Lekh: Recent Episodes
Karthik Nachiappan
Lekh podcast features conversations with authors who have published new and recent books on South Asia.
In the 35th episode, I speak to Kasia Paprocki, Associate Professor in Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science on her recent book Threatening Dystopias: The Global Politics of Climate Change Adaptation in Bangladesh published by Cornell University Press. The conversation begins by asking about the genesis of the book and the focus on Bangladesh. Then we move to understand why political economy questions should be asked when understanding climate change and its effects. Next, we tackle the book’s key conceptual contribution, that of an adaptation regime - what they constitute, where they exist, and how they configure climate interventions in specific contexts like Bangladesh. We also discuss how various domestic forces, especially elites, use the climate crisis and certain dystopian imaginaries to generate support for an export-driven economic model. The conversation ends covering the current discussion around climate futures’ and why it’s important to embed those ideas around deeper structural conditions which affect climate mitigation; whether we need new social science approaches to understand climate change; and the hardest parts of writing the book.
In the 34th episode, I speak to Aditya Balasubramanian, Lecturer in Economic History, at Australian National University on his first book Toward a Free Economy: Swatantra and Opposition Politics published by Princeton University Press. The conversation begins by enquiring about the origins of the project and why focus on Swatantra as an opposition party in post-independence India. Then we cover why this book appears to be the first ever written on economic conservatism in India. The conversation then moves to understand India’s political economy in 1950s that facilitated Swatantra’s rise. Then we move to the core of the book by exploring what Balasubramanian means by ‘free economy’ and how the concept differs from free market and why Swatantra Party leaders did not seriously think about the intersection of economics and law and the political conditions and motivations of the Indian middle class. The book also highlights the efforts of certain individuals/families like the Lotvalas’ who spread the gospel of economic conservatism through their organisation. The conversation ends by covering a big contribution of the book to the study of India’s political economy of development through the political ideas and work of associations and cultural figures; by asking why Indian films have not focused on or featured free-market ideas; and finally by asking what the book offers to the global history of neoliberalism.
https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/balasubramanian-a
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691205243/toward-a-free-economy
In the 33rd episode, I speak to Paul Staniland, Political Scientist at the University of Chicago on his recent book Ordering Violence: Explaining Armed Group-State Relations from Conflict to Cooperation published by Cornell University Press. The book is a theoretically savvy, empirically rich contribution on armed politics or how governments work with armed non-state actors across South Asian countries. The conversation begins by asking Staniland how a second book differs from the first before connecting his first book unpacking insurgent rebellions to the second that’s much broader in scope. Then we tackle the core focus and arguments of the book that covers armed politics or the relationship between the government and non-state armed groups and what shapes how governments work with these groups and why they sometimes choose not to and what happens when there’s alignment on some issues but not all. Then we move to discuss the connection between politics and violence and why a more sensitive context-specific approach is required to understand that dynamic. The conversation then explores the case studies that are all South Asian - India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Myanmar and the logic in selecting and analysing regionally comparative cases. The conversation ends by asking whether this specific dynamic could change when considering unarmed non-state actors like trade unions and religious organisations and how they work with governments in South Asia; the hardest part of writing the book; and what's next.
https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501761126/ordering-violence/#bookTabs=2
Politics of Opposition in South Asia - https://carnegieendowment.org/specialprojects/politicsofoppositioninsouthasia
In the 32nd episode, I speak to Ravinder Kaur and Nayanika Mathur, editors of a new volume The People of India: New Indian Politics in the 21st century published by Penguin. The collection includes concise chapters from leading scholars of South Asia who write about a person or concept that exemplifies the politics of contemporary India. The conversation begins by asking how the volume began before moving to understand what is ‘new’ and ‘politics’ in their understanding of Indian politics and why a fresh perspective was needed to make sense of recent shifts in Indian politics. Then we explore three features that constitute this new terrain of Indian politics - primacy of the politics of the protest; push toward hyper centralisation; and the ideological restructuring that centres shifts within a capital-religious framework. Both editors then speak about their own chapters in the volume that looks at the new virtual citizen or Bhakt (Kaur) and the India state or Sarkar (Mathur) and their relevance in the politics of the moment. The conversation ends by considering how the pandemic has affected the trends that Kaur and Mathur chronicle; the chapters that resonated with them; and how to use this opening to take this work forward.
In the 31st and final episode of 2022, I speak to LSE historian Taylor Sherman on her new book Nehru’s India: A History in Seven Myths published by Princeton University Press in October 2022. The conversation begins by asking Sherman how the book began, what she means by myths that exist around Nehru and how the availability of new sources and archives helped revisiting and reevaluating these longstanding myths. Next, we delve into these myths - that identify Nehru as the ‘architect’ of modern India; his foreign policy; secularism; democracy; socialism, and India’s strong state. The conversation ends with Sherman’s thoughts on what was the hardest myth to tackle, the best biography of Nehru, and what she's working on now.
Notes
Nehru's India - Princeton University Press
In the 30th episode, I speak to Historian Mircea Raianu at the University of Maryland on his recent book Tata: The Global Corporation That Built Indian Capitalism published by Harvard University Press in July 2021. The conversation begins by asking what sparked Raianu to write the book before he describes the materials and resources he accessed and used for the book. Next, we cover the book’s themes that makeup the book's structure and the reasoning behind picking these three themes: Tata’s overseas connections with the US and East Asia; control over land and resources; and scientific and technocratic expertise. We then discuss the book’s larger argument that of the Tata’s quasi-sovereign nature which allowed the firm to undertake and execute certain vital state-like functions over the 19th and 20th century. The conversation then dives into each of the three themes - overseas connections, Tata’s governance practices over land and resources, and their reliance on technocratic expertise and philanthropy. The conversation ends with Raianu's views on what aspects of the Tata’s operations and rise since the 1980's would feature in future histories of the storied firm and what Raianu is working on next.
In the 29th episode, I speak to Gowri Vijayakumar, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Brandeis University, on her recent book At Risk: Indian Sexual Politics and the Global AIDS Crisis published by Stanford University Press in 2021. The book shows how India’s AIDS response from the 1990s onward presented opportunities for social and political mobilisation for sexually marginalised groups, in turn, affecting the Indian government's AIDS strategy and response; India’s AIDS strategies, unfolding within a global AIDS field, transformed the space on which sex workers, sexual minorities and other groups engaged the Indian state, generating new demands and claims being made. The conversation begins by asking how Vijayakumar got interested in these issues, global health, social movements, and India’s AIDS crisis. Next, Vijayakumar describes the state of India’s sexual politics before the AIDS crisis, focusing on the Indian states approach to issues like HIV/AIDS before presenting the book’s argument. Then, we discuss the relational aspect covered in the book, influence of India’s HIV strategies on Kenya. Vijayakumar explains why she used a global ethnographic approach that required unpacking different sites, their actors and motivations and what this approach adds to the narrative. The next part of the conversation focuses on what Vijayakumar’s book and work tells us about the Indian state - how it functions, responds, adapts, and the relationship between politics and how the state addresses public health challenges like AIDS. The conversation ends by exploring Vijayakumar’s fieldwork, the hardest part of writing the book, and her future work.
In the 28th episode, I speak to Vidya Krishnan, journalist and author of The Phantom Plague: How Tuberculosis shaped History published by Hachette. The book’s a comprehensive and compelling social history of Tuberculosis ranging from the 19th century to its recent resurgence, especially across the developing world. The conversation begins by asking what prompted Vidya to begin working on the book and whether it began as a book on TB. Next, we cover the book’s critical framing that places and explains TB’s rise and resurgence through the emergence and perpetuation of systems of power that allows this scourge to persist across the developing world. Then, we unpack some of these special interests like the Gates Foundation that use their clout and influence to ensure this status quo remains. Krishnan also explains the difficulties of researching and writing about entities like the Gates Foundation given its sway over global health politics and policy. The conversation then moves to understand TB’s stubborn rise in India by looking at how the government has and has not handled the crisis before moving to understand how caste, class, and gender interacts with TB. Krishnan laments the paucity of stories of people who have and have had TB that could help sensitize the public about the disease and explains why we don’t get enough media coverage on TB. The conversation ends by asking what the hardest part of writing the book was and what Krishnan wants to do next.
In the 27th episode, I speak to Andrea Wright, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at William & Mary, on her recent book Between Dreams and Ghosts Indian Migration and Middle Eastern Oil (Stanford University Press, 2021). The book's an ethnography of Indian migration to the Gulf, focusing on workers in oil and gas projects in UW and Kuwait. Around a million Indians travel to the Gulf per year to work on such projects, largely men without formalized skills or education. The book captures their journey through the men making the trips, the recruiting agents and intermediaries enabling their employment, and government bureaucrats regulating such migrations. Such processes, as Wright argues, are part of larger trends related to global capitalism and neoliberalism that necessitate the need and demand for such labour and the actors who serve specific functions to fuel capital accumulation. The conversation begins by asking what led to Wright's interest in migration and Indian migration to the Gulf before exploring how this issue has been covered and explained by various literatures and why a different take was needed. Next, we unpack the book's arresting title and how poetics related to 'dreams and ghosts' are crucial to how migrants themselves situate their role in this process. Then we move to understand the methodology behind the project that involves multiple sites and the difficulties inherent in designing and implementing such a research exercise across countries. Conceptually, the book looks at migration through specific economic systems or logics, namely neoliberalism and Wright explains how this framing helped her think through the project. We close by understanding the role of the Indian state in this project/process, the role that gold plays in sustaining relations across continents, and what Wright thought was the hardest part of writing the book.
In the 26th episode, I speak to Bharat Venkat, Assistant Professor at Institute for Society and Genetics in the Department of History, UCLA, on his new book At the Limits of Cure (Duke University Press, 2021). The book’s an anthropological history of tuberculosis treatment in India that asks fundamental questions about what it means to be cured of a disease and what happens when cures don’t pan out. The conversation begins by asking Venkat what he means by cures and how we, as a society, determine when a cure is a cure or what conditions and factors influence and inform that determination. Next, I cover the puzzle that’s at the heart of the book: why individuals die of TB from other conditions like HIV after being treated. The book’s focus on India brings up the issue of why Indian cities became vulnerable to TB, sifting and weighing how different conditions, political, historical and structural, influenced TB patterns in the country. The conversation moves to understand how geography or ‘place’ interacts with these contextual factors to shape cures. Venkat also unpacks whether and how political economy considerations, that increasingly center around the discourse of chronic diseases which require sustained care and treatment, shape current notions of cure and being cured. Before ending, the conversation covers how Venkat sees or places the book from a disciplinary perspective, the impact of COVID-19 on our understanding of cures, the hardest parts of writing the book, and what he’s working on now.
Links
At the Limits of Cure - Duke University Press
In the 25th episode, I speak to Rajesh Veeraraghavan, Assistant Professor in the Science, Technology and International Affairs program at Georgetown University on his new book Patching Development: Information Politics and Social Change in India (OUP, 2022). The book shows how Indian bureaucrats used ‘patches’ to resolve pesky last miles problems in the implementation of India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee program (NREGA) in Andhra Pradesh. Borrowing the 'patching' concept, Veeraraghavan demonstrates how digital technologies allowed senior bureaucrats overcome conflicts that center around politics, caste, class and gender, which invariably stymie and thwart development programs. The conversation begins by by mapping Veeraraghavan’s non-linear career trajectory leading to the book. Next, I ask Veeraraghavan to lay out these thorny last mile problems and how they affect policy implementation before moving to address how ‘patching’ helps address these problems. Veeraraghavan then describes how he sees technologies or 'patches' as fundamentally politics, connected to how power is exercised by officials to control and manage programs. The latter half of the conversation delves into social audits and how they serve as another institutional 'patch' in this process, trials of fieldwork in Andhra Pradesh, and what’s next from Veeraraghavan.
In the 24th episode, I speak to Dwai Banerjee, Associate Professor, MIT, on his recent book Enduring Cancer: Life, Death, and Diagnosis in Delhi published by Duke University Press in 2020. The book is an ethnography of cancer in urban India. It focuses on the efforts of individuals in Delhi who negotiate and manage the disease, battling inept health systems and fragile kinship and community ties. The conversation begins by asking why the book focuses on cancer and whether it began as a study on cancer or public health in post colonial India. Then, we cover why cancer is ‘endured’ in India and not survived or persisted before moving to the importance of how the broader social worlds of individuals contribute to the enduring of cancer. A key part of how individuals navigate a cancer diagnosis in such fraught conditions is concealment, by not revealing their condition from family and others in their community. Banerjee explains why concealment appears to be a compelling strategy for cancer patients in deeply fragile public health systems. Then, Banerjee reveals how cancer intersects with conjugality or how households and spouses are affected by cancer. Finally, Banerjee explains why he chose to analyse Indian cancer memoirs and films, how they complement the ethnographic chapters and what they add to his book. The conversation ends by asking whether ‘endurance’ could help us understand and deal with a crisis like COVID-19 that has laid bare challenges endemic within India’s public health system.
Links
Enduring Cancer: Duke University Press
In the 23rd episode, I speak to Ravinder Kaur, Associate Professor of Modern South Asian Studies at the University of Copenhagen on her recent book Brand New Nation: Capitalist Dreams and Nationalist Designs in Twenty-First-Century India published by Stanford University Press in 2020. The book examines how various publicity campaigns enabled the Indian state to transform India into an attractive global investment destination. The conversation begins by asking how Kaur became interested in this topic after her first book which examined partition narratives. Next, it covers how Kaur conceives of the state and the functions of the state under intense capitalist pressures and how capitalism, in effect, services the needs of the state and nation, India in this case. Kaur argues that particularly important here to understand India’s economic transformation is the deployment of social and cultural markers to drive India’s investment patterns. The conversation moves to grasp how specific publicity images associated with national campaigns like 'India Story', 'New India' and 'Incredible India’, themselves embodying historical symbols, facilitated the creation of a distinct Indian brand that could elicit investments. The conversation ends by covering the larger implications of this politics which also fuelled the rise of then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi who deftly leveraged aspects of the Indian nation and the state to become India's Prime Minister and the Modi ‘brands’ ostensible unassailability despite crises like COVID-19, recent farmer protests and prolonged economic malaise. We end with what Kaur's reflections on the hardest parts of writing the book.
Notes
Brand New Nation - Stanford University Press
In the 22nd episode, I speak to Debjani Bhattacharyya, Associate Professor of History and Urban Studies, Drexel University and soon to be Professor and Chair of the History of the Anthropocene at the University of Zurich on her recent book Empire and Ecology in the Bengal Delta: The Making of Calcutta published by Cambridge University Press in 2018. The conversation begins by asking Bhattacharyya about how she arrived at this topic and issue before moving to understand how historians and histories covered Calcutta’s origins. Next, we unpack how British officials used legal and technological instruments to transform Calcutta's marshes and bogs to landed spaces that could be used for economic purposes including financial speculation. Bhattacharyya also elaborates on one particular event involving Benjamin Lacam who brought a case against the East India Company in 1777 alleging that the company cheated him of profits by canceling his land grant which laid bare the challenges in the nature of colonial knowledge about Calcutta's fluid landscape. Bhattacharyya explains why she engaged with and incorporated vernacular representations of riverine spaces and how locals in Calcutta imagined and inhabited these spaces. The book's importance to contemporary debates stems from the ongoing impact of climate change to cities like Calcutta and the inability of officials to grasp the history of Calcutta's founding. The conversation ends by asking Bhattacharyya how she see's her work alongside recent books on South Asian rivers and waters, her ambitious next work covering the Indian Ocean and what she hopes to accomplish through her new chair in Zurich.
In the 21st episode, I speak to Sandeep Mertia, PhD Candidate, Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University on his new edited volume Lives of Data: Essays on Computational Cultures from India published by the Institute of Network Cultures (2021). The edited volume brings together chapters from fifteen interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners who provide cutting analyses on India’s current computational culture encapsulated by big data and its historical and emergent dynamics on India’s politics and society. The volume emerged out of discussions and workshops at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) Sarai Programme. The volume offers us critical ways of considering and analyzing India’s big data moment and how it manifests relationally through different political and cultural nodes in India’s socio-political context. The conversation begins by asking Mertia about the origins of the volume before unpacking how data became so powerful in India. Next, we cover how data derives value from its relational nature or the lineages, affinities, networks and layers that add to data’s value in the Indian context. Mertia then historicizes data in India going back to the 1950s to trace how distinct domestic computing histories led to the current one. The conversation then moves to understand the role data practitioners play and whether it makes sense to view technological progress through their stand alone perch or collaboratively. We end with some thoughts on specific chapters including the last few that use ethnographic accounts to map the everyday aspects of data in India today and what Mertia thinks could be India’s data future.
In the 20th episode, I speak to Swetha S Ballakrishnen, Assistant Professor of Law, UC Irvine on their recent book Accidental Feminism: Gender Parity and Selective Mobility among India's Professional Elite published by Princeton University Press in January 2021. The book explores the unintentional production of seemingly feminist outcomes in India, focusing on elite law firms that offer an oasis for women in a largely hostile, predominantly male industry. Using interviews, Accidental Feminism unpacks how several structural conditions - gender socialization and essentialism, family structures and care networks and firm and regulatory histories have interacted to provide certain incidental benefits to women lawyers at elite law firms in India. The conversation begins by probing how Ballakrishnen found this subject and issue to cover as a sociologist. Next, we zero in on the core argument and why it was important to uncover these structural conditions to make sense of the driving puzzle before moving to cover each condition - effects of India's liberalization on the changing legal landscape, rise of elite institutions that train India's lawyers, impact of gendered frameworks, various organizational pressures that compel law firms to prioritize merit and family/social care networks that support women as they focus on their professional lives. The conversation ends by tackling some larger questions including whether feminism can be ever 'accidental' and if these elite women lawyers could withstand and overcome India's majoritarian turn. Notes Accidental Feminism - Princeton University Press
In the nineteenth episode, I speak to Pratinav Anil, PhD Candidate, University of Oxford about his recently co-authored book (with Christophe Jaffrelot) India’s First Dictatorship: The Emergency, 1975–1977 published by Hurst in December 2020. The book examines Indira and Sanjay Gandhi's authoritarianism, Jayaprakash Narayan's muddled politics, how the RSS gained respectability, how the Indian state, business and labour adapted to the changes Indira Gandhi wrought, and the causes and end of the Emergency. The conversation begins by asking what Anil’s initial ideas were about the emergency before beginning the book and how that evolved through research and writing. Next, we cover different parts of the book including the political economy of the emergency, why they refer to the government as a 'constitutional dictatorship', Sanjay Gandhi’s catastrophic impact, the parallel power structure he created to wreak havoc and why he was not reined in earlier, the causes and spatial effects of the emergency or why the effects were sequestered to the Hindi heartbelt and why they think the Emergency was not a critical event but a continuation of oppressive policies imposed on the Indian public.
Notes
India's First Dictatorship: The Emergency, 1975-1977
Pratinav Anil
In the eighteenth episode, I speak to Pradip Ninan Thomas, Associate Professor, University of Queensland, about his recent book The Politics of Digital India: Between Local Compulsions and Transnational Pressures published by Oxford University Press in 2019. The book situates and locates Digital India in a global and local context by identifying the pressures, local and transnational, affecting India’s digital trajectory. The conversation begins by tracing Pradip’s journey with this book covering his previous works on media and telecommunications in India. Next, we historicise India’s current digital moment by covering the ’technological' continuities from the British Raj to the newly independent Indian government. The conversation then moves to understand what Thomas means by ‘digital’, how it manifests in India and how the 'digital' is negotiated, shaped and contested by political and geopolitical considerations including the Indian state and the United States. The conversation ends by wading into the importance of data to India’s digital economy, the potential and implications of the Indian state’s digital infrastructure projects and how digital governance aids surveillance.
In the seventeenth episode, I speak to Kate Imy, a historian at the University of North Texas, about her recent book Faithful Fighters: Identity and Power in the British Indian Army, published by Stanford University Press in 2019. The book explores how the military culture, created by the British, spawned new dialogues and dynamics between soldiers and civilian communities, including Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims. Colonial authorities had to respect and incorporate certain social and religious traditions into the Army to keep these groups loyal while ensuring these concessions did not fuel anti-colonial sentiments. The conversation begins by setting the context around the martial races, or the discourse through which the colonial state recruited soldiers before moving to understand how colonial authorities engaged with three major ethno-religious communities (Sikhs, Muslims, and Nepal Gurkhas). Imy then explains this dynamic through the Sikh Kirpan, a symbol of Sikh's martial prowess but could also be used to spur anti-colonial resistance. Next, we talk about the relationship between body and faith and the body's importance to the faith colonial officials had on Indian soldiers. The conversation moves to consider the effects of 'Indianization,' bringing more Indians into the Army through military academies, and the implications of recent efforts to further 'Indianize' the Indian Army effacing colonial traditions. The conversation ends by asking how we can deal with the fraught legacy left by the British Indian army in the subcontinent today.
Links
Faithful Fighters
In the sixteenth episode, I speak to Himanshu Jha, Lecturer and Research Fellow, South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University on his recent book Capturing Institutional Change: The Case of the Right to Information Act in Indiapublished by Oxford University Press in 2020. The book presents an alternate narrative of India’s 2005 Right to Information (RTI) Act that transformed how the Indian state operated. Moving beyond narratives that stress the role of the social movements and political opportunities created by the first UPA government, Jha argues that the RTI Act was a result of an incremental, slow-moving process of 'ideas' that emerged endogenously from within the state since 1947. The conversation begins by exploring how Jha became interested in issues related to transparency in India and what the Right to Information Act (RTI) is. The discussion then considers how the norm of secrecy became ingrained within the Indian state at all levels. The key part of the conversation explores why the Indian state, penetrated by vested interests, changed the legal framework of the information regime, which could be used to highlight and expose how institutions governed. Jha reveals how his ideational argument pushes back against interest-based arguments that claim various social groups pushed the RTI through institutional channels to advance their interests; Jha argues that these groups mattered but their advocacy must be placed in the context of state discussions on transparency that go back decades. The conversation ends by assessing the current state of the RTI and whether it has weakened and the tradeoff between transparency, which the RTI advances, and privacy.
Links
Capturing Institutional Change: The Case of the Right to Information Act in India
In the fifteenth episode, I speak to Ali Raza, Historian at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) on his recent book Revolutionary Pasts: Communist Internationalism in Colonial India published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. The book maps and reveals the stories of individuals in Colonial India - dissidents, migrant workers, students and peasants, who through various networks tried to make the world more egalitarian during a tumultuous interwar period. Shaped by utopian ideas of communist internationalism, these Indian revolutionaries wished to precipitate a global upheaval that could radically transform India. The conversation begins by unpacking South Asia’s contribution to the global history of communist internationalism and why scholars have resisted from excavating genealogies and experiences of leftist and communist politics in the subcontinent. Next, the discussion moves to understand why communism and dreams of a communist future proved attractive to individuals in Colonial India before exploring how these individuals understood and placed their actions relative to other dominant political projects like capitalism and colonialism. Raza then shares the story of one remarkable individual engaged in revolutionary activities globally - Ameer Haider Khan or ‘Dada’. The conversation ends by considering whether conditions are ripe for individuals across South Asia to envision and work toward an alternate, more revolutionary, future to address the challenges of the current post-colonial moment.
Links
Revolutionary Pasts: Communist Internationalism in Colonial India
In the fourteenth episode, I speak to Sarah Besky, cultural anthropologist at Cornell University on her recent book Tasting Qualities: The Past and Future of Tea published by the U of C Press in 2020. The book asks what the role of quality is in contemporary capitalism and how a product like a bag of tea is understood and judged for its quality. These questions are answered by zooming into different spaces where mass market black tea is made and processed in Eastern India. The conversation begins by talking about Besky’s previous book, also on tea, The Darjeeling Distinction, and how that led to the genesis of this project. Next, we cover how Besky thought about quality and the conditions that shape and produce it before unpacking how notions of quality result in the perpetuation of plantations over time. The conversation then moves to understand the spaces between plantations and consumers - comprising of intermediaries who influence how tea gets from the farm to the cup. Technologies are also shaping these spaces and processes that determine tea quality. Besky covers how digital auctions are changing our ideas of what quality is when it comes to tea. Finally, the conversation explores how notions of quality intersect with masculinity, affecting the gendered dynamics of tea production before finishing by covering what Besky's current work is about.
Links
https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520303256/tasting-qualities
https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520277397/the-darjeeling-distinction
In the thirteenth episode, I speak to Joseph McQuade, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Asian Institute at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto, on his recent book A Genealogy of Terrorism: Colonial Law and the Origins of an Idea published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. The book demonstrates how terrorism was shaped by colonial emergency laws in the 19th and early 20th centuries. McQuade traces the genealogies, trends, and events that influenced the legal measures colonial officials adopted to delegitimize and control anti-colonial violence. The conversation begins by exploring how McQuade became interested in this topic before understanding why colonial genealogies are significant when understanding terrorism and how it manifests. McQuade explains why language proved vital in the conceptualization of colonial imaginaries used to depoliticize the actions of anti-colonial revolutionaries. Finally, we cover the book’s implications when trying to understand the nature and logic of political violence in other parts of the world and the use of colonial-era laws in India to control and curb the actions of various groups antithetical to the state.
Links
https://www.cambridge.org/sg/academic/subjects/history/south-asian-history/genealogy-terrorism-colonial-law-and-origins-idea?format=HB&isbn=9781108842150
In the thirteenth episode, I speak to Priya Atwal, British historian of empire, on her recent book Royals and Rebels: The Rise and Fall of the Sikh Empire published by Hurst and Oxford University Press in 2020. The books shines fresh light on the Sikh empire (1799-1849), transcending prevailing interpretations that focus wholly on the founding father Maharajah Ranjit Singh and not the royal family, queens and prices, who contributed to the empire’s spectacular rise and fall. Atwal, an Oxford trained historian, masterfully reveals the royal family’s history at the backdrop of a dramatic 19th century when prevailing empires gave way to new powers. The conversation begins by asking how Atwal found herself delving into the Sikh empire before moving to unpack how Ranjit Singh built his empire. Atwal then describes why Ranjit Singh’s monarchical rule is compatible with Sikh tenets, something other historians had rejected. The core of the book that shows the gendered aspects of royal rule comes alive through the lives of Ranjit Singh’s last wife Jind Kaur and son Duleep Singh and their struggles with the British as the empire was collapsing. The conversation ends by considering legacies of the Sikh empire today, challenges Atwal faced writing the book and what the response has been from her family and Sikh community.
Links
https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/royals-and-rebels/
In the twelfth episode, I speak to Sebastian Prange, Associate Professor of History, University of British Columbia on his recent book Monsoon Islam: Trade and Faith in the Medieval Malabar Coast published by Cambridge University Press in 2018. Monsoon Islam traces the history of pre-modern Muslim merchants and traders who arrived on the Malabar Coast in Kerala between the 12th and 16th centuries and how these communities navigated and adjusted to changes in their local environments. The conversation begins by asking how Prange came to study the lives of these Muslim merchants. Then, it moves to understand what 'Monsoon Islam' means and why this conceptualisation helps in understanding this trans-oceanic history. Next, we cover the organization of the book that is divided across four spaces - port, mosque, palace and sea and how these realms shaped the formation and transmission of Islam across the Indian Ocean. We also explore the difficulties and pitfalls of fieldwork and archival work across the Malabar coast. The conversation ends by comparing the arrival of Islam in north and south India and the need to understand the social embeddedness of trade across the Indian Ocean.
Links
Monsoon Islam - https://www.cambridge.org/sg/academic/subjects/history/south-asian-history/monsoon-islam-trade-and-faith-medieval-malabar-coast?format=HB&isbn=9781108424387#titleAwards_authors
In the eleventh episode, I speak to Benjamin Siegel, Assistant Professor of History, Boston University, on his recent book - Hungry Nation: Food, Famine, and the Making of Modern India published by Cambridge University Press in 2018. The book argues that the tasks and responsibilities incumbent under feeding India post independence, as it emerged from the worst famine on record, was central to India's nation-building process. Food was essential and at the core of India's transition from colonial rule to nationhood engendering debates that involved not just planners and policymakers but Indian citizens from all walks of life who participated with verve. Siegel's book shows how food shaped the emergent structures and axes of politics in independent India as politicians, planners, scientists and citizens sought to influence agrarian policies with lasting effects. The conversation begins by understanding how Siegel came to this topic before moving to unpack why and how food spoke to so many formative political questions at India's founding. Next, we cover the 1943 Bengal famine and how the calamitous event politicised Indians across the country as the nationalist movement forged ahead. The conversation then moves to understand how food policies in the 1950s, 60s and 70s informed and shaped India's political economy over the 20th century and the various efforts led by bureaucrats, including dietary edicts, to manage and protect India's fragile food stocks. The conversation ends by connecting the book to recent farmer protests in India precipitated by the current Indian government's desire to pull back from the agricultural sector.
Links
https://www.cambridge.org/sg/academic/subjects/history/south-asian-history/hungry-nation-food-famine-and-making-modern-india?format=PB
In the tenth episode, I speak to Mubbashir Rizvi, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Georgetown University, on his recent book - The Ethics of Staying: Social Movements and Land Rights Politics in Pakistan published by Stanford University Press in 2019. The book focuses on a major social movement in rural Pakistan - Anjuman Mazarin Punjab (AMP) that resisted the Pakistani army’s efforts to liberalise a sharecropping system in rural Punjab. The move to push through a market-based cash contract farming system unleashed a social movement that deployed a moral politics invoking local claims to land which eventually prevailed. The conversation begins by understanding the AMP - origins, politics, actions and methods of mobilization before moving to unpack how and why the military sought to appropriate these farm lands. Next, Rizvi describes how the AMP fought their cause, using a form of politics that emphasized idioms of justice and subsistence. The discussion moves to understand the wider international context around the AMP and how that affected state-society relations in Pakistan before ending with some reflections on Rizvi’s fieldwork and the implications of the AMP for social movements in Pakistan today.
Links
The Ethics of Staying - https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=26757
In the ninth episode, I speak to Bérénice Guyot-Réchard, Senior Lecturer, King’s College London on her recent book - Shadow States: India, China, and the Himalayas, 1910-1962 published by Cambridge University Press in 2018. Through the book, Guyot-Réchard studies China–India relations not through high politics but from the bottom up to show how both countries sought to gain leverage by working to win over local groups in contested regions through a process called ‘state shadowing’. Understanding Sino-India relations and tensions, according to Guyot-Réchard, hinges on the challenges and pressures related to state-making. The conversation begins by understanding how Guyot-Réchard got interested in studying China-India relations and her path to this project. We then move to the book’s core and argument which deals with how both states shadowed each other across the Eastern border and how local groups perceived and worked with this ‘shadowing’. Next, we cover the kinds of sources used in the book and how narrative might turn out had Guyot-Réchard had sufficient access to Chinese language materials. The conversation ends by connecting the book to recent developments across the Sino-India border near Ladakh, which has experienced hostilities and casualties.
Links
https://www.cambridge.org/vi/academic/subjects/history/south-asian-history/shadow-states-india-china-and-himalayas-19101962?format=HB
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/berenice-guyot-rechard
In the eight episode, I speak to Amit Ahuja, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of California Santa Barbara on his recent book - Mobilising the Marginalized: Ethnic Parties without Ethnic Movements published by Oxford University Press in March 2019. In the book, Ahuja shows why only some Dalit parties are successful electorally in India despite having made deep social inroads in several states. Paradoxically, Dalit parties gain political power in states where they have had weak levels of social moblisation and engagement. Drawing on original research conducted across four Indian states, Ahuja shows that, for Dalits, social mobilization undermines the bloc voting their ethnic parties generally rely on for electoral success while increasing multi-ethnic political parties' competition for their votes. The conversation begins by exploring how Ahuja got interested in the topic before delving into his understanding of social and electoral mobilisation. Then we move to discuss the welfare effects of Dalit politics and why Dalits fare better in states where their parties do not govern. The conversation also touches upon the methodologies used by Ahuja and how his book compares to the contributions made by other scholars on caste and ethnic politics in India before ending with some personal reflections on the book.
In the seventh episode, I speak to Sidharthan Maunaguru, Associate Professor of Sociology and South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore on his recent book - Marrying for a Future: Transnational Sri Lankan Tamil Marriages in the Shadow of War published by University of Washington Press in March 2019. Through the book, Maunaguru demonstrates how marriage has emerged as a process or an 'in-between' space where dispersed segments of the Sri Lankan Tamil community reunite across borders. Maunaguru's book enables us to see how this fragmented community rekindles connections and kinship through the marriage process and those places, figures, documents and artefacts that constitute it. The conversation begins by asking how Maunaguru got interested in anthropology and studying transnational marriage before probing why the everyday was so important to unpack in his research. Then we tackle what the 'in-between' space means and how that conceptualisation lends itself to explain how SL tamils get married across borders before moving to understand why wedding photos are so vital in this process and what they mean for couples and their families, both present and not. The conversation ends by thinking through the futures of transnational Sri Lankan Tamil marriages since the war's end and what markers could define its future going ahead.
Sidharthan Maunaguru - Marrying for a Future: Transnational Sri Lankan Tamil Marriages in the Shadow of War
https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295745411/marrying-for-a-future/
In the sixth episode, I speak to Mythri Jegathesan, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Santa Clara University on her new book - Tea and Solidarity: Tamil Women and Work in Postwar Sri Lanka published by University of Washington Press in July 2019. In her book, Jegathesan presents the stories of the women, men, and children who have built their lives on tea plantations in the SL hill country. Through feminist decolonial ethnographic methods, the book recenters the focus on Tamil women and their quest for dignity and respect through their labour. Jegathesan's vivid ethnography enables us to see a community that has been marginalised but whose labor and contributions are central to make sense of Sri Lanka’s global recognition as a leading tea exporting country. The conversation begins by asking how Jegathesan got interested in studying the Hill Country Tamils before covering how legacies of dispossession shaped the lives of women and men in this community over generations. The conversation moves to how Jegathesan went about studying this community focusing on the ethical and methodological choices she made and had to make through her research and their implications regarding how scholars approach fieldwork and the issues they study. The conversation ends by considering the future of the Hill country tamils as politics within Sri Lanka narrows and what that portends going ahead.
