Papers by Vasundhara Jairath
Contributions to Indian Sociology, Jan 31, 2023
Contributions to Indian Sociology, 2018
While environmental claim-making is centered on nature as the object of protection or preservatio... more While environmental claim-making is centered on nature as the object of protection or preservation, the invocation of land remains marginal to discussions on environmentalism. Land claims remain in the realm of agrarian or material discursive practices. This article analyzes an anti-displacement adivasi movement in Jharkhand in India to examine its environmental praxis. The movement articulates a distinct attachment of adivasis to land which undergirds the process of resistance to forceful land acquisition. An environmental discourse is invoked to protect continued access to land, not land itself, thereby acting back on such a discursive politics to inflect it with a material praxis that places the producer at the center.
Sociological Bulletin
Adivasi assertion of distinction based in the communities’ relationship with land and their surro... more Adivasi assertion of distinction based in the communities’ relationship with land and their surrounding environment has been the subject of much debate within academic writing. Critiquing romantic and essentialising images of adivasi societies, recent literature on adivasi politics, increasingly read within the frame of a politics of indigeneity, has raised questions regarding the nature of mobilisation around such romantic imagery. In this article, I suggest the need to reframe the question we ask of movements that make seemingly romantic claims, by asking how and why such claims take the shape that they do. In asking this question, the article argues for a reading of political claims made within the movement as historically contingent and rooted in the dynamic of the conflict that allows for its emergence. Understanding them as such allows for a renewed understanding of seemingly romantic claims, which instead point to the material and historical complex within which the struggle ...
January of 2016 sparked off a massive anti-caste movement in HCU, with all classes remaining susp... more January of 2016 sparked off a massive anti-caste movement in HCU, with all classes remaining suspended for several days and more than once, JNU saw no such upsurge. While Rohith Vemula's suicide was quickly declared an institutional murder, a phrase adopted by all democratic and progressive sections almost immediately, there is caution over terming Rajni Krish's suicide an institutional murder. While Rohith's suicide prompted the emergence of a demand for a Rohith Act that placed on the table the structural and systemic discrimination on the basis of caste meted out to Dalit students in institutions of higher education, a careful investigation into the reasons behind Rajni Krish's suicide is being called for. There is a split, as is often the case, amongst students' groups, as well as faculty. Ambedkarites have called it an institutional murder. Most others making up the large parts of the Left, liberals, progressive and democratic forces have remained more 'cautious', desisting as yet, from giving it this label. Was there a difference between the two cases? Yes. Rohith, along with four other Dalit research scholars, part of a political organisation, were being targeted and hounded by the university administration on the insistence of the ruling party and the central government, due to their confrontation with students of ABVP. This targeting had dangerous consequences precisely because of the structural forms of discrimination and alienation that Dalit students face in institutions of higher education in India. Rajni Krish's growing sense of unease, alienation, isolation and of being discriminated against has been brought out by more than one person with whom he shared his growing loneliness repeatedly. Rajni Krish was not targeted and hounded like Rohith was. But he was subject to the same systemic and structural marginalisation and discrimination that Rohith too faced, and that the large majority of Dalit students face. This sense of alienation takes on an even more salient character in institutions of higher education, in institutions of learning and knowledge production, in institutions that train us to think and theorise – an arena, pertaining to honing our mental faculties, that has historically been the prerogative of upper castes, and even of brahmins in particular, in this country. Wait. Don't stop reading. Read on a little more. A political disclosure is necessary at this point. I am an 'upper' caste/'upper' class urban English-speaking woman who comes from the Left. Ok let's continue. There is outrage pouring out from the Ambedkarites about the lack of outrage in JNU about the death of their peer. The absence of an anti-caste shriek at this moment in the one of the most progressive campuses in the country. About the numbing continuation of routine life in the University. The contrast with HCU is stark to say the least. They have amplified their critique of the left liberals/progressives. And why? Because Rajni Krish had expressed his sense of isolation and alienation in the Centre for Historical Studies. He had spoken to his friends about how he had no friends in CHS. About how he was anxious about how everyone had found a supervisor and he didn't still have one. He felt alone, he told his friends, and as though he was being discriminated against. Some faculties in the Centre have, I hear, gone on the defensive to state how many SC/ST students they have supervised. A couple of students from the Centre have, I hear, started a signature campaign trying to resist the 'bad name' this case is giving to the Centre. A little context for those who aren't clued in. CHS is supposed to be one of the strongest departments in JNU, and amongst the social sciences particularly, also known to be one of the best history departments in the country. It has some of the country's best-known historians who have published extensively, are known for their work across the world and have a record of high academic standard (meritorious?). Along with this reputation, it is also known, then, to be a hub of left liberals and progressives, from where strong voices of critique of the current regime emerge, a space where students are taught to ask difficult questions, engage in critical inquiry, and do the kind of freethinking and critical work that ABVP (and RSS) is threatened by and would like to silence shut.
Book Reviews by Vasundhara Jairath
The primary contribution of this work lies in the realm of
re-instating agency to the Cofán as a ... more The primary contribution of this work lies in the realm of
re-instating agency to the Cofán as a people, neither merely
helpless victims of an extractive, polluting, and exploitative
oil industry, nor simply as bearers of an ancient wisdom or an
‘authentic’ Cofán cultural repertoire. Instead, we come face
to face with a people who, even as they are neither exotic
‘others’ nor tragic victims, continue to exist in their cultural
differences and specificities, interpreting and understanding
oil from within that situated worldview, and negotiate with the
oil industry even as they suffer the exploitation and spoilage
caused by oil. The Cofán are then a people, just like any other
people, who encounter, assess, evaluate, and act, in the face
of powerful capitalist lobbies.
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Papers by Vasundhara Jairath
Book Reviews by Vasundhara Jairath
re-instating agency to the Cofán as a people, neither merely
helpless victims of an extractive, polluting, and exploitative
oil industry, nor simply as bearers of an ancient wisdom or an
‘authentic’ Cofán cultural repertoire. Instead, we come face
to face with a people who, even as they are neither exotic
‘others’ nor tragic victims, continue to exist in their cultural
differences and specificities, interpreting and understanding
oil from within that situated worldview, and negotiate with the
oil industry even as they suffer the exploitation and spoilage
caused by oil. The Cofán are then a people, just like any other
people, who encounter, assess, evaluate, and act, in the face
of powerful capitalist lobbies.
re-instating agency to the Cofán as a people, neither merely
helpless victims of an extractive, polluting, and exploitative
oil industry, nor simply as bearers of an ancient wisdom or an
‘authentic’ Cofán cultural repertoire. Instead, we come face
to face with a people who, even as they are neither exotic
‘others’ nor tragic victims, continue to exist in their cultural
differences and specificities, interpreting and understanding
oil from within that situated worldview, and negotiate with the
oil industry even as they suffer the exploitation and spoilage
caused by oil. The Cofán are then a people, just like any other
people, who encounter, assess, evaluate, and act, in the face
of powerful capitalist lobbies.