intellectual Institute of Indian Studies Faculty Development Seminar on answer, what I wish I could share is what cannot be known urban sustainability, held December 2019 to January 2020, had a intellectually. There is the experience of a built environment, common thread about access to water woven throughout our which gives structure to our lives, leveled in a matter of weeks. visits to New Delhi, Jaipur, and Lucknow, just as it has been a There is the experience of not knowing where the next water theme during my life. In 1998, catastrophic flooding from comes from. There is the shared experience of families rationing Hurricane Mitch blew northern Nicaragua’s infrastructure away the last precious water saved in buckets; of crowds, entire as if it were nothing but a fragile window, easily shattered. No neighborhoods, walking into the hills together carrying every

24 Photographs by Alejandro Gonzalez

Participants of the CAORC-AIIS Faculty Development Seminar at the Taj Mahal on January 1, 2020 (Gonzalez second from left in back row).

crude receptacle we could find to fill from some trickle, India develops and produces its own brands of vehicles, of somewhere. I left home with those memories, and at the same construction machinery, and industrial equipment. The effects of time I have never left them. my own country’s utter dependence on these types of imports My students at Tompkins Cortland Community College can have been staggering. confirm that I am passionate about technology, the materials and Can I know that being comfortable with chaos, and having fundamentals of construction, right down to the formulas and the their own production of cars, will lead to successes in India? I math. But there are different ways of knowing that I do not know cannot. Two weeks in a country is only enough to become how to share with them, and this is what I am in search of in acquainted with how much one does not know. I make plans to India. Never will I know anything intellectually the way urgency return, to share with my students the reasons we can learn from has insisted on my knowing water as a keystone to development. India’s self-sufficiency and aptness for innovation, as unsettling I have never been taught anything that has impacted me like rates of urban migration launch us all into new urgencies. necessity. Nothing I have done in my life has mattered more I am on my way to forming a belief that if comfort with chaos than joining others in sourcing clean water. can awaken perceptions of reality and bust open mind-sets, it From the academic sector, we hear of plans to implement a could also give us evolutionary change. But it is not yet 2020. I mega-project to prevent pollution by building treatment plants celebrate the new year and kick-off a decade with a group of for wastewater before it is discharged into the Yamuna river. In intelligent, introspective, dedicated scholars, all still unaware of some cases, NGOs are developing and promoting appropriate what we are on the brink of: a novel coronavirus pandemic, as technologies with communities. The Segal Foundation works in well as the “pandemic of racism” leading to mass demonstrations. the design and construction of levees to allow rain runoff to Systems we find ourselves steeped in day-to-day contribute recharge aquifers exhausted by over-exploitation. In Jaipur we significantly to how we respond. How will we know what we are visit a city water treatment plant operated by a private capable of, if not for the upheaval of our lives as we have known corporation. Not uncommon, but what stands out for me is that them? Visible realities of systemic inadequacies around every turn this private corporation is Indian, not transnational. in India’s northern cities reminded me to see. They woke me up Rich history and monuments now coexist with the socio- from a more unsettled knowing we endure when the struggles of economic and environmental challenges generated by the stress ‘away’ neighborhoods and ‘away’ countries are tucked in neatly, of a growth so rapid that these metropolises have yet to meet swept to the edges of fast and functional lives. Responsiveness demands. I see this, and, I also see researchers, resources, and agility have been known to appear on ships with burning autonomy, and self-sufficiency. My surprise in observing the make decks. Perhaps we have a way of finding ourselves where we of the unfamiliar cars on my arrival day becomes admiration. need to be. Originally appeared as a CAORC blog (July 20, 2020)

25 Photography of indigo dyer, Odhelu, by Swati Dandekar

attended by South Asia student club members who deeply appreciated the stunning cinematic journey to India in between True Blue their morning and afternoon classes. After, Swati and I headed to lunch at the nearby Firekeepers Restaurant in the Onondaga Nation on our way to Ithaca for an evening showing at Cornell Cinema. Travels The evening event at Cornell drew a wide audience, from students, staff and faculty, to fiber artists and other artisans By Kathi Colen Peck in and around Ithaca, to film and documentary enthusiasts. With this larger audience in a venue especially befitting her The documentary film Neeli Raag (True Blue), made its way to our beautifully shot and edited film, the Q&A with the filmmaker region in September 2019 when the Bangalore-based filmmaker/ was a robust and diverse discussion on both the magical director Swati Dandekar visited the South Asia Program and our processes of indigo-making and the backstory on how three community college partners for a series of intimate Dandekar was inspired to tell this story. It was an intimate screenings of her new film. In True Blue, Dandekar beautifully conversational gathering. captures the story of indigo, a plant that produces a blue dye, Mid-morning on Tuesday September 10, we headed to and its complicated 4,000-year-old history. The film invites us in Tompkins Cortland Community College in Dryden to screen the to see the inner workings of the few remaining South Indian film, primarily for communications & media arts students who artisans who, even today, methodically transform the green had a distinct interest in the filmmaking and editing process. In leaves of indigofera tinctoria into a deep blue pigment for weavers, the afternoon, we moved on to Monroe Community College in spinners, and clothmakers alike, and maintain their centuries- Rochester to prepare for the evening open-to-the-public old handmade traditions. screening in their newly renovated theater space. As a longtime indigo grower and small-batch natural dyer In each screening, Dandekar and True Blue were very well myself, I was at once captivated by Dandekar, her film, and her received. It was a two-day whirlwind, in stark contrast to the dedication to shining light on this stunning, albeit fading, rhythmic pace of the cinematic journey portrayed in the film. practice. In four screenings over two days, Dandekar shared her For me, and I imagine for many others, Swati’s visit and her film beautiful, hypnotic film and so graciously answered all our inspired curiosity, renewed interest in a dyer’s practice, and questions. She and I dashed from Syracuse to Ithaca to Dryden friendship—true blue friendship. to Rochester, squeezed in meals, stayed in odd accommodations, In addition to her documentary filmmaking and storytelling, and laughed through it all. It was a breakneck pace for revealing Dandekar is the Head of Program for Film at the Srishti her gift of storytelling in True Blue, and it was lovely. Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore, India. Her On Monday September 9, 2019, Dandekar screened True Blue visit was co-sponsored by Syracuse University’s South Asia in Syracuse at Onondaga Community College (OCC) during its Center, and supported by our National Resource Center grant 11:00 am College Hour break. This screening was in large part from the U. S. Department of Education.

26 Hunger Around the World: Teaching Food Security at Home and Abroad By Emera Bridger Wilson

The annual International Summer Studies Institute (ISSI) While each speaker focused on the specificities of food looked and felt a little different in 2020, since we met with K-12 security in their regions, some common themes, such as climate teachers and scholars virtually due to COVID-19. But the change, increasing globalization of food chains, and the use of pandemic made the event even more timely, given its focus on technology to increase food production, emerged throughout the food insecurity around the world. Scholars reflected on changes presentations. Timothy Gorman, assistant professor of sociology in food security over time in South Asia, Southeast Asia, East at Montclair State University and Cornell alum, discussed Asia, Africa, and the United States, as well as the impact of the climate change as being one of the biggest threats to food novel coronavirus. security in Vietnam. Food security is defined as “all people at all times having Brandon Kane, General Manager of GreenStar Co-op in physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and Ithaca, discussed how GreenStar responded to COVID-19 nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary disruptions in their increasingly global supply chains. While needs for an active and healthy life.” Both Lin Fu, research many of their products were not disrupted because they are fellow with Cornell’s Emerging Markets Program, and Mathew sourced locally, this is not the case in many places. Parts of East Abraham, Assistant Director of the Tata-Cornell Institute, Asia and Africa are heavily dependent on food imports, which stressed that stable access, affordability, and quality are the three were significantly disrupted by COVID-19 precautions and main dimensions that need to be considered when looking at a shutdowns. To bring this point home, Raylene Ludgate, youth country’s or community’s food security. program coordinator at the Cornell Botanic Gardens, discussed Abraham spoke about the ways in which a mismatch between how teachers can discuss issues of food security, food waste, and agricultural policies and people’s nutritional needs has climate change with their students in ways that would make exacerbated malnutrition in India. While there has been an these issues more concrete for them. increase in agricultural production since the 1970s and an overall The primary goal of ISSI is to give educators resources so that decrease in poverty, India still has a high rate of malnutrition. they feel confident in incorporating international content into Indian government agricultural and nutritional policies have their curricula. Several of the teachers that participated this year long focused on the production and distribution of cereal crops, have already shared draft lesson plans which indicate ways in particularly wheat and rice. While important to the Indian diet, which they can pass on the information that they learned to their these foods do not provide all of the micronutrients needed for a students in New York state. balanced diet. Abraham argued that a shift to social safety net This year’s ISSI was supported by Cornell University’s Mario programs, which would provide cash transfers rather than in-kind Einaudi Center for International Studies, South Asia Program, transfers, would provide low-income and vulnerable people the Southeast Asia Program, Institute for African Development, East Asia opportunity to diversify their diets, decreasing malnutrition due Program, Latin American Studies Program and Cornell Institute for to a deficiency of micronutrients. Furthermore, empowerment European Studies; Syracuse University’s Moynihan Institute for programs for women and children and water and sanitation Global Affairs and the South Asia Center; TST-BOCES, and the U.S. programs are also needed to decrease malnutrition in India. Department of Education Title VI Program.

27 ANNOUNCEMENTS

Aparajita Majumdar at the foot of a ficus elastica tree in Meghalaya, India Einaudi-funded PhD students SAP Occasional Papers think globally, act remotely Available Online by Priya Pradhan & Sheri Englund The South Asia Program is proud to announce that the following nine publications from our Occasional Papers series, published Aparajita Majumdar, PhD candidate in history, spent six hours between 1971 and 1996, are now available as open-access PDF in summer 2019 hiking through the Khasi hills of eastern India downloads, via our website. In addition, forty-two South Asia to find one of the region’s famed living root bridges. Program bulletins, going back to 1990, are now available as open She conducted summer international research critical to access PDF documents as well. their dissertations through the 2019 Einaudi-SSRC Disserta- tion Proposal Development Program. The Crisis on the Indian Subcontinent and the Birth of Bangladesh: This past year, the sixteen PhD students in the cohort refined A Selected Reading List, by Ved P. Kayastha, 1971. their dissertation plans with help from faculty mentors and intensive workshops, while adapting to unforeseen obstacles Panchayat Raj, Rural Development and the Political Economy of created by the global pandemic. Now in its fourth year, the Village India, by Norman C. Nicholson, 1978. Einaudi-SSRC program, sponsored by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, with additional funding from The Mahabharata - Selected Annotated Bibliography, by J. Bruce the Social Science Research Council, provides professional Long, 1975. development and fieldwork support of up to $5,000. Majumdar, who last year trekked through India to research Ecological Backgrounds of South Asian Prehistory, edited by how the rubber tree enables literal and figurative bridge- Kenneth A.R. Kennedy and Gregory L. Possehl, 1976. building in indigenous communities, said she particularly benefited from the workshops with faculty mentors, which Sinhalese Domestic Life in Space and Time, by Robert D. gave her perspective on the review process for graduate grants. MacDougall and Bonnie MacDougall, 1971. She was able to build on her success in the Einaudi-SSRC program by applying for additional funding from SSRC. Master’s and Doctoral Thesis on South Asia Accepted by Cornell Majumdar was one of seventy from across the country selected University, by Ved Kayastha, 1996 (Revised edition). for the Mellon International Dissertation Research Fellowship. The fellowship provides a full year of support to PhD Urban Structures and Transformations in Lucknow, India, by Keith candidates working on international dissertations in the Hjortshoj, 1979. humanities and social sciences. SAP Faculty Durba Ghosh, professor of history and one of Anthropology in Pakistan: Recent Socio-Cultural and Archeological the program’s co-leaders, is excited to see how the new cohort Perspectives, edited by Stephen Pastner and Louise Flam, 1982. will respond to the current challenges. “Like many programs,” Ghosh said, “we changed our schedule to work around this Mesolithic Human Remains from the Gangetic Plain: Sarai Nahar semester’s disruption, but we’re confident that the program’s Rai, by Kenneth A. R. Kennedy, Nancy C. Lovell and workshops will keep us going as we figure out how we all move Christopher B. Burrow, 1986. forward with international research.”

Originally appeared in Cornell Chronicle (May 20, 2020)

28 ACHIEVEMENTS

Selected SAP Faculty Publications 2019–20

Anindita Banerjee & Debra Julia L. Finkelstein, Saurabh Sital Kalantry. “When ‘Creeping Sarosh Kuruvilla. “The Castillo, eds. South of the Future: Mehta, Salvador Villalpando, Jurisdiction’ Goes Awry: The Trajectories of Industrial Marketing Care and Speculating Veronica Mundo-Rosas, Sarah Social Action Litigation to Ban Relations in China and India.” in Life in South Asia and the Americas. V. Luna, Maike Rahn, Teresa Surrogacy.” in Judicial Review: Perspectives of Neoliberalism, Labor Albany: State University of New Shamah-Levy, Stephen E. Beebe Process, Powers, and Problems, and Globalization in India: Essays York Press, 2020. & Jere D. Haas. “A Randomized Salman Khurshid, Sidharth in Honour of Lalit K. Deshpande, Trial of Iron-Biofortified Luthra, Lokendra Malik & Shruti K. R. Shyam Sunder, ed. London: Daniel Bass & B. Skanthakumar, Beans in School Children in Bedi, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge Palgrave MacMillan, 225-253, eds. Up-country Tamils in Sri Lanka: Mexico.” Nutrients. 11 (2): 381, University Press, 79-106, 2020. 2019. Charting a New Future. Colombo: 2019. International Centre for Ethnic Ravi Kanbur. “Gunnar Myrdal and Sarosh Kuruvilla, Mingwei Liu, Studies, 2020. Samantha Lee Huey, Asian Drama in Context,” in Asian Chunyun Li, and Wansi Chen. Julia L. Finkelstein, Sudha Transformations: An Inquiry into the “Field Opacity and Practice Daniel Bass. “Charting Uncertain Venkatramanan, Shobha Udipi, Development of Nations, Deepak Outcomes Decoupling. Private Futures: Diaspora, Citizenship Padmini Ghugre, Varsha Thakker, Nayyar, ed. Oxford: Oxford Regulation of Labor Standards in and Belonging among Up-country Aparna Thorat, Ramesh Potdar, University Press, 29-51, 2019. Global Supply Chains.” Tamils” in Up-country Tamils in Harsha Chopra, Anura Kurpad, Industrial and Labor Relations Sri Lanka: Charting a New Future, Jere D. Haas & Saurabh Mehta. Paul Shaffer, Ravi Kanbur, and Review, 73 (4): 841-872, 2020. Daniel Bass & B. Skanthakumar, “Prevalence and Correlates of Richard Sandbrook. Immiserizing eds. Colombo: International Undernutrition in Young Growth: When Growth Fails the Poor. Santanu Sarkar & Sarosh Centre for Ethnic Studies, 3-22, Children Living in Urban Slums Oxford: Oxford University Press, Kuruvilla. “Constructing 2020. of Mumbai, India: A Cross 2019. Transnational Solidarity: The Sectional Study.” Frontiers in Role of Campaign Governance.” Arnab Basu, Nancy Chau & Public Health 7:191, 2019. Ravi Kanbur & Venkat British Journal of Industrial Vidhya Soundararajan. “Wage Venkatasubramanian. Relations. 58 (1), 27-49, 2020. Fairness in a Subcontracted Labor Julia L. Finkelstein, Anura “Occupational Arbitrage Market.” Journal of Economic Kurpad, Beena Bose, Tinku Equilibrium as an Entropy Kaja McGowan. “Architects in the Behavior and Organization. 