Resources
Mythri Jegathesan - Tea and Solidarity: Tamil Women and Work in Post War Sri Lanka
https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295745657/tea-and-solidarity/
In the fifth episode of Lekh, I speak to Shandana Khan Mohmand, Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex on her new book Crafty Oligarchs, Savvy Voters: Democracy under inequality in rural Pakistan published in 2019 by Cambridge University Press. Does democracy empower rural voters under conditions of extreme inequality? Khan Mohmand investigates this question by probing how rural voters in Pakistan vote during elections and how their agency is exercised through kinship networks or vote blocs intended to maximise their political interests. Using data collected through surveys, interviews and ethnography, the book finds that electoral politics in Pakistan is competitive and dynamic where marginalized voters interact strategically with rural elites to further their interests. The conversation begins by asking why local politics seldom features when understanding how national politics before moving to unpack the arguments of the book that focus on rural voters and their interactions with rural landed elites as they vote. I ask why Khan Mohmand chose to turn the gaze from oligarchs to the voters when understanding voter choices and why rural voters form blocs to strengthen their bargaining power with these oligarchs. The conversation continues by exploring the innovative methodological approach followed by Khan Mohmand to generate findings and the difficulties faced while doing so. I conclude by asking whether the politics Khan Mohmand describes in the book will evolve to a politics of resistance that can fulfil wants and desires of those Pakistani citizens living under extreme inequality.
In the fourth episode of Lekh, I speak to Sunil Amrith, Renu and Anand Dhawan Professor of History at Yale University, on his recent book Unruly Waters: How Rains, Rivers, Coasts and Seas have shaped Asia’s history published in 2018 by Basic Books. Amrith's book reimagines Asia's and India's history through its unruly waters - rains, rivers, coasts and seas and how individuals - leaders, bureaucrats, administrators, scientists, engineers and farmers attempted to control water. This history seen through India's experiences shows how conceptions, dreams, ideas and fears of water influenced and shaped strategies to control and manage it and larger discourses related to political independence, economic self-sufficiency and development. This history is particularly relevant today as large populous Asian powers like China and India construct hundreds of dams in the Himalayas with potentially profound domestic and international effects. The conversation begins by placing the book into Amrith's oeuvre, understanding what perspectives of water add to India's historiography before moving on to unpacking how the book shows why water is fundamentally politics. The conversation continues by probing the effects of the pandemic on archival research and how scholars can think through challenges posed by the inability to travel across borders to research and write regional and global histories. In an era of climate change and water conflicts, the conversation concludes by asking whether the politics of environment in India can be nationalised to limit the detrimental effects of water projects underway.
In the third episode of Lekh, I speak to Lilly Irani, Associate Professor of Communication & Science Studies at University of California, San Diego on her recent book Chasing Innovation: Making Entrepreneurial Citizens in Modern India. The book weaves together history, ethnography, and critique of a seductive vision of entrepreneurial citizenship that cogently illustrates how discourses of innovation were articulated and used to drive development policies in an India that was rapidly liberalising. The book asks us to rethink the 'subsumption of hope’ by innovation and look at mass politics, despite its inefficiencies and infirmities, to drive and achieve sustainable political and economic change. To do this, the book draws on immersive ethnographic fieldwork in the design and development worlds around New Delhi to see if vaunted notions of innovation were reflected in the everyday routines of these hubs. The conversation begins with some background on Lilly’s eclectic background spanning nearly half dozen disciplines that shaped the book’s approach and core before moving to discuss how the Indian state and entrepreneurs sought to ‘make' entrepreneurial citizens to advance developmental objectives. In an era of techno-solutionism where technology is seemingly replacing or subsuming politics, the conversation concludes by asking how we can recover a collective sense of politics to to limit the impact of technology on our lives and livelihoods.
In the second episode of Lekh, I speak to Andrew Liu, Assistant Professor of History, Villanova University on his recent book Tea War: A History of Capitalism in China and India. Tea War tells the story of how tea, the world’s most popular commercial drink today, drove competition between China and colonial India in the 19th century and how these competitive pressures compelled Chinese and Indian tea producers to adopt various strategies to support tea exports.
Through the book, Liu challenges prevailing economic histories centred on the technical divergence between the West and the East, instead arguing that the experiences of China and India through tea should be regarded as central to capitalism and capital accumulation. The book is not just a history of capitalism and of China and India but also a history of political economy that influenced how the experiences of Chinese and Indian tea were understood and used by nationalist groups looking to use tea commerce to service specific political causes.
The conversation begins by probing how Liu came to situate his work within several disparate fields of inquiry before moving to understand the prevalence of ideas and discourses of capitalism that have generally elided China and India. Near the end, our discussion explores whether competition between China and India in the 19th century could have extended to the 21st as both Asian powers jostle for power in a volatile regional security environment.
In the pilot episode of Lekh, I speak to Nico Slate, Professor of History, Carnegie Mellon University on his recent book Lord Cornwallis is Dead: The Struggle for Democracy in the United States and India. Spanning nearly three centuries and as many continents, Lord Cornwallis is Dead presents a sweeping look at the struggle for democracy and freedom that connected both India and the United States.
The book examines struggles and battles against racism, casteism and imperialism that tested democracy in both countries. This story and history is worth considering and reflecting on now as the United States, the world's oldest and most powerful democracy, and India, the world's largest and most populous democracy, face new political, social and economic challenges that raise questions on whether these two countries can weather these headwinds and serve as examples for democracy in the 21st century.
The discussion begins by probing the origins of the book before moving to dissect the central argument and the themes or 'keywords' around which the book is framed. Midway through, we run through a few words and concepts featured in this book and Professor Slate's other works that encompass history, area studies, democracy, culture and literature.