AWAAZ 2022

Table of Contents

Front Cover Photo

Credit: Vanessa Veak (Mural in Bhandra, Mumbai, India, 2020)

Photo Credit: Emily Mendonsa (Rainy day at the Taj Mahal in India, 2019)

Director’s Note

The academic year 2021-22 saw Stanford return more fully to in-person life, even as we all continue to grapple with the challenges of the global pandemic. At the Center for South Asia, we reveled in opportunities to organize more live campus events, but we also continued to take advantage of the expansive reach afforded by virtual programming on multiple platforms. From receptions and in-person talks to a faculty works in progress colloquium, it has been wonderful to reconnect with our campus community. But, like many other programs, we have also seen the benefits of online events that strengthen our ties to South Asia, South Asian diasporas, and a global network of those engaged in research and learning about South Asia. For example, the South Asia at Stanford Podcast (SASSpod) hosted by Associate Director Lalita du Perron and edited by Simrath Matharu, Program Coordinator, has thousands of downloads and followers in over 70 countries. Highlighting faculty, students, and staff with South Asia connections, this podcast helps to keep us connected across one another’s work and projects, as well as address timely issues, as with Zeba Huq’s episode on faith and law and Sharika Thiranagama’s on the crisis in Sri Lanka. Collaborating with regional partners, other campus groups, and visiting scholars has

also been an exciting way to widen our scope, bringing us sessions with artist Ambreen Butt cosponsored with the Cantor Arts Center and a panel on seditious speech in Pakistan organized by Humanities Center Fellow Ali Usman Qasmi (LUMS). We had a fascinating session on Hindu Chaplains at US universities and a delightful conversation with a group of young adult fiction authors organized by Stanford undergraduate Karunya Bhramasandra. Over the year, we also inaugurated what will be a continuing series of programs concerning caste in and beyond South Asia with talks from Suraj Yengde, Ramnarayan Rawat, Sanober Umar, Chinnaiah Jangam, Meena Kandasamy, Avidit Acharya, and Thenmozhi Soundararajan.

I am so grateful to our previous director and now leader at Stanford Global Studies, Jisha Menon. So many of the creative approaches she pioneered as the pandemic set in have shown the way to be a dynamic and impactful center in precarious times. We have also enjoyed having two excellent interns this year: Ravi Tadigadapa (South AsiaMarkaz Fellow) and Kavya Srikanth (Caste Project Intern). Both have helped produce creative and important events, from a teach-in on caste to a discussion with prominent human rights activists Aakar Patel and Meenakshi Ganguly. Kavya will continue with us as she completes a co-term master’s degree and will be joined by Komal Kumar and Srihari Nageswaran (our incoming South Asia-Markaz Fellow). Finally, but not at all least, we are so fortunate to have a fantastic team in Lalita and Simrath. Lalita’s knowledge of the field, organizational acumen, and enthusiasm for making new and good things happen are invaluable. Simrath’s sharp attention to detail, brilliance, and anticipation keep everything running smoothly. Our whole CSA community appreciates their work (and their good humor).

Sincerely,

Anna Bigelow, Faculty Director Associate Professor, Religious Studies

LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR DIRECTOR >>

Photo Credit: Andrew Brodhead; Background Photo Credit: Feyaad Allie (Nizamuddin Dargah in Dehli, India, 2022)

Meet Some of Our Affiliates

RUSHAIN ABBASI

Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities and Lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies

Abbasi’s scholarly work seeks to bring the premodern Islamic intellectual and cultural heritage to bear on contemporary debates in religious studies and social theory.

On the #SASSpod >>

MORE ABOUT RUSHAIN ABBASI >>

RAJIV DOSHI Adjunct Professor of Medicine and Director of the India Program at the Byers Center for Biodesign

In 2012, Doshi was named by Forbes India as one of the top 18 Indian scientists who are changing the world. He is also the recipient of the Soros Fellowship.

MORE ABOUT RAJIV DOSHI >>

MOOGDHO

MIM MAHZAB

Postdoctoral Scholar at the Woods Institute for the Environment

At Stanford, Mahzab is working at the Luby Lab on improving brick kilns and lead-acid batteries operations in South Asia to reduce pollution and facilitate better public health.

MORE ABOUT MOOGDHO MIM MAHZAB >>

ALI USMAN QASMI 2021-2022 Visiting Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center

As a fellow, Qasmi worked on a project entitled Over the Moon: Ulema, State, and Authority in Pakistan. Qasmi is also Associate Professor in History at LUMS in Pakistan.

MORE ABOUT ALI USMAN QASMI >> On the #SASSpod >>

Meet Some of Our Affiliates

THENMOZHI SOUNDARARAJAN Visiting Fellow

Soundararajan is the Executive Director of Equality Labs and has helped us think through our ongoing caste programming.

MORE ABOUT THENMOZHI SOUNDARARAJAN >>

On the #SASSpod >>

2022 Roanne Kantor

Recent Faculty Publications

MORE ABOUT THE PUBLICATIONS >>

On the #SASSpod >>

ARZAN TARAPORE Research Scholar Asia Pacific Research Center

Tarapore’s

Indo-Pacific. MORE ABOUT ARZAN TARAPORE >>

2021

Thomas Blom Hansen 2021 Jisha Menon

research focuses on security issues in South Asia and the rapidly evolving strategic landscape of the wider

Highlights

- Madihah Akhter, Ph.D. in History and Ph.D. minor in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, 2020

MORE ABOUT OUR MISSION >>

“Zabardast! CSA is always a great time, always critical in the best ways, and always there for you.”

Photo Credit: Vanessa Veak (Ellora Caves in Aurangabad, India, 2020)

South Asia-Markaz Fellowship

Following the example of the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies and their collaboration with The Markaz Resource Center, the Center for South Asia initiated a South Asia-Markaz Fellowship in 2021. The purpose of the fellowship is to foster student-led campus conversations on themes related to societies, cultures, religions, and issues in South Asia. In consultation with faculty and staff, the South Asia-Markaz fellow identifies themes of current interest to the Stanford community and curates a number of events with academics or speakers whose work engages with scholarship on South Asia.

MEET THE 2021-22 SOUTH ASIA-MARKAZ FELLOW, RAVICHANDRA TADIGADAPA >>

Afghanistan through Afghan Voices

Afghanistan through Afghan Voices was a series of virtual workshops that highlighted and critically engaged with recent scholarship and aimed to open an inclusive and multidisciplinary space where Afghan scholars and artists could come together in conversation to publicly reflect on their research endeavors and creative trajectories. The series was organized by Aria Fani, Domenico Ingenito, and Mejgan Massoumi. It was sponsored by the UCLA Program on Central Asia and cosponsored by the University of

Washington’s Persian and Iranian Studies Program, Stanford University’s Center for South Asia and Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies, CMRS Center for Early Global Studies, as well as the Center for India and South Asia.

MORE ABOUT THE SERIES >>

Photo Credit: Hangama Amiri, “Self-portrait with Tooti Parrot,” 2021

“The World That Belongs to Us: Contesting Queer & Trans* Politics in Pakistan”

May 23, 2022

Prominent Pakistani khwajasira activist Mehrub Moiz Awan talked to curator, writer, and researcher Aziz Sohail about the landscape of trans and queer activism in Pakistan. The discourse has shifted considerably with historic Supreme Court rulings recognizing the rights of transgender citizens, and the 2018 Transgender Persons Act which established broad protections for trans rights. This has paralleled the increasing inclusion of trans* voices in the gender rights movement including Aurat March, as well as in cultural and media production in the country. Awan has been at the forefront of this movement with many other collective individuals, making spaces for empowerment and visibility as well as centering decolonial, indigenous, and intersectional approaches and joy and celebration, even under great precarity.

WATCH THE RECORDING ON THE SASS TUBE >>

“It is somehow their white savior responsibility to come and assist us in realizing our LGBTQIA+ identities... Whereas we argue that, we’ve already been here. Forever…And it was never about our body. It was always about our soul.”

- Mehrub Moiz Awan

Caste Series

In the 2021-2022 academic year we initiated a series of programs focused on caste in and beyond South Asia. We were fortunate to invite Suraj Yengde, Ramnarayan Rawat, and the rapper Arivu to campus to speak to our community, and we featured Avidit Acharya, Chinnaiah Jangam, Meena Kandasamy, and Sanober Umar, among others, in webinars. Special thanks to our co-sponsors and to Sharika Thiranagama, Dheepa Sundaram, Anjali Arondekar, and Ali Usman Qasmi for moderating. You can view recordings of the webinars on the SASS Tube. In addition to programming, we hosted Thenmozhi Soundararajan of Equality Labs as a visiting fellow.

“Liberalism in the Vernacular: Recovering the Dalit Public Sphere in Late

Colonial India”

2022 Keynote Lecture | Ramnarayan Rawat

May 5, 2022

We were fortunate to be able to bring Ramnarayan Rawat, Associate Professor at the University of Delaware, to campus for a keynote lecture moderated by Sharika Thiranagama, Stanford Associate Professor of Anthropology. Rawat is a historian of South Asia with research interests in caste, race, and social exclusion. He explored how poet-activists belonging to a Dalit literate public used song genres to intervene in debates on equality, freedom, and representation, and to document the long history of caste inequality. Rawat also argued that ‘mohalla collections’ have played an important role in the emergence of Dalit Studies and in making possible the recovery of Dalit histories.

“Dalit Cosmopolitanism: Dalit activism and a caste free world”

2022 Annual Lecture | Suraj Yengde

April 19, 2022

Dr. Suraj Yengde, author of the bestseller Caste Matters, co-editor of award winning anthology The Radical in Ambedkar, and research associate with the department of African and African American Studies at Harvard, visited Stanford in Spring 2022 to present the annual lecture. To an audience of faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students, Yengde talked about the history of Dalit and

caste activism, now organized on a global scale. After the lecture Dr. Yengde met with a group of students, who asked numerous questions about activism, organizing, as well as theoretical frameworks to think about caste. Dr Yengde’s annual lecture, moderated by Stanford Professor of Anthropology Thomas Blom Hansen, was part of our ongoing programming about caste.

Teach-In on Caste

Thenmozhi Soundararajan is a Dalit American commentator on religion, race, caste, gender, technology, and justice. She is the Executive Director of Equality Labs and the author of The Trauma of Caste. While at the Center, she spoke at

a teach-in workshop on November 30, 2021 that highlighted the system of caste and how it manifests in American institutions from universities and workplaces to community organizations.

Photo Credit: Nancy Farese

More on the Caste Series

Meet our Caste Project Intern

Kavya Srikanth’s aim as Caste Project Intern in the academic year 2021-22 was to create an understanding of caste and a movement against caste that works intersectionally with race, class, gender, and other forms of oppression, to envision and work towards a more equal future.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SRIKANTH >>

ROHIT CHOPRA

Hinduism, Politics, and the Nation February 15, 2022

CHINNAIAH

JANGAM

Decolonizing Hinduism and Unraveling Hindutva December 9, 2021

THOMAS BLOM HANSEN

Hinduism, Politics, and the Nation

February 15, 2022

MEENA KANDASAMY Caste Fanaticism and Misogyny: The Hate Politics of Internet Hindutva February 25, 2022 Hosted by UCSC CSAS

Click on the picture of the speaker to view the event information.

SANOBER UMAR

Cast(e) Away: Conversion and Recognition in Pasmanda Muslim Politics (1947-2009) May 12, 2022

ARIVU Cultures & Vultures August 11, 2022

Student Awards

Stanford’s Center for South Asia provides funding opportunities for Stanford students. Continue to view the 2022 funding recipients.

MORE ABOUT CSA FUNDING OPTIONS >>

Photo credit: Vanessa Veak (Streets of Fort in Mumbai, India, 2020)

Global Internships

ZOHA FATIMA SYED

Deaf

Reach Pakistan

Karachi, Pakistan

“The program really shaped my understanding of the struggles faced by the Deaf community in Pakistan, a population I hope to focus on for advocacy during my professional life.”

Questions about these global internships?

Contact Grace Munene, gmunene@stanford.edu.

ANDREW DAVID VALLERO

Magic Bus India Foundation Mumbai, India

“Magic Bus has opened my eyes to the possibilities of a completely different work culture — one centered around teamwork, interdependence, and empathy.”

Wisch Fellowship Recipient

SAAD LAKHANI

Graduate student in the Department of Anthropology Lakhani’s dissertation, “Protectors of the Prophet’s Honor: Islam, Masculinity, and Civility in Pakistan,” examines the everyday politics and public culture of religious offense taking and giving in Pakistan. His ethnographic research focuses on Barelvi religious activists.

MORE ABOUT LAKHANI’S PROJECT AND THE WISCH FELLOWSHIP >>

Language and Graduate Student Research

Click on the picture of the student to view more information about their project.

FEYAAD ALLIE

Department of Political Science Graduate Research Fellowship Power, Exclusion, and Identity: The Politics of the Muslim Disadvantage in India

SYLVIA VIENNA GABRIEL

Undergraduate student in Department of Linguistics

Language Fellowship Tamil at the American Institute of Indian Studies in Madurai, India

Research Fellowship Recipients

SHANDANA WAHEED

Department of Anthropology Graduate Research Fellowship

Present of the Past: Politics of Heritage in Rawalpindi Pakistan

ANKITA DEB

Department of Art & Art History

Graduate Research Fellowship

Medical Masala Films: Progress, Prohibition and the (Un)official Ecologies of Sex Education in India

EMILY RUSSELL

Department of Political Science Graduate Research Fellowship

Semi-Sovereignty in Indigenous India

SHIKHA NEHRA

Department of Anthropology Graduate Research Fellowship

Plural Political Imaginings: Assamese Publics and Counterpublics

The SASS at CSA

The South Asian Studies at Stanford (SASS) at the Center for South Asia includes our minor, podcast, and event recordings.

MORE

ABOUT

THE SOUTH ASIA MINOR >>

Photo credit: Vanessa Veak (Hawa Mahal, Jaipur, India, 2020)

SASS Graduate Spotlight

KARUNYA BHRAMASANDRA 2022 South Asian Studies

minor recipient

Having grown up around South Asians in the Bay Area, I had until my freshman year, when connection with my ethnic and became curious about this type of work and what it meant for one’s identity and relationship to one’s community and the broader American landscape.” MORE ABOUT BHRAMASANDRA’S EXPERIENCE >>

The South Asian Studies Minor

The Minor in Global Studies with a specialization in South Asian Studies presents undergraduates with a significant opportunity to scaffold their interest in and knowledge of South Asia. This track allows them to focus on South Asia while locating their work within larger global conversations. MORE ABOUT OUR MINOR >>

The SASS Tube

The SASS Tube features our event recordings accessible to the public. Our YouTube channel has 427 subscribers, three times more than last year, and received about 8,600 views, double from last year. The majority of our viewers are from India, Pakistan, and the United States. Click the videos to view.

VISIT AND SUBSCRIBE TO THE SASS TUBE >>

The SASSpod

Lalita du Perron hosts a wide variety of guests on the podcast who have a Stanford connection: alumni, faculty, staff, researchers, students, and affiliates. With almost 6,000 listeners in 74 countries, the SASSpod captivates a global audience, who are interested in learning more about South Asia at Stanford.

Topics covered in 2021-22 include: religion, journalism, Sri Lankan economy, secularism, South Asian and Latin American literature, law, science, lunar calendar, caste, education, politics, and history.

MORE ABOUT THE SASSPOD >>

SASSPOD: YOUR GATEWAY TO SOUTH ASIA AT STANFORD.

listeners

Events

In the 2021-22 year, 5000 people attended our 80 sponsored events.

MORE ABOUT OUR UPCOMING EVENTS >>

Photo Credit: Himani Phadke (2011)

Lecture Series

Many thanks to Mejgan Massoumi, Soledad Artiz Prillaman, Samer Al-Saber, Usha Iyer, for moderating.

Photo credits: courtesy of speakers, Greg Ehlers, Carter Hasegawa, Samantha May Photography

Click on the picture of the speaker to view the event information.

Tiffany Steinwert, Partha Pratim Shil, Roanne Kantor, and Karunya Bhramasandra

SGS Summer Film Festival: Cargo

As part of the Stanford Global Studies Summer Film Festival, CSA showed the movie Cargo. Respondent and Q&A moderator was Dr. Charu Singh, Lecturer in the History Department at Stanford, and from January 2023 onwards, Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, UK. Singh mentioned in her overview of the film that “in thinking about science fictional films like Cargo from beyond the West and from places like South Asia, we might as viewers begin to attune ourselves to both a history and a geography of this highly modernist genre”.

Questions answered include: What happens to rakshasas after they die? Is the film meant to be a critique of environmental pollution? What are the moral and ethical dimensions of the film and of sci-fi as a genre?

VIEW THE RECORDING ON THE SASSTUBE >>

Young Adult Literature: A conversation with South Asian authors

Stanford student Karunya Bhramasandra talked to Tanya Boteju, Rajani LaRocca, Syed Masood, Sajni Patel, and Anuradha Rajurkar in a webinar focusing on South Asian Young Adult Literature. Bhramasandra is currently working with the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) on creating lesson plans to help K-12 teachers bring these novels into their classrooms. For more information, contact Gary Mukai, SPICE Director, at gmukai@stanford.edu.

VIEW THE RECORDING ON THE SASS TUBE >>

South Asia Working Group

MORE ABOUT SHUBHANGNI GUPTA >> MORE ABOUT SHANTANU NEVREKAR >>

The South Asia Working Group at Stanford (SAWG) is a space for community, dialogue, and reflection for South Asianist graduate students working on and engaging with South Asia. Imagined as a student forum co-sponsored by the Center for South Asia, it features a variety of events, including a lecture talk by Shaunna Rodrigues, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies at Columbia University, entitled Religion as the Site of Non-State Politics: Islam, Caste, and the Limits of Secularism in India. You can view the recording on the SASS Tube.

MORE ABOUT THE WORKING GROUP >>

Gauri Gill

In the Spring quarter of 2022, Delhibased artist Gauri Gill (MFA’02) came to the Stanford campus under the auspices of the Stanford Visiting Artist Fund in Honor of Roberta Bowman Denning (VAF) with co-sponsorship from the Center for South Asia and the Cantor Arts Center. Gauri Gill’s work sits at the intersection of photography, anthropology, and performance studies. Part ethnographic intervention and

part community art project, Gill’s photographs are intimate portrayals of local communities and material traces that speak to collective experiences in an increasingly individualized and globalized world.

Photo credit: courtesy of Gauri Gill

Organized by Shubhangni Gupta and Shantanu Nevrekar

Future Programming

In Fall 2022, we commemorated the 75th anniversary of the Partition between India and Pakistan in partnership with Stanford Libraries’ C. Ryan Perkins and the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies. Continuing our caste programming, we hosted notable Carnatic vocalist and social activist TM Krishna on campus for a lecture-demonstration entitled Music, its caste and gender. We were delighted to be a cosponsor of the South Asia Literature and Arts Festival, held at Montalvo Villa in October 2022. Please view the Upcoming Events section on our website, sign up for our mailing list, and follow us on social media to find out about all our upcoming events.

WINTER 2023 HIGHLIGHTS

NISHANT BATSHA

Mother Ocean Father Nation

January 19, 2023 In-person

SARAH KHAN

Urban Politics in Pakistan February 2, 2023 In-person

RUMYA PUTCHA

HARSHITA KAMATH MALLIKA YELESWARAPU

Dance and Caste February 9, 2023 Virtual FARWA AAMER MADIHA AFZAL ELIZABETH THRELKELD

Pakistan Floods Loss and Damage February 15, 2023

Virtual

PRATAP BHANU MEHTA

Poltics and Religion in India March 13, 2023 In-person

How to Give

The Center for South Asia extends sincere appreciation to our contributing alumni, parents, students, and friends for their generous support. Your support helps strengthen our existing programs and also create new ones to enhance our collaboration with Stanford faculty, students, and other university units. For more information about working with us to support the study of South Asia at Stanford, please contact Lalita du Perron, Associate Director at lalita@stanford.edu.

CSA Alumni Perspective MADIHAH AKHTER

Ph.D. in History and Ph.D. minor in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, 2020

“Engaging with CSA taught me how important community building with folks who have similar interests, and sometimes similar backgrounds, can be. Especially on days when you’re feeling frustrated or alienated in research or experience, you know where to go to find your community. Building connections across difference--South Asia is a large region with many diverse folks--is an important life skill that has served me well in my professional life.”

MORE ABOUT AKHTER’S ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT >>