Himal Southasian

The death toll from #CycloneDitwah which caused widespread flooding and landslides in Sri Lanka (#lka) has reached 486 as of 5 December, while four people in Tamil Nadu died due to rain-related incidents over the past week
Read the full story with Southasia weekly: https://ow.ly/a1uI50XCBQF

Professor Hany Babu has been granted bail after serving five years of pre-trial incarceration for the #BhimaKoregaon case. For more information about the #BK16 and their slow journey to justice, revisit a podcast episode with Alpa Shah from April:
https://ow.ly/rR8X50XCAya

How caste pervades Southasian languages How caste pervades Southasian languages

"Caste identity is made audible even in routine daily interactions. Language also acts as a marker of social aspiration and mobility," Abhishek Avtans अभिषेक अवतंस writes about #caste and #language in #Southasia
https://www.himalmag.com/politics/language-caste-india-hindi-tamil-kannada

Rescue team evacuates people on an inflatable raft through floodwaters in front of a store with a large Mega Sale sign.

Over a million people have been impacted by flooding and landslides wrought by Cyclone Ditwah. Despite early warnings, the Sri Lankan government was unprepared to respond in a crisis.

@raisalw.bsky.social writes https://www.himalmag.com/politics/sri-lanka-cyclone-ditwah-floods-landslides

🎙️“The #RSS began with two things: the glorification of traditional Brahminical values and stories constructed around the evil characters of Muslims first, and later Christians,” Ram Puniyani says to Harsh Mander
https://youtu.be/orGOdfpGFxo

“‘Mother Mary’ brings to life a private history that Arundhati Roy has already drawn on, sometimes to
transcendent effect, in her fiction.”

Rosie Roti on the memoir that changes how we read Arundhati Roy:

🎙️On the final episode of Saffron Siege: "The #RSS’s ideology is based on feudal values in modern form – birth-based unshakable hierarchies of caste and gender," Ram Puniyani tells Harsh Mander
https://youtu.be/orGOdfpGFxo

Between big data and big brother Since at least 2012, tech firms have consistently topped the list of companies in terms of market capitalisation, indicating the enormous financial power that t

The Indian telecoms industry's recent move to require a pre-installation of a cyber safety app on all new devices raises concerns about surveillance. Revisit a 2020 interview with IT specialist Anita Gurumurthy about the vulnerability of user data at the hands of the state:
https://ow.ly/eop050XB5BJ

‘Mother Mary Comes To Me’, #ArundhatiRoy ’s memoir of love, loyalty and the larger-than-life Mrs Roy, puts into perspective a whole career of writing about the problem of belonging.
A review essay by Rosie Roti:
https://www.himalmag.com/politics/arundhati-roy-mother-mary-memoir

How caste pervades Southasian languages How caste pervades Southasian languages

The relationship between language and caste in #Southasia provides crucial insights into how social hierarchy is not merely reflected in language but also actively maintained linguistically. Abhishek Avtans अभिषेक अवतंस writes
https://www.himalmag.com/politics/language-caste-india-hindi-tamil-kannada

The Gaza apocalypse and India’s guilt ON 4 FEBRUARY, just two weeks after he took over the office of the president of the United States for the second time, Donald Trump shocked the world with his p

Today is International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People (#PalestineDay). To mark the occasion, read a March 2025 piece by Harsh Mander exploring the ties between #India and #Israel's campaign in Gaza
https://www.himalmag.com/politics/india-modi-gaza-israel-palestine-genocide

Climate change brings a new emergency to the Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka Tamil nationalism faces a new challenge as the climate emergency spreads in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province and other Tamil-dominated areas, where the ravages of war and systemic discrimination have left the population especially vulnerable

Amidst devastation in Sri Lanka (#lka) from #CycloneDitwah, revisit a September 2024 piece by Amita Arudpragasam about the dangers of increasing flooding in the Northern Province
https://www.himalmag.com/politics/climate-change-emergency-war-manar-fishers-farmers-tamil-nationalism-sri-lanka

Himal is looking for an Engagement and Audience Manager! Read more about the position at www.himalmag.com/careers

New job alert: Are you passionate about community-building for a Southasian magazine? We're looking for an Engagement and Audience Manager - join us!
buff.ly/b6pwkf5

Fifty years on, Sholay’s triumphs and flaws echo through Hindi cinema and Indian society “The moment you utter the ‘Sh’ of Sholay, every single scene from the film rolls out before your eyes,” Dharmendra, one of the stars of the cult Hindi classic,

The 1975 landmark film #Sholay will be re-released in India's cinemas this December. Read Anna MM Vetticad's essay on how the film unwittingly underlines the degradation of India’s landscape and the representation of gender, caste and Muslims in Bollywood.

Gandhi visiting a sweepers colony in 1946. Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhai Patel are in the right of the photo. The photo is in black and white.

The practice of associating speech with social position has deep historical roots in Southasia, and caste identity embeds itself even in basic vocabulary.

@avtansa.bsky.social writes: buff.ly/ohdhCGz

The Election Commission of India was, for many years, one of the country’s most trusted public institutions lauded around the world for carrying out, every five years, the seemingly impossible task… Anjali Bhardwaj on misgivings over India’s Election Commission: State of Southasia #36

🎙️ On State of Southasia, Anjali Bhardwaj says India's Election Commission is no longer seen as unbiased and that has has been lacking transparency and accountability to voters and the Indian public.

Navigating new scales of queer Southasia IT WASN’T THAT long ago that queer Southasian studies – perhaps especially work centred on India – seemed to be intensely preoccupied with the frame of the nati

"‘Abundance’ by Anjali Arondekar is a book that will transform how and why histories of sexuality are written in engagement with archives that are 'incommensurable and quotidian, imaginative and ordinary'."

A review essay by Rahul Rao :

Dur e Aziz Amna on writing women’s lives in Pakistan: Southasia Review of Books podcast #37 A conversation with the writer Dur e Aziz Amna about her second novel, ‘A Splintering’, and its exploration of class struggle, female rage, and the challenges of navigating social expectations across…

“So many recent books that I’ve read and loved from Pakistan are trying to grapple with the changing role of women in society.”

On the latest Southasia Review of Books podcast, the writer Dur e Aziz Amna talks about her new novel, ‘A Splintering’:

Thomas Blom Hansen, Qurban Ali & Harsh Mander on the RSS’s role in communal violence In this episode of Saffron Siege, the anthropologist Thomas Blom Hansen and journalist Qurban Ali join Harsh Mander to examine how the RSS has triggered, enabled and executed riots, targeted communal…

🎙️“Anti-Muslim hatred is at the core of the #RSS… Violence is also central, not only as a physical act, but actually as a state of mind,” says Thomas Blom Hansen on Saffron Siege.
Harsh Mander

In Pakistan, a mightier military and a judiciary undone Pakistan has a new political order. On 13 November, Pakistan’s Parliament signed the 27th constitutional amendment into law, creating the country’s first consti

By expanding the military’s constitutional authority, Pakistan's 27th Amendment leaves less room for judicial scrutiny, ensuring that the courts that once dared to question the generals are structurally bound to defer to them, writes Salman Rafi Sheikh

Stay informed with Southasia Weekly.

Sign up here: bit.ly/HimalNewsletters

After 28 years, ‘Indus Echoes’ spotlights Sindhi cinema in Pakistan After 28 years, ‘Indus Echoes’ spotlights Sindhi cinema in Pakistan

'The citizens of Sindh do not have the luxury of idealising their feudal past, nor contemporary feudal realities where academics and students go missing or are hunted down.'
Barrah Kunaan tells the story of Sindh province through the film Indus Echoes.

Navigating new scales of queer Southasia IT WASN’T THAT long ago that queer Southasian studies – perhaps especially work centred on India – seemed to be intensely preoccupied with the frame of the nati

"Far from being reducible to skin colour, racial identification for many activists in the foundational moment of queer Southasian organising in Britain followed from a common experience of empire and migration in postwar Britain."

Rahul Rao writes:

In Pakistan, a mightier military and a judiciary undone Pakistan has a new political order. On 13 November, Pakistan’s Parliament signed the 27th constitutional amendment into law, creating the country’s first consti

#Pakistan's 27th Amendment is the most significant restructuring of the government, signals the complete capitulation of the civilian political establishment, and made the army an effectively unassailable political player, writes Salman Rafi Sheikh

Support independent journalism and help produce crucial analysis of Southasia.
Click on the link to become a paying Patron. buff.ly/Jy8B3ji

M Rajshekhar on his Global Shining Light award-nominated #Vantara investigation: "If we were to measure stories in terms of just pure strangeness, this report is stranger than the rest of any of my reports put together."
Story: buff.ly/0c5IqkX
#Investigations #environment

After 28 years, ‘Indus Echoes’ spotlights Sindhi cinema in Pakistan After 28 years, ‘Indus Echoes’ spotlights Sindhi cinema in Pakistan

‘Indus Echoes points no fingers at any of the usual culprits who should be blamed for the state of Sindh today.’

Barrah Kunaan reviews Indus Echoes, the first Sindhi film released in Pakistan in 28 years:

Delhi, Multan or Herat?

Guess where in Southasia this photo was taken each week in Southasia Weekly: bit.ly/HimalNewsletters

We've got our finger on the pulse of #Southasia. Sign up to our newsletters to get the latest from Himal and across the region.

buff.ly/UacCbcL

After 28 years, ‘Indus Echoes’ spotlights Sindhi cinema in Pakistan After 28 years, ‘Indus Echoes’ spotlights Sindhi cinema in Pakistan

‘If today the ordinary citizen of Sindh cannot feed themselves it is because of a decay that stretches back centuries.’

Rahul Aijaz’s film Indus Echoes tells the story of stagnation in Sindh: