In Perspective

In this episode, environment researchers Kanchi Kohli and Manju Menon discuss environmental impact assessments in India, and the impact of environmental degradation on local communities.

‘In Perspective’ is The Swaddle’s podcast series where academics reveal little-known facts about Indian history, society and culture. 

Notes: 

00:01:01:03- As we navigate through an economic crisis, how important is it to focus on environmental regulations for industries, and ensure that they remain strong?

00:04:37:21- How do companies around the world view environmental concerns? What is this mindset that drives how those in business look at environmental justice and environmental concerns around them?

00:08:49:19- What is an environmental safety net? Does an industry need to ensure a perimeter around where they operate so their environmental impact doesn’t flow beyond that? Is it an issue in regulation, enforcement or compliance? 

00:11:36:07- What is the history of the Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) in the global South? What was the context within which the EIA emerged in India in 1994? Why has it been so hotly debated? 

00:19:14:01- Within this framework of the EIA, what is the role of the public hearing process? Is there any compulsion on the government to weave the outcome of this public hearing process into the assessment report of the EIA, or is it just for show?

00:25:07:20- Why have you written that India’s coastline is a space that epitomizes policy contradictions?

00:33:46:12- Does environmental policy being a state matter (as opposed to being centralized at the national level) help, because it is more targeted to the ecology of the area, or is it detrimental, since it can become scattered and arbitrary? 

00:38:03:23- How did natural elements transform into these mobile, tradable commodities over time? How do we change this idea that nature is a limitless resource? How does the policy discourse around nature need to change? 

00:48:00:11- How has land transformation been at the center of economic growth of post-colonial, Asian nation states? Has this land use transformation impacted resource dependent communities? Has the Indian state been able to address this effectively? 

00:56:22:10- Is there any potentially successful legal protection for local communities impacted by land degradation? If they were to mount a challenge within the legal system, what is their chance of success? 

In this episode, sociologist Dr. Chaitanya Lakkimsetti discusses how the AIDS epidemic changed the Indian state's relationship with sex workers, and the problems with the moral panic around bar dancing in Maharashtra.

‘In Perspective’ is The Swaddle’s podcast series where academics reveal little-known facts about Indian history, society and culture. 

Notes: 

00;01;01;02- How does sexual labor  act as a site for the pursuit of social mobility and well-being for women dancers?

00;09;47;29- What are some scenarios where we see the dichotomy in how we treat women’s sexual labor?

00;14;07;26- How did the AIDS epidemic impact the Indian state’s relationship with sex workers?

00;24;08;17- Before Section 377 was read down in 2018, legal judgments often presented very conflicting attitudes towards sexual minorities in India. What were some of these conflicting judgements, and what problems did they pose in people’s everyday lives?

00;37;26;21- What are some of the problems with the Indian state’s approach to legislation and protection of trans* rights post the NALSA judgment?

In this episode, sociologist Prof. Radhika Chopra discusses South Asian masculinity, and what it means for heterosexual men to be feminists.

‘In Perspective’ is The Swaddle’s podcast series where academics reveal little-known facts about Indian history, society and culture. 

Notes: 

00:00:58:07- How is ‘veiling’ experienced in dual gendered ways, and how does it impact men in particular?

00:10:08:03- What makes veiling such a contested issue when it comes to women? Do we need to expand the idea of ‘veiling’ itself?

00:13:53:15- What are the defining characteristics of masculinity in South Asia? What does it mean to be a man in the shifting context of the sub-continent?

00:22:40:16- How is the figure of the househusband lampooned in popular culture? What does our understanding of economically dependent husbands tell us about mainstream and marginal masculinities in India?

00:28:10:01- How do we understand a man’s role in a familial structure? Why do we need to pay attention to the role that men play with respect to gender equality within households, or ‘domestic democracies’? 

00:40:17:06- What are pro-feminist masculinities? What kind of tensions do they produce? What does it mean for heterosexual men to support the cause of gender equality?

In this episode, historian Dr. Priya Satia talks about the evolution of the discipline of history, how Indian nationalists shaped British intellectual movements, and why historians need to speak truth to power.

‘In Perspective’ is The Swaddle’s podcast series where academics reveal little-known facts about Indian history, society and culture. 

Notes: 

00:00:58:04- Why do you say that the discipline of history itself has enabled the process of colonization by making it “ethically thinkable?”

00:05:03:11- What are some instances of moments of crisis where historians intervened?

00:09:57:19- How did the Indian nationalist movement (like Gandhi, Tagore and Nehru) shape British social history?

00:18:14:18-  What are the problems with how the 1947 Partition of India took place? How did it lay the groundwork for the tensions between India and Pakistan that we see till today?

00:27:11:07- How was gun trade an essential aspect of the emergence of industrial capitalism in Britain? How was this relevant for the colonized world like South Asia? 

00:33:58:23- How has the discipline of history become devalued in the formulation of state policies? Why is it important that we consult historians in policy-making?

In this episode, researcher Dr. Usha Raman talks about cyberfeminism, algorithm biases, and reimagining the internet.

‘In Perspective’ is The Swaddle’s podcast series where academics reveal little-known facts about Indian history, society and culture. 

Notes: 

00:00:55:17- What is cyberfeminism? Why is it important to take a feminist approach to understanding digital media and the internet at large? 

00:05:08:20- Has the involvement of women in technology and design on the internet actually made it more inclusive?

00:09:10:06- How has digital feminist activism grown in India? What kind of obstacles does this form of activism face?

00:15:06:08- Does digital feminism in India exclude any communities?

00:18:59:13- Have media portrayals of the 2012 Delhi rape case been problematic? How did these portrayals impact popular understandings of feminism and women’s safety? 

00:24:21:19- What are the issues with the online discourse we see around women’s safety, especially when initiated by the State? How did the ‘She Team’ program under the Telangana police department change this narrative?

00:28:53:12- How do people across the social spectrum use new media to create new identities? What kind of concerns around privacy and datafication does this raise? 

In this episode, historical and political anthropologist Dr. Atreyee Majumder talks about how colonialism shaped Indian environmentalism, and the ways in which capitalism impacts space and time.

‘In Perspective’ is The Swaddle’s podcast series where academics reveal little-known facts about Indian history, society and culture. 

Notes: 

00:00:52:07- How did colonial rule shape India’s attitude towards the environment? Do we see a continuity in this attitude in India’s postcolonial environmental regime as well?

00:05:49:09- Why has it continued to remain a status regime in postcolonial times as well?

00:09:32:06- What would it mean to resist this framework, and resist this environmental vocabulary that is defined by the state in the activisms that emerge from ground up?

00:12:20:01- How did resource extraction become the basis of colonialism? In what ways does this idea of resource extraction transform in the postcolonial era of globalization? 

00:24:37:08- How has globalization impacted global labor dynamics, enabling countries from the global north to profit from exploitative labor in the global south? 

00:29:09:17- Could you give an example which we see in the context of India selling out labor in a similar way without any  sort of protection? Have we seen negative consequences of that in terms of its impact on people?

00:31:54:19- What is the relationship between the accumulation of capital and environmental degradation? 

00:36:46:09- How do we find ways of resisting it, when most of our world order is based on capitalism, especially when pertaining to the climate emergency?

00:39:34:05- How has industrial capitalism shaped the trajectories of time and space in India?

In this episode, political scientist Dr. Pavithra Suryanarayan talks to us about understanding how the Brahmin elite 'hollowed out' state capacity in colonial India, and why Indians vote to protect status interests.

‘In Perspective’ is The Swaddle’s podcast series where academics reveal little-known facts about Indian history, society and culture. 

Notes: 

00:00:53:03- What is ‘state capacity?’ What does it mean to hollow out state capacity? 

00:05:33:02- How did the Brahmin elite hollow out the bureaucracy in the Bombay and Madras Presidencies at the time the Indian state was being democratised?  

00:10:48:07- How does this play out in India even today?

00:13:26:14- What makes right-wing political parties popular among the poor?

00:18:21:16- What role does people’s income play in voter turnout in India?

00:19:54:23- Why are caste and class so relevant when it comes to voting and politics in India?

00:22:53:17- Why does India see a huge proliferation of various political parties across states? 

00:27:55:02- In the recent 2021 West Bengal elections, almost all news sites’ pre-poll data predicted that the BJP would win, which turned out to be wrong when the All India Trinamool Congress won by a landslide. Where does the mismatch between voters’ attitudes and perceptions of the media come from?

In this episode, legal activist Prita Jha talks to us about the problems with implementation of  laws pertaining to violence against women and child sexual abuse.

‘In Perspective’ is The Swaddle’s podcast series where academics reveal little-known facts about Indian history, society and culture. 

Notes: 

00:00:56:12- You’re written about how the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act is a groundbreaking piece of legislation. What kind of legal and social activism went into passing this law, and what were some of the public debates around it?

00:08:17:16- Is a lack of awareness the cause for the difference inaccess to protections of the law in urban and rural areas? 

00:09:19:11- There’s a gap between the progressive nature of the law, and the judiciary’s understanding and application of it. What are some constraints with the judiciary’s application of the law? 

00:11:58:23- Where does the notion that dowry law can be misused by women in false cases against their husbands and in-laws come from? Is there any research or data to back this notion? Are there problems with how we legally define what a false case is?

00:20:31:06- What are some problems with criminalizing consensual sexual activity among adolescents? How do we address this complicated issue? 

00:25:44:18- Is the law which was intended to address child sexual abuse being used by parents of girls to protect them even from consensual adolescent relationships?  

00:26:55:02- Do we have the legal frameworks and protections in place to address the way that domestic violence played out during the Covid-19 lockdown?

In this episode, historian Dr. Jessica Hinchy talks to us about the colonial ‘panic’ surrounding the hijra community in the 19th century, the circumstances leading to their criminalisation, and the ways in which family became the focus of surveillance under the 1871 Criminal Tribes Act.

‘In Perspective’ is The Swaddle’s podcast series where academics reveal little-known facts about Indian history, society and culture. 

Notes: 

00:00:52:11- What were the factors that led to a colonial ‘panic’ surrounding the hijra community in the 19th century?

00:17:14:05- In the context of the 1871 Criminal Tribes Act, how did state policy seek to eliminate the hijra community altogether?   

00:27:15:20- In what ways did the hijra community undermine this colonial legislation and policing? 

00:36:29:12- How did some biographies and autobiographies of hijras challenge the colonial understanding of the hijra community? 

00:46:47:17- How did the family unit emerge as the central target of surveillance under the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871? How did this understanding impact middle-class Indian gender and caste politics? 

00:58:20:23- What matchmaking campaign did the colonial state launch in north India in 1891? What role did their concern with marriage practices and conjugality play in shaping the attitudes towards criminal tribes?

In this episode, cultural studies scholar Dr. Swati Moitra talks to us about reading cultures, women's travel in the 19th century, and the subversive potential of femslash fanfiction.

‘In Perspective’ is The Swaddle’s podcast series where academics reveal little-known facts about Indian history, society and culture. 

Notes: 

00:01:03:11- In 19th century Bengal, what were the anxieties around ‘modern’ women travelers? And how did these anxieties make their way into popular writings and art at the time? 

00:11:15:04- How did the travel writing of Kailashbashini Debi enable her to claim a voice in public space and advocate for the restructuring of domestic life?

00:19:15:18- How did communitarian reading groups in colonial Bengal assert the importance of reading as a leisurely practice for Bengali women? And how did this shape the ideal of the Bengali bhadra mahila (the ideal, chaste woman)?

00:29:00:20- How has print culture been impacted by the changes in contemporary reading cultures? 

00:34:43:19- What do instances of enforcement of morality tell us about society’s discomfort with women being in public?

00:39:35:22- What is femslash fiction? How can we understand it in the context of Indian popular culture? Can subcultures like femslash contribute to queer visibility in India?