The Newsletter | No.74 | Summer 2016 The Kolkata Narratives Bhupen Khakhar: (Calcutta) Stone of globalization You can’t please all Nigel Bullough & Peter Carey Christina Plant Tate Modern, London The Study | 4-5 The Review | 24 The Portrait | 56 theNewsletter Encouraging knowledge and enhancing the study of Asia 74Heaven’s authority Across Central Asia, heritage sites and commemorative practices have become visual protagonists of a nationalist rhetoric. This special issue analyses cultural memory practices used by former and current Central Asian elites as a tool for boosting ethno-nationalism. Multiple commemorative sites Memory and Memory and in Central Asiain Central serving as visual representations of the past are used to commemoration commemoration foster a sense of belonging and national pride among the multi-ethnic population. Guest editor Elena Paskaleva asks, how can these practices and local historical contingencies provide a better understanding of the search for national and religious identities in modern Central Asia? The Genghis Khan Equestrian Statue, Tsonjin Boldog, Mongolia. Photo reproduced under a creative commons license courtesy of Marco Fieber on Flickr. 2 | The Newsletter | No.74 | Summer 2016 Contents The Focus Memory and commemoration 3 From the Director in Central Asia THE STUDY 4-5 The Kolkata (Calcutta) Stone and the bicentennial Introduction | 29-31 of the British Interregnum in Java, 1811-1816 Nigel Bullough and Peter Carey Heritage sites and commemorative practices have become visual 6 Reminiscent of ‘The Age of Partnership’: VOC diplomatic letters from Batavia protagonists of a nationalist rhetoric in modern Central Asia. Central Irina Katkova 7 Globalized economy and the Chinese national Asia is defined as the region encompassing the former-Soviet republics, oil companies in addition to Xinjiang, Afghanistan and Mongolia. This special issue Changwei Tang 8-10 Heritage diplomacy along the One Belt One Road analyses cultural memory practices used by former and current Central Tim Winter Asian elites as a tool for boosting ethno-nationalism. 11 The Adspace THE OPINION 12-13 “And then the government fell. But the books continued!” An interview with Romila Thapar Byapti Sur and Kanad Sinha THE REGION 14-16 News from Northeast Asia 17-19 News from Southeast Asia THE REVIEW 20 Fighting for the future of the past in Bangkok Haoqun Gong 20 Amnesia is a state-sponsored sport Peter Admirand 21 Women living beyond the norms Linda Rae Bennett 22 New reviews on newbooks.asia 23 New titles on newbooks.asia 24 An interview with Julian CH Lee Christina Plant 24 Multicultural education in Indonesia Stefani Nugroho 32-33 38-39 25 Wonderland of 1001 prospects Zifa Auezova discusses the painful legacy of the Nienke van der Heide describes how the Niels Mulder 1916 Revolt in Turkestan and the Steppe Regions history of the Manas epic has been used by 26 Adaptation and transformations in Sikkim of the Russian Empire, based on the 1928 novel political elites in Kyrgyzstan. The mythical Ajaya N. Mali Qily Zaman (The Time of Ordeal), written by the forefather Manas and his companions are 26 From acrobatics to worship: bringing together Kazakh author Mukhtar Auezov. remembered as true ancestors who represent South Asian folklore the pride of the present Kyrgyz nation. Patrick van den Bergh 34-36 27 The ICAS Book Prize Publishers winners’ list Artemy Kalinovsky shows how the creation 40-41 28 The ICAS 10 Asian Studies Book Fair of the Tajik national opera and ballet was a Elena Paskaleva explores how the contemporary symbolic centrepiece of the Soviet policies Uzbek state legitimizes its policies by ‘imitating’ THE FOCUS in the 1930s. By discussing the debates on the the craftsmanship of the Timurid period, reviving 29-45 Memory and commemoration in Central Asia proper cultural forms for the new republics, the distinct Timurid visual morphology and Guest Editor: Elena Paskaleva and outlining the musical and literary sources visions of kingship. for the new operas, Kalinovsky traces the THE NETWORK tensions and contradictions of the Soviet 42-43 46 AUP Publications experiment in Tajikistan. Orhon Myadar illustrates how Chinggis Khan 47-49 IIAS Reports has been appropriated as a symbolic narrative 50-51 Announcements 37 of the new political ideology in Mongolia. His Gabrielle van den Berg draws our attention figure has been used as the foremost represen- 52 The Adspace to the Ismaili community of Badakhshan. tation of Mongolian national identity through The religious poetry maddoh as a devotional the state’s selective interpretation of history. 