168: Thomas, Krishnamachari Maximizing Solution.” The Eye of the Storm: Reflections on 24-42, 2019. Srinivasan & Christopher European Physical Journal Special Teaching Southeast Asian Art in Duggan. “Anaemia and iron Topics 229: 1661–1673, 2020. a University Museum.” Southeast Arnab Basu, Nancy Chau, Gary deficiency in pregnancy and of Now: Directions in Contemporary Fields & Ravi Kanbur. “Job adverse perinatal outcomes in Sabrina Karim. “Women in UN and Modern Art in Asia 4 (1): Creation in a Multi-Sector Labor Southern India.” European Peacekeeping Operations.” in 207-220, 2020. Market Model for Developing Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 74 (2): Women and Gender Perspective Economies.” Oxford Economic 112-125, 2020. in the Military: An International Mukul Majumdar. Sustainability Papers. 71 (1): 119-144, 2019. Comparison, Mayesha Alam & and Resources: Theoretical Issues in Durba Ghosh. “Whither India?: Robert Egnell, eds. Washington: Dynamic Economics. Hackensack: Kaushik Basu. New Technology and 1919 and the Aftermath of the Georgetown University Press, World Scientific, 2020. Increasing Returns: The End of the First World War.” Journal of Asian 2019. Antitrust Century? Bonn: Institute Studies 78 (2): 389-97, 2019. Barry Perlus. Celestial Mirror: of Labor Economics, 2019. Morgan L. Ruelle, Karim-Aly The Astronomical Observatories of Iago Gocheleishvili. Modern Kassam, Stephen Morreale, Jai Singh II. New Haven: Yale Kaushik Basu. An Economist’s Persian for Elementary Level: Like Zemede Asfaw, Alison Power University Press, 2020. Miscellany: From the Groves of A Nightingale. London: Anthem & Timothy Fahey. “Biocultural Academe to the Slopes of Raisina Press, 2020. Diversity and Food Sovereignty: Prabhu Pingali. “The Green Hills. Oxford: Oxford University A Case Study of Human-Plant Revolution and Crop Press, 2020. Sital Kalantry & Arindam Nandi. Relations in Northwestern Biodiversity.” in Biological “Evaluating the Impact of the Ethiopia.” Food Security 11(1): Extinction: New Perspectives, Sarah Besky. Tasting Qualities: The Indian Supreme Court Judgment 183-199, 2019. Partha Dasgupta, Peter Raven & Past and Future of Tea. Berkeley: on Sex-Selective Abortion.” Anna McIvor, eds. Cambridge: University of California Press, Cornell Legal Studies Research Mary Katzenstein, Nolan Bennett, Cambridge University Press, 2020. Paper 19-24, 2019. & Jacob Swanson. “Alabama is 175-192, 2019. US: Concealed Fees in Jails and Iftikhar Dadi. “The Zinda Bhaag Sital Kalantry & Jocelyn Getgen Prisons.” UCLA Criminal Justice Soumya Gupta, Prabhu Pingali Assemblage: Notes on Reflexivity Kestenbaum. “Acid Attacks in Law Review, 4(1): 259-268, 2020. & Per Pinstrup-Andersen. and Form,” in Love, War & Other India: The Case for State and “Women’s Empowerment and Longings: Essays on Cinema in Corporate Accountability for Nidhi Subramanyam & Neema Nutrition Status: The Case of Iron Pakistan, Vazira Zamindar and Gender-Based Crimes.” Cornell Kudva. “Acquiescence in the Face Deficiency in India.” Food Policy, Asad Ali, eds. Karachi: Oxford Legal Studies Research Paper 19-27, of Dispossession in the Mahindra 88: 101763, 2019. University Press, 86–113, 2020. 2019. World City Special Economic Zone, Tamil Nadu, India.” Namita Dharia & Mary N. Woods. Environment and Planning C: “Women Architects in India: Politics and Space, 2020. Dreaming through Design.” Marg 72 (1): 76–87, 2020.

29 Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition Scholars

Tata-Cornell Scholars include a Kiera Crowley Amrutha Pampackal Vanisha Sharma multidisciplinary group of Cornell PhD, Soil and Crop Sciences PhD, Development Sociology PhD, Applied Economics and graduate students who are actively Kiera Crowley is interested Amrutha Pampackal is interested Management engaged in applied and field-based in innovation diffusion and in studying the sociology of Vanisha Sharma has research research aligning with TCI’s key the adoption of conservation access to food, particularly among interest in the intersection research priorities Research topics agriculture technologies among marginalized communities in of malnutrition and women’s relate to food and nutrition security, farmers in India’s Indo-Gangetic India. empowerment in rural India. agriculture development and food Plain. system transformation in India. Chanchal Pramanik Anna David Thottappilly Learn more at: tci.cornell.edu. Natasha Jha PhD, City and Regional Planning PhD, Applied Economics and PhD, Applied Economics and Chanchal Pramanik has primary Management Bindvi Arora Management research interest in rural-urban Anna David Thottappilly looks PhD, Food Science and Technology Natasha Jha studies the linkages dynamics and how they can into issues related to development Bindvi Arora is interested in between agriculture and nutrition benefit rural economies, with a and social mobility. She is developing novel food products and how these are likely to be focus on digital technologies. interested in policy-oriented and improving upon existing impacted by climate shocks. research that could aide in popular foods that can cater to the Vidya Bharathi Rajkumar bridging the inequality gap. nutritionally deficient populations Ekta Joshi PhD, Applied Economics and by interventions in processing PhD, Applied Economics and Management Sonali Uppal technologies and use of alternate Management Vidya Rajkumar focuses on MA Public Administration ingredients. Ekta Joshi examines how understanding the impact of male Sonali Uppal is interested in agriculture can be an effective outmigration on the women left the intersection of development Jocelyn Boiteau instrument for economic behind in India’s agrarian areas, economics and agricultural PhD, International Nutrition development in developing both on and off the farm. livelihood, as well as the Jocelyn Boiteau conducts research countries. mechanisms for improving on estimating and understanding Kavya Krishnan Shree Saha agricultural returns and quantity and quality food loss of PhD, Soil and Crop Sciences PhD, Applied Economics and generating secure and sustainable fruits and vegetables in Indian Kavya Krishnan studies soil Management livelihood opportunities for the food value chains. health, particularly its effects on Shree Saha researches women’s existing workforce and potential food security. empowerment, maternal and child entrants Shivranjani Baruah nutrition, financial inclusion, and PhD, Plant Pathology and Plant- Sumedha Minocha development. Microbe Biology MS/PhD, Applied Economics and Shivranjani Baruah has research Management Kasim Saiyyad interests in exploring the Sumedha Minocha studies the MS, Applied Economics and intricacies of plant-pathogen complex ways in which food Management interactions at the molecular systems work in developing Kasim Saiyyad explores the level in order to inform decision countries, particularly their factors associated with poverty making related to crop protection. impact on nutrition and health- and their effects on food choices related outcomes and the role of and nutrition, particularly in public policies in shaping these developing countries. outcomes.

30 Recently Graduated Students Foreign Language and

Amit Anshumali Claire Elliot Area Studies (FLAS) PhD, Development Sociology MA, Asian Studies Changes in Men’s and Women’s From LanNa to Lanka: Regional Fellows 2020–21 Economic Roles in Rural Indian Bhikkhuni Identities and Households, 2009-2014 Transnational Buddhist Politics

Rohil Sahai Bhatnagar Kamala Eyango Ian Bellows PhD, Food Science and MPS, International Agriculture Degree: MA, Asian Studies Technology and Rural Development Language: Nepali Developing Microalgae-Based Research Interests: Nepal and the Himalaya, the Fortified Wheat Flour to Address Iron Jeh Gagrat intersectionality of tourism and development, and the Malnutrition in India MA, Asian Studies politics and economics of expedition mountaineering An Examination of the Executive Yagna Nag Chowdhuri Tools used to influence judicial Kiera A. Crowley PhD, Asian Literature, Religion appointments to the Supreme Court Degree: PhD, Soil and Crop Sciences and Culture of India and the High Courts in the Language: Hindi Assembling the Figure: Gurus, context of the Indian Emergency Research Interests: Scaling of sustainable agricultural Seekers and the Pedagogy of Self- (1975-77) practices among smallholder farmers in India to improve soil Transformation health, resilience to climate change, and productivity Noel Konagai Rehan Dadi Shoshana Goldstein MS, Information Science PhD, City and Regional Planning Understanding the Use of WhatsApp Degree: MRP, City and Regional Planning Planning the Millennium City: The by Teacher Groups in Low-Income Language: Hindi Politics of Place-Making in Gurgaon, South Indian Schools Research Interests: Racial, gender, and economic inequalities India in international planning, and how it balances them in terms Lavanya Nott of environmental concerns Samantha Huey MA, Asian Studies Daniel Loebell PhD, Nutrition The RTE Act in Bengaluru: A Study Nutrition, Gut Microbiota, and in the Contradictions of Neoliberal Degree: MA, Asian Studies Immune Response Among Children in Welfare Language: Nepali Urban Slums of Mumbai Research Interests: China One-Belt-One-Road engagement Duaa Randhawa in South Asia, comparative politics, transitional democracies, Kathryn Merckel MPS, International Development economic development and legal dispute resolution PhD, International Nutrition mechanisms Building Evidence for Nutrition- Suryakiran Rayaprolu James MacDonald Sensitive Agriculture: The MS, Design and Experience of OFSP in India Environmental Analysis Degree: MS Global Development Closing the Loop: Exploring Language: Nepali Fatma Rekik Stakeholder Acceptance of Wastewater Research Interests: Sustainable development, ecological PhD, Soil Science Treatment Technology and Water design, agroecology, climate change, renewable energy, Soil Health, A Basis For Human Reuse in Tirupur, India integrated landscape management Health: A Study on The Interlinkages Between Agronomic Factors and Leala Rosen Michal Matejczuk Human Nutritional Wellbeing In MPS, International Development Degree: PhD, Food Science and Technology Jharkhand, India Who Benefits? Gender Equity and Language: Hindi Social Inclusion Among Community Research Interests: International food science, food Shiuli Vanaja Forest User Groups in Nepal: safety regulations, handling and preservation of fruits PhD, Applied Economics and Who Benefits? and vegetables in rural farming communities, indigenous Management fermented-food technologies, and food assistance in global Essays on the Time Use and Mahrusah Zahin disaster relief Behavioral Patterns of Women’s MPA Public Administration Access to Household Water Sasha Prevost in Rural India Arjun Chaturvedi, BS, Physics Degree: PhD, Near Eastern Studies Language: Persian Anthony Wenndt Vanathi Ganesan, BS, Biological Research interests: Jewish and Muslim diasporas, Sufism, PhD, Plant Pathology and Plant- Sciences and Persian literature Microbe Biology Participatory Mycotoxin Amrit Hingorani, BS, Biological Management in India and the Sciences & Nutritional Sciences Genetic Determinants of Symptom Manifestation in the Sorghum Grain Nayanathara Palanivel, BS, Mold Disease Complex Computer Science

Julianna Schwindt, BA, Asian Studies

Anuush Vejalla, BA, Asian Studies 31 Visiting Scholars 2019–20

Md. Tanvir Ahmed, Deputy Director, Bangladesh Delon Madavan, Researcher Fellow at the Centre Academy for Rural Development (BARD), was of Studies and Researches on India, South a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow. He is interested Asia and its Diaspora (CERIAS, University of in improving knowledge and expertise on Québec à Montréal, wCanada) and Post-doctoral international rural development and working Research Fellow at the Centre of Studies and on market linkages of agricultural commodities, Researches on India and South Asia (CEIAS, such as rice in developing countries. CNRS-EHESS, Paris, France), was the 2020 Tamil Studies Visiting Scholar. His research examines the articulation between migration, identity and space and forms of integration of Achyut Chetan, Assistant Professor of English, Tamil populations in several cities, including Santal Parganas College, Dumka, India, was Jaffna, Colombo, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, a South Asian Studies Fellow, with a project Paris and Montréal. At Cornell, he taught ASIAN on Founding Mothers of the Indian Republic in an 4437 Topics in Tamil Studies: Tamil Migration International Frame. After his return to India, he and Integration in Urban Contexts in the Spring began a new position, as Associate Professor of 2020 semester. (See p. 17 for more about his English, St. Xavier’s University, Kolkata. (See p. experiences at Cornell). 14 for more about his experiences at Cornell).

Nipun Prabhakar, an independent photographer and architect, based in New Delhi, was a South Kanchuka Dharmasiri, Senior Lecturer, Asian Studies Fellow, with a project on Portrait of Department of English, University of Peradeniya, Nepal through its Doors. (See p. 14 for more about Sri Lanka, was a South Asian Studies fellow, with his experiences at Cornell). a project on Many Phases of Ravana: Transcreations and Rewritings of Ravana in a Post-Colonial Sri Lankan Context. (See p. 15 for more about her experiences at Cornell). Biswajit Sarmah, a Ph. D. candidate in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, India, was a Fulbright India Doctoral Research fellow Anna Golovkova completed her Ph. D. in Asian at Binghamton University, working with Arnab Studies at Cornell in 2017 and was most recently Dey, Associate Professor of History. an A. W. Mellon Fellow in Religion at Bowdoin College. She is a historian of religion working on tradition formation and intersections of religion and gender in Hindu Tantric traditions. In Fall T. G. Suresh, Associate Professor in the Centre for 2020, she began a position as Assistant Professor Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University of Religion, Lake Forest College. (JNU), New Delhi, was a Fulbright-Nehru fellow. He works in the field of comparative political economy focusing on India and China. (See p. 8-9 for more about his research in India).

New website! einaudi.cornell.edu/ programs/south-asia- program

In summer 2020, SAP, along with the rest of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, updated our website. We have a new address, though the old address will still take you to our homepage. The South Asia Program welcomes your support

GIFTS from Cornell alumni and other friends are a key resource for SAP, allowing us to protect foundational strengths, while also expanding South Asian Studies at Cornell in innovative ways.

GIVING to the South Asia Program has never been easier. Just click the Support button on the upper right of our homepage, and you can give to SAP as a one-time or recurring gift. Should you wish to direct your gift more specifically (for instance, towards student fellowships), please contact Director Iftikhar Dadi at [email protected]. Professor Dadi will also help to coordinate larger gifts with appropriate offices at Cornell. About Us

he South Asia Program (SAP) is an Hindi, Nepali, Pali, Punjabi, Sanskrit, campus on a regular basis, enriching interdisciplinary hub for Cornell Sinhala, Tamil, Tibetan and Urdu. Cornell and the surrounding T students, faculty, staff, community Additionally, Persian is taught in the communities. SAP also has a significant members, and academic visitors, Department of Near Eastern Studies. outreach program which makes training located in the Mario Einuadi Center for Our special resources include a library on South Asia available to educators International Studies. SAP coordinates collection of more than 502,771 printed from K-12 schools, community colleges, teaching, research, and campus activities monographs and 9,859 serial titles in and schools of education. concerning the area comprising the hard copy; forty-seven core faculty and Since 1983, Cornell has collaborated nations of the Indian subcontinent: thirteen affiliated faculty in twenty-five with Syracuse University as a National Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, departments, teaching ninety-three Area Resource Center for South Asia, one of India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Studies courses and sixty-two language only eight nationally, sponsored by the and Sri Lanka. courses at levels from beginning to U. S. Department of Education. SAP The South Asia Program maintains advanced; and extensive outreach facilitates summer intensive language distinctive strengths and dedicated materials including films, web-based opportunities for students from Cornell expertise in several key areas, especially curricula, and hands-on teaching aids. and other universities on the Cornell South Asian humanities; social, SAP sponsors a weekly seminar campus, at the South Asia Summer scientific, and applied research on South series with presentations by local, Language Institute at the University Asia; and the languages and cultures of national, and international scholars, of Wisconsin-Madison, and at the Nepal and Sri Lanka. and organizes or co-sponsors numerous American Association for Indian Studies With the Department of Asian conferences and workshops every language programs in India. The South Studies, SAP is committed to teaching a year. SAP collaborates with student Asia Program also nurtures Cornell number of modern and classical South organizations to bring South Asian Abroad’s offerings in India, Nepal, Asian languages, including Bengali, cultural and performance events to and Sri Lanka.

FIND OUT ABOUT SAP EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES THROUGHOUT THE YEAR BY LIKING US ON FACEBOOK @SAPCORNELL OR INSTAGRAM @SAPCORNELL, AND FOLLOWING US ON TWITTER @SAPCORNELL SOUTH ASIA PROGRAM 170 Uris Hall Cornell University Ithaca, New York 14853-7601 Phone: 607-255-8923 [email protected] einaudi.cornell.edu/programs/ south-asia-program