Asian Studies Centre

Christopher Hughes speaks at the China Centre on 3 March 2017 This presentation discusses how militarism was used to subordinate the modern idea of citizenship to social and political hierarchy in the transition from late Qing to early Republican China. The role of Japanese militarism in this process is analysed and evidence is drawn from a combination of elite politics and education policy and materials from China and Japan. The implications of this process for Chinese politics today are also explored.

Shashi Tharoor speaks at St Antony's College on 1 March 2017 Notable both as a politician and a writer, Shashi Tharoor is currently serving his second term as Lok Sabha MP and as the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs. Over the years he has held multiple roles including serving as Under-Secretary General of the United Nations under Kofi Annan’s leadership.

Ian Talbot speaks at the South Asia Seminar on 21 November 2017 The paper examines the roles of three influential heads of the British High Commission in Pakistan’s early post-independence history, Sir Gilbert Laithwaite (1951-4), Sir Alexander Symon (1954-61) and Sir Morrice James (1961-5). In particular it reveals the ways in which they undertook the important tasks of political reporting, mediating in the Indo-Pakistan conflict and protecting British interests at times of civil and regional conflict.

Kunal Sen speaks at the South Asia Seminar on 28 November 2017 India has historically performed badly in the World Bank’s Doing Business Indicators and a key objective of the current Indian government is about improving de jure rules around investment decisions so as to facilitate economic growth. Using a novel methodology, I show that de facto deals rather than de jure rules characterise the business-state relationship in Indian states and more deal making is prevalent in states with weak capacity. I argue that reforms initiatives to increase the ease of doing business in India is unlikely to succeed when deals rather than rules characterise investment decisions and when state capacity is weak and prone to capture by the business sector.

Avinash Paliwal speaks at the South Asia Seminar on 20 February 2018. The archetype of 'my enemy’s enemy is my friend', India's political and economic presence in Afghanistan is often viewed as a Machiavellian ploy aimed against Pakistan. The first of its kind, this book interrogates that simplistic yet powerful geopolitical narrative and asks what truly drives India's Afghanistan policy. Based on an extensive repertoire of hitherto untapped primary sources including official memoranda, diplomatic correspondence, and a series of interviews with key political actors, My Enemy’s Enemy provides a comprehensive analysis of India’s strategy debates and foreign policymaking processes vis-a-vis Afghanistan, from the embers of the Cold War to the 1990s Afghan civil war and the more recent U.S.-led war on terror. It demonstrates that Indian presence in Afghanistan has been guided primarily by an enduring vision for the region that requires a stable balance of power across the Durand Line.

Sejuti Das Gupta speaks at the South Asia Seminar on 6 March 2018. With cultural nationalism and symbolic politics holding the media attention, the significant transformation of India’s political economy and its contribution to victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014 national elections alongside the changing nature of Indian state has not been adequately written on. The period since liberalisation cannot be regarded as a continuous period as far as its political economy of agrarian policies is concerned. Through an assessment of the political settlement operating in three states, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Karnataka during the decade after 2000, the relevance of proprietary classes in shaping these policies and consolidating their position are established.

Romila Thapar, Faisal Devji, Gautham Shiralagi and Adam Roberts speak at St Antony's College on 16 October 2017 An event held under the auspices of St Antony’s College and the Oxford University Research Project on Civil Resistance and Power Politics, to mark 70 years of Indian independence.

Chair: Timothy Garton Ash

Parul Bhandari speaks at the South Asia Seminar on 27 February 2018 Parul Bhandari is currently a Visiting Scholar at St Edmund’s College and the Centre for South Asian Studies (CSAS), University of Cambridge, UK. She is also a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Centre of Social Sciences and Humanities (CSH), New Delhi, the South Asia research unit for the French National Centre for Research (CNRS). She has held Guest Faculty positions at the Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, and the Indian Institute of Technology, (IIT) Delhi. Dr Bhandari completed her PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge in 2014.

Her main research interests are in the field of social class, gender, marriage, and family. Her doctoral thesis explained the makings of middle class identities through the processes of spouse-selection. For her post-doctoral research she has shifted attention to the study of elites, particularly the rich housewives of Delhi, focusing on their relationship with money and exploring the themes of honour and humiliation in their everyday lives.

Dr Bhandari has written widely on gender, family and marriage, including book chapters, journal articles, and in newspapers and magazines. Her forthcoming books include Money, Culture, Class: Elite Women as Modern Subjects, (Routledge, London, 2018) and a co-edited volume, Exploring Indian Modernities: Ideas and Practices (Springer, 2018).

Matthew J Walton, Ma Khin Mar Mar Kyi and Aye Thein speak at the Southeast Asia Seminar on 14 February 2018. Myanmar's formal religious authority, the State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee (Ma Ha Na), was formed in the 1980s, as part of the military government's efforts to centralise religious control. Popular opinion sees Ma Ha Na as the tool of previous military governments. The contemporary 'Buddhist nationalist' movement is led by the Buddha Dhamma Parahita Foundation (formerly known as Ma Ba Tha), a group that has had an increasingly contentious relationship with Myanmar's formal political and religious authorities.

Often portrayed simply as a xenophobic, anti-Muslim movement, we argue that Ma Ba Tha can instead be understood as a group that many of its members and leading voices see as a vehicle to challenge the formal religious hierarchy, viewed by many monks as undemocratic and rigid. This struggle over spiritual authority is usually missed in analyses of pro-Buddhist 'nationalist' activism in Myanmar. Yet, this perspective can help explain the group’s persistent and widespread popularity and also portends a more divisive conflict brewing in the country, between formal religious authorities and a growing alternative centre of spiritual influence.

Matthew J Walton, Ma Khin Mar Mar Kyi and Aye Thein are all members of the research team for the ESRC-funded project 'Understanding 'Buddhist Nationalism' in Myanmar: Religion, Gender, Identity, and Conflict in a Political Transition.' This two year research project seeks to critically assess and disaggregate the category of 'Buddhist nationalism' in Myanmar by focusing on the creation, deployment, and critical response of differently positioned groups and individuals in Myanmar to various 'Buddhist' and 'nationalist' narratives, with particular regard to ethnic, geographic and gendered identities.

Zoltan Biedermann and Alan Strathern speak at the South Asia Seminar on 6 February 2018. The presenters reflect on their proposal to draw Sri Lanka into the paradigm of global history through the recently published edited collection Sri Lanka at the Crossroads of History (UCL, 2017 - the full volume can be downloaded free of charge at tinyurl.com/SLCrossroads).