53 IIAS Research and Projects practice and a form of religious education 54-55 IIAS Fellowship Programme remained entirely outside the process of 44-45 ‘theatrification’. After the Civil war (1992-1997), Tomás Skinner describes the recent processes THE PORTRAIT maddohkhoni acquired a new public dimension of spatial cleansing and gentrification in Kashgar, 56 Bhupen Khakhar: You can’t please all with stage performances and local television the westernmost city of China and an important Tate Modern exhibition broadcasts. hub along the Silk Road. Focussing on the city’s urban heritage, he showcases the importance of the Silk Road as the most significant economic, political and cultural exchange network between the Orient and the West. The Newsletter | No.74 | Summer 2016 From the Director | 3 Fostering interactions the traditional community of scholars, students and other The Spring of 2016 at IIAS has been marked by the unusual conjunction and demands educators, who, taken separately, are always vulnerable to changes determined ‘from above’. of developing three major grant proposals. Two of them seek to contribute, This effort of a decentralised, connected, trans-sector knowledge-making process must be considered against in different ways, to the renewal of urban studies by further contextualising its a context, in which not just ‘regional studies’ but humanistic knowledge in general is under threat due to the corporatisation practice, and by engaging more with the local human ecologies. The third proposal, of higher education. The recent decision of the Japanese government, for example, to close down social science and more ambitious, seeks to set in motion a connected humanities platform aimed humanities programs is a case in point. The current dismant- ling of regional studies at the Australian National University at fostering new research and educational opportunities, built on an inclusive is another one. These developments reflect a growing gap in aspirations and views between those governing and international and trans-regional network of scholars and social cultural actors. those who are governed in many societies in Asia, Europe and elsewhere. Humanistic intellectual pursuits that seek Philippe Peycam meaning through comparisons, connections and correlations give sustenance for multi-vocal realities of the world they THESE APPLICATIONS, IF SUCCESSFUL, will determine many of agendas of area-based projects. The involvement of these specialised scholars represent. They often find themselves in contradiction with our activities for the next four years. The process of application will, however, be essential for culturally ‘translating’ research outcomes and for the prevalent discourse of socio-economic ‘relevance’. writing, not unusual in the life of an institute, is an important providing them with new significance beyond their places of origin. The critical question remains: what is the significance exercise because it forces us to reflect on what we have been The three envisaged programmes will indeed be insistent on locating regionally and implication of a research-led initiative, not just in terms of doing, what is worth pursuing and strengthening, and more framed phenomena in their multiplicity of connections and on seeking their conveying new meaning, but also in its potential to instil change generally, to see where the institute is heading in terms of potential universal significance, mainly through comparative analyses. IIAS is (by way of questioning and challenging)? We don’t know yet a broader direction and vision. ideally positioned to serve as a trans-regional facilitating platform for activities how far the programmes for which we hope to receive support All three initiatives share one major inflection: the effort on that, if grounded locally, have connections, ramifications and significances will help us to push our agenda of fostering genuine transcultural our part to devolve activities and agendas. This means not only regionally and throughout the world. interactions with and within Asia. What I am sure of, however, that IIAS-earmarked events take place in Asia (and sometimes Another feature of these projects in the making is that their research schemes, is that in the process of developing them, we have experienced Africa, Europe and America) with local partners, but also that in both their development and expected outcomes, hold the potential to generate first-hand a desire for new approaches beyond traditionally research agendas themselves, and their subsequent develop- transformations in education development, network building and local capacity delineated methods. In the deepening of inter-personal ties with ments, may now also emerge locally. The proposals have been building. The three programmes contain provisions for participants to engage colleagues and friends, from all walks of life, we have caught written through a bottom-up process, in which