I am currently a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Goettingen, Germany. I hold a permanent position (Sociology) at the Center for Regional Studies, University of Hyderabad, India. Prior to this, I have worked as Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University (29 July 2009 to 20 May 2010-Ad-hoc) and Department of Sociology, Tezpur University, Assam(13 September 2011 to 11 June 2014). My area of research covers ethnic conflicts and violence, migration and political and cultural borders and the issues pertained to minority identity and citizenship in South Asia. I have done my Masters (2007) in Sociology from University of Hyderabad. I have done my M.Phil (2009) and PhD (2015) from Center for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University. PhD thesis title- Identity and Conflict: A Study of Inter-Community Violence among Marakkayar Muslims Mukkuvar Christians of South Kerala Phone: 9581034472 Address: Assistant Professor, Center for Regional Studies, School of Social Sciences, University of Hyderabad
This paper examines the challenges and possibilities of combining archival and ethnographic metho... more This paper examines the challenges and possibilities of combining archival and ethnographic methods in the field of 'communal' violence studies in India. Drawing insