by Nora Wuttke 1st of July 2020 “Don’t take buses or taxis; it is better to walk” – and all of a sudden, my physical world became very small. At the same time, an infinite digital realm overlaid everything with its expansiveness. The tensions and discrepancies between experiences in “my” world and the digital discourses (mainly spun from Europe and the US where death rates where rising and mental health
Farzana Whitfield is the subject librarian for South Asia and Development Studies at SOAS. Here she looks back on her family’s personal experience and memories of Partition. This article has previously appeared on SOAS’s library blog. This August marks 70 years of India’s independence from British rule (15th August) giving birth to 2 nations- a Hindu majority India and a Muslim majority Pakistan (14th August). Subsequently there were 3 wars between
Annemari de Silva is Chevening Scholar to SOAS reading for an MA South Asian Area Studies, major in the Politics of Culture in Contemporary South Asia. On the 16th of July, a clash between students at the University of Jaffna erupted over the inclusion of Sinhalese cultural spectacles in the welcome event. Established in 1974, Jaffna University is located at the heart of the Tamil majority North of Sri Lanka. Although
Amina Yaqin is Senior Lecturer in Urdu and Postcolonial Studies in the Department of the Languages and Cultures of South Asia, SOAS. The recent assassination of the renowned qawwali singer Amjad Fareed Sabri in the name of piety in Pakistan has revived the question of the permissibility of music in Pakistani culture. Sabri was shot on June 22nd 2016 by attackers on a motorcycle while he was driving his car in Liaquatabad,
Simona Vittorini is a Senior Teaching Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies where she lectures undergraduate and postgraduate courses on the comparative politics of Asia and Africa. A diplomatic crisis was narrowly averted last week in Delhi when the African Heads of Missions finally agreed to participate in the Africa Day celebrations organised by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) in New Delhi. A few days
Jonathan Goodhand is a Professor Conflict and Development Studies at the SOAS Department of Development Studies. His research focuses on the political economy of conflict, war to peace transitions and increasingly on the role of borderlands, with a particular focus on South and Central Asia. Oliver Walton is a Lecturer in International Development at the University of Bath in the Department of Social and Policy Sciences. His research focuses on
The sudden collapse of President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s regime following his shock defeat in Sri Lanka’s presidential polls on January 8 has been heralded as a potential sea change in both domestic governance and foreign relations. Under Rajapaksa Sri Lanka’s relations with the United States and other western states, which had been excellent since the late seventies (i.e. throughout the three decade armed conflict), had deteriorated sharply in recent years. Relations
Attacks on school children by the Taliban in Pakistan are a familiar news item. The bewilderment that has been felt across the world highlights how complex the picture really is. The brutal attack on the school in Peshawar on the 16th of December 2014 in which 132 children and 9 staff died two years after the shooting of Malala Yousafzai on her way to school in October 2012 highlights the
2014 has been a year of commemorations and remembrances of the events of 1984. June 2014 marked the 30th anniversary of Operation Blue Star, the code name for the Indian army storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Operation Blue Star is also referred to as the second ghallughara (transl. carnage, holocaust).[1] November 2014 marked the 30th anniversary of the anti-Sikh pogroms which followed the assassination of Indira Gandhi who
October 31 2014 will mark the thirtieth anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the carnage in Delhi. Despite the gravity of those events, we refuse to confront the failures of our institutions and significance of those events. It would appear that ‘might is right’ has become our only political principle. We should remember that the hateful language of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was a major factor in