The South Asianist Journal
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Fusing worlds of coconuts: the regenerative practice in precarious life-sustenance and fragile relationality in Sri Lanka
Full text linkThis article sets out to initiate a comparative framework for the analysis of food in its multiple articulations. Food is comprehended as a co-production and entanglement of two dynamics: precarious life-sustenance and fragile relationality. I illustrate this frame by discussing how ‘the coconut’ among the Sinhalese mediates the regeneration of a whole cosmos and within this, the relative positions of human and non-human entities, their altering inter-relations and, negotiations of life and death. These negotiations and relationalities constitute two dynamics which continue to operate in between the wider regeneration of the cosmos and the particular events in which they are articulated specifically. This is illustrated by three rituals in which the coconut takes on the role of mediator of sustenance and relationality within the regeneration of worlds
Queen of humour: a candid interview with award winning writer and film maker Sai Paranjpye
Full text linkIn the 80s, at a time when there were hardly any women filmmakers in the Indian film industry, one woman made a trendsetting impact. A woman who had published her first book of fairy tales at the age of 8,won the Asian Broadcasting Union Award in Iran for her first made-for-TV movie, ‘The Little Tea Shop,’and won three national awardsfor her first feature film ‘Sparsh’. She is SaiParanjpye— a woman of steely determination, a woman of sparkling wit and humour. Moving from writing to theatre, television to films, and back-and-forth, Sai Paranjpye has straddled many mediums with aplomb. While her children’s stories have enthralled generations of young people, her TV serials have become household names and her films have wooed audiences and critics in India and abroad. She has won several State, National and International Awards for her books and films,including the prestigious Padma Bhushan award in 2006, conferred by the President of India. In this candid interview, Sai Paranjpye reveals her life journey, both personal and professional, to filmmaker Sridhar Rangayan, her one-time assistant director and long-time friend. We get to know her —up, close and personal — and learn where she draws her inspiration from, how she weaves it into her writings and films, and, most importantly, where her trademark humour comes from
Cinema in the sculpting of the South Asian self: a textual reading
Full text linkIn this article, I attempt to decipher the intangible and pre-theoretical dimension of South Asian modernity through the portal of cinema. By reading the South Asian experience through the inherently political realm of visual culture, this article examines the role of the cinematic image in the dissemination of elite ideology and the formation of political subjects. Drawing on the role of Tamil cinema and its actors in forming the populace of political devotees, the article unravels the complexities of aesthetic experience and its relation to ideas of the self. Tamil cinema is then contrasted with examples from Hindi and Burmese cinema, in which visual culture appears as a site of contestation and formation of multiple meanings. Cinema, in its vast abundance, therefore, can become invaluable material and site for the exploration of everyday struggle in South Asia
The Konyak Nagas: a socio-cultural profile - By Ashim Roy
Full text linkAshim Roy’s The KonyakNagas: a socio-cultural profile is a significant study that merits wider circulation among readers and scholars alike – particularly those interested in the kingdoms and nations of the Naga-inhabited areas of Northeast India and Burma. It is, however, in dire need of a preface. Though Roy is meticulous in detailing practices and rituals related to food, war, tattooing, funerals, marriage, and the politics and policies of the numerous Konyak kingdoms as they were in the late 1940’s, he is not so concerned with situating his work within the historical parameters that ultimately give the work its greatest value. For one, Roy comes closer than anyone in demythologising the social, moral, and religious underpinnings of Naga headhunting (or head-taking as some prefer). During his (and his companion Johnny’s) month-long excursion into the northernmost corner of present-day Nagaland, he all but witnesses the last major headhunting raid in greater Assam’s history– that of the village of Anghphang in present-day Mon district, Nagaland. In this 1949 raid, roughly eleven neighbouring villages joined together and attacked Angphang village, wiping out the entire population (around three hundred people)
Editorial: Why the open access movement needs South Asian scholars
No full textAs this issue is being prepared for publication, a consortium of publishers - namely Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press and Taylor & Francis - has gained an advantage in a court case over the issue of copyright infringement against Rameshwari Photocopy Services, a small shop on the Delhi University campus that sells affordable photocopied texts such as course-packs to university students. The defendant cites a provision in Section 52 of the Indian Copyright Act that provides an important exemption in the case of reproductions for educational use. However, prosecutors state that while photocopying a portion of a copyrighted text, such as a chapter, is permissible, the commercial reproduction and distribution of entire texts is ‘piracy.’ Pending a final ruling in the case, an injunction levied on the shop last year forcing it to halt photocopying services was recently upheld by the High Court in Delhi after a recent exam-time appeal by the student community and the university (Desikan 2013). Regardless of the outcome, the case comes at a time when increasingly accessible internet-based technologies offer important opportunities for education in the world\u27s most populous region. This will pose ever-increasing challenges to established publishing practices. We\u27d like to suggest that these challenges are best met with a new vision; a shift toward open access publishing involving scholars of and from South Asia. This would push the issue decisively, and perhaps offer up a compelling model for scholars who remain ambivalent
Social movements and the subaltern in postcolonial South Asia
Full text linkSocial movements have various styles and aims in contemporary South Asia. They are ever-present at the grassroots, contesting power and pressing for change, but they occasionally take centre stage. In India, for example, the anti-corruption movement, led by the well-known Anna Hazare from the 1990s onwards, gained momentum in 2011 and, more recently, thousands from the grass-rootsvoluntarily gathered in protest against rape and sexual violence after the terrible assault at the endof 2012. At such points it is clear that social movements continue to contribute to the deepening ofdemocracy in the region, but more often than not they pass unnoticed. This special issue, therefore,aims to cast greater light onto social movement activism, action and outcomes in South Asia.Please see the attached .pdf for the full tex
The role of a song in a Hindi film
Full text linkThe article explores the role of the ‘Film Song’ in the life and popularity of a Hindi film and study its unique narrative attributes and purpose vis-à-vis songs in other world cinemas. The Hindi film song has been an integral and integrated part of a Hindi film’s script. It not only exists in a musical Hindi movie but is also used as a narrative device in films of every genre from comedies and romances to crime thrillers and horror films, most of which, routinely, may have five or more songs. The lyrics of songs are used to convey progressions in sequence and character moods much more succinctly than volumes of dialogues and visual sequences, accompanied by vocal music backed by an appropriate orchestral tenor in both popular and art-house Hindi movies. Though this may seem unreal to a viewer from another culture, it is not so for the traditional Hindi film audience as the format and presence of a song in a celluloid narrative traces its roots to ancient Indian folk theatre (called Nautanki) and age-old storytelling traditions. This article, while providing a historical perspective to the origin of the Hindi film song, introduces readers to some of the legends of Hindi cinema’s music-making industry that enjoys an independent life of its own, often beyond its source films’ run and popularity. Moreover, it explains the role of the primary collaborators involved in the making of a Hindi film song, and discuss the structure, functions and integral narrative duties of a good film song for a fair appraisal of its existence. Standout examples of songs from the 84-year-old journey of the Hindi film song are used to argue why it should be appreciated as one of the most crucial forms of Indian popular culture
The democratic stature of Pakistan in the contemporary world: challenges and prospects
Full text linkPakistan holds a very important geopolitical position not only within South Asia but also in relation to the rest of the world. Connecting East and West, and with the potentiality for bridging the Global South with the North, it forms an important locus for discussing the role of democracy and democratic institutions in bringing about and sustaining peace. With attention on the 2013 election season, this article explores strategies for stakeholders within Pakistan, the aim being the improvement of prospects for democracy and prosperit
Symposium on human-elephant relations in South and Southeast Asia - University of Canterbury, May 7 & 8
Full text linkThis two-day symposium brought together an international array of senior and junior researchers from across the natural sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences for an interdisciplinary exploration of the manifold aspects of the human-elephant relationship. Hosted by the Department of Anthropology and the New Zealand South Asia Centre (NZSAC), anthropologists, ecologists, geographers, historians, political scientists, Sanskritists, zoologists, and zoo elephant experts from Australia, France, Germany, India, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, the UK, and the USA met for an intensive meeting featuring dynamic presentations and vibrant discussion. The event provided a unique opportunity for productive debate across disciplinary boundaries on issues of welfare and conservation, history and coexistence, policy and practice, through which elephants have been variously bound up in human projects as weapons of war, emblems of prestige, symbols of divinity, objects of entertainment, icons of conservation, commodities for exchange, vehicles for labour, and intimate companions
Celebrating a century of Indian cinema: passions, pleasures and perceptions
Full text linkHow does one celebrate the centenary of ‘a way of life’?For a medium, you remember its greatest meaning makers. For a movement, you highlight the turning points in its journey. For an individual, the heights of success and impact. But what about an art form that started as an ‘alien’ wonder to end up not only as a way of life, but also a prodigious offspring, unimaginably mutated away from its now ‘foreign’ parent DNA, in a span of just 100 years. Today, it would not be an overstatement to celebrate Bollywood or popular Indian cinema in the national language, Hindi, as India’s most recognisable offering on the international culture platform. Its film industry is arguably one of ‘Shining India’s’ truly uncontested achievements in the new millennium. As a film critic I have frequently come across star, journalist and fan anecdotes of fond introductions and interactions over shared Bollywood memories in foreign lands. These stories have always evoked a sceptic’s enthusiasm, until recently, when a Russian man approached me on a bus in Edinburgh, hesitant yet excited, upon seeing a song sequence featuring Raj Kapoor playing on my laptop. Two decades ago, as a teen he had queued up with his grandmother for an umpteenth showcase of Brodigaya (the Russian name for Awara, which was dubbed and released in 1954) on a snowy winter’s afternoon in Moscow in the 1990s. Nearly three decades after his death and six decades since the release of Awara (1951), Raj Kapoor had once again connected two strangers from two different nations, in a third foreign land. Raj Kapoor and Awara remain Indian cinema’s first major triumph with audiences beyond the Indian sub-continent. Cont\u27d..