The South Asianist Journal
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Empowering or burdening women? Assessing precariousness of vocationally trained women in Nepal
Full text linkIn many developing countries like Nepal, women are vocationally trained in ‘women-friendly’ professions, encouraging them to enter the labour market. Amidst discussions concerning the role of gender-stereotyped Vocational Training (VT) programmes in empowering women, this research makes a qualitative study of the training and post-training experiences of women graduating from two ‘women-friendly’ VT programs – tailoring and beautician. Data obtained from interviewing 12 beauticians and 7 tailors have been analysed to assess the precariousness associated with these professions and also women’s sense of empowerment through the World Bank Empowerment Framework 2005.
Discussions suggest that women are often nudged into low-income occupations owing to their gender roles, lower attainment of formal education and limited access to finances. In addition to their domestic and care work, women are forced to sell cheap labour and work longer hours in a highly competitive market, which signifies the extremity of precariousness they encounter.
Although VT programmes give women some agency through assets like income (albeit low), skill, information and social capital, the translation of this agency to empowerment remains questionable. Despite being professionals, women are still not the ones making decisions for their future and thus have limited social and political power. Even institutions designed to empower women leave them out of their board rooms – proving women quite powerless even while walking the recommended paths of ‘empowerment’.
This research concludes that gender-stereotyped VT programmes in Nepal exacerbate gender differences, burden women with precariousness and exclude them from economic, social and political capital-earning opportunities
Epistemologies of Land Relations in India’s Tribal Frontier
Full text linkThis article contributes to the burgeoning critical literature on Naga lifeworlds by using a heterodox Foucaultian and Marxist framework. The analysis is structured as a genealogy that reinterprets the ways that historical epistemologies have shaped contemporary land relations in Nagaland. Our genealogy draws on place-based interviews to foreground what the history of land relations mean to Nagas today. The discussion sheds new light on (i) the epistemological bearings of gennas on the present-day social realities of Naga-Christianity; (ii) territoriality as an epistemology that reified the village-centered ownership of land; (iii) epistemic ruptures of subjectivation under British colonialism. The paper ends by contextualizing the genealogy of Naga land relations to redress its biased representations and culture of alterity by mainstream media and political outlets in India
Exploring Migration and Disaster Nexus: Role of migration in triggering disasters
Full text linkThe nexus between migration and disaster has commonly been referred to in previous researches. In particular, previous studies often describe migration as a coping strategy for climate and water-induced disasters (WID). Yet, limited studies have explored the role of migration in triggering disaster and intensifying the risk and exposure of communities to such events. Considering this research gap, this study aims to assess the linkage between internal and external migration and disaster events. Employing qualitative research methods and taking the Extended East Rapti River Watershed located in Chitwan and Makwanpur districts of Nepal as a case, this study indicates that unmanaged internal migration in the study area has increased the prospects of WID and its risk in the region. These instances were mainly due to over-exploitation of resources and change in land-use practices in the Chure region and Tarai. Likewise, haphazard growth of urban and semi-urban areas, expansion of settlements in hazardous areas, and an increase in built-up areas in the watershed have further contributed to an increase in incidences of WID as well as the risk, exposure, and vulnerability of the residents to such events. The research also reveals that poor governance to manage the process of migration and urbanization is largely responsible for this phenomenon than the migrants alone. Finally, this article suggests not undermining the role of different types of migration and their governance while studying the migration-disaster nexus
The Nectar of the Master\u27s Speech: An Anatomy of Ramakrishna\u27s Kathamrita
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The famous spiritual personality of mid-Victorian Bengal, Sri Ramakrishna (monastic name of Gadadhar Chattopadhyay) was, like Socrates of Hellenic Athens, an oral prophet. His method of teaching and preaching was through informal and homely homilies and anecdotes. These, compiled and subsequently published by his devotee Mahendranath Gupta (alias SriM), have been translated from the original Bāṅglā into numerous languages of India and the world titled as Ramakrishna Kathāmṛta. The contents of this compilation have universally been considered deeply spiritual albeit delivered in patois Bengali befitting the nearly illiterate speaker. There are no studies, hagiographical or hermeneutical, examining the Master’s neologisms and his natural gift as a tusitala, that is a story-maker and storyteller, and interrogating the much-publicized spiritual subtext of his logia. This paper addresses the lacunae of what may be called Rāmakṛṣṇāyana, that, Ramakrishna-related literature.
 
Chipko and Beyond: A Book Review
No full textWritten in a chronological order, the book has various thematic overlaps. Embracing them, and placing the book in the larger contemporary political context, I offer a critical review of the book. In the first sub-section, I analyse the formation and deformation of the movement as presented in the middle and last chapters of the book. In the second sub-section, I explore the role of the state apparatuses as presented throughout the book. In the third sub-subsection, I explore the politics of \u27outsiders\u27 in framing the movement, which is, again, illustrated throughout the book. I conclude the review by offering the only lack and flaw that I could find in the magnificently grounded account of the Chipko Movement
Simic\u27s Shoes
Full text linkThis is a short essay that pays tribute to the Pulitzer Prize winning poet Charles Simic who turned 92 on 9th May.The article looks at one poem by Simic routed through the vision of Van Gogh and the reality of the 16 deaths of migrant workers on the railway track in Maharashtra, India, on 8th May.
The article looks at one poem by Simic routed through the vision of Van Gogh and the reality of the 16 deaths on the railway track on 8th May
The Ramayana: A Stage Play and A Screen Play: A Review
Full text linkThis is a book review of Bashabi Fraser\u27s book The Ramayana: A Stage Play and a Screen Pla
Madeleine Slade (Mirabehn): A Pilgrimage
Full text linkWhen two cultures come into contact with each other, there is a play of power and supremacy. This is a social reality and something that people have to deal with not only in the socio-political sense, but also in emotional states. Gandhi and Slade’s relationship shows the reality of emotional unrest. This perhaps is overlooked when there are bigger social and political problems lurking around. This paper attempts to understand the journey of Gandhi and Madeline Slade though the correspondence they shared