SikhArchive

Hi, I’m Sukhraj Singh from SikhArchive and welcome to the 38th episode of our Podcast series of conversations with historians, authors, academics, researchers, and activists on topics related to their areas of expertise on Sikh or Panjabi history.

In this episode we are joined by Bartow Elmore, who is an award-winning professor and writer who investigates the impact of big business on our environment. He teaches as an associate professor of environmental history and is a core faculty member of the Sustainability Institute at the Ohio State University.

We discuss his latest book, Seed Money: Monsanto’s Past and Our Food Future, which explores the history of Monsanto, how they influence our food system, their role in the industry of agro-chemicals, as well as genetically engineered seeds.

Monsanto has had a huge impact on Punjab such as the debt crisis farmers are facing, the cotton industry and the alarmingly high rates fertilizer use, to name but a few.

Hi, I’m Sukhraj Singh from SikhArchive and welcome to the 37th episode of our Podcast series of conversations with historians, authors, academics, researchers, and activists on topics related to their areas of expertise on Sikh or Panjabi history.

In this episode we are joined by Salman Siddiqi, who is a student of International Relations and Global Studies who has a great interest in the history of partitions, especially on Punjab and Palestine. He is the author of the article, “A tale of two tragedies. A historical background and comparative analysis of the Nakba and the Partition.”

Today we will be discussing this article which outlines both the timeline and common themes and differences that can be found throughout these two histories that ran parallel in the 20th century. We begin by introducing the British Colonial regime which occupied both territories and end with a discussion on the current state of affairs after the independence movements.

Hi, I’m Sukhraj Singh from SikhArchive and welcome to the 36th episode of our Podcast series of conversations with historians, authors, academics, researchers, and activists on topics related to their areas of expertise on Sikh or Panjabi history.

In this episode we are joined by Professor Renisa Mawani, who is a Professor of Sociology and Founding Chair of the Law and Society Minor Program at the University of British Columbia. She works on the conjoined histories of Indigeneity, Asian migration, and settler colonialism and is the author of Across Oceans of Law: The Komagata Maru and Jurisdiction in the Time of Empire.

We discuss today the book, which is a transnational history of the Komagata Maru, a Japanese steamship which carried 376 Punjabi migrants from Hong Kong to Canada and to India in 1914. It focuses on the interaction between human and nonhuman, problemtatizing the middle passage by focusing on the materiality of the ship, the vitality of water, and the forces of nature.

In this episode we are joined by Professor Natasha Behl, who is an associate professor in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Arizona State University (ASU).

Today, we discuss her book, Gendered Citizenship: Understanding Gendered Violence in Democratic India, which analyzes Indian women's unequal experience of democracy in multiple domains, namely the state, civil society, religious community, and the home.

In this episode we are joined by Professor Valerian Rodrigues, who is an Indian political scientist known for his influential work on Babasaheb Ambedkar, and also for his formulations of themes in Modern Indian Political Thought.

We discuss the life of Dr Ambedkar from his early childhood to his education and later political life and thought. We also explore his engagement with the Indian constitution and the Sikh community of India with regards to mass conversion.

In this episode we are joined by Professor Farina Mir, who is a professor of colonial and post-colonial South Asian studies with a particular interest in the social, cultural, and religious history of late-colonial north India. She is also the author of the book, The Social Space of Language: Vernacular Culture in British Colonial Punjab, which is a study of the Punjabi language and its literature under colonialism (from 1849-1947), with a particular focus on Qisse, or epic stories/romances.

In this episode we are joined by Professor Anand Yang, who is a scholar of history, with fields of interest including comparative colonialism and south Asian studies.

He is a professor of history at the University of Washington and author of the book, “Empire of Convicts” which we will be discussing today, and in particular the case studies of Bhai Maharaj Singh and Kharak Singh.

Hi, I’m Sukhraj Singh from SikhArchive and welcome to the 31st episode of our Podcast series of conversations with historians, authors, academics, researchers, and activists on topics related to their areas of expertise on Sikh or Panjabi history.

We discuss a host of topics surrounding early 20th century Punjab such as Caste, Gender, Health, Medicine and Race with respect to colonial history of Punjab. It is a fascinating conversation which I am excited to share because it touches on so many themes, I am interested in.

Hi, I’m Sukhraj Singh from Sikh Archive and welcome to the 30th episode of our Podcast series of conversations with historians, authors, academics, researchers and activists on topics related to their areas of expertise on Sikh or Panjabi history.

In this episode we are joined by Balbir Madhopuri who is a prolific author and poet most well known for his auto-biography, Changiya Rukh, which is about his upbringing and life experiences as a Dalit in Punjab.

In this episode we are joined by Professor Robin Rinehart, who is a scholar of Religious studies at Lafayette University, with research interests in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Religions of Asia. She is the author of the book, “Debating the Dasam Granth” which is our main topic of discussion today where we take a closer look at Professor Rinehart's inspiration into this field and her research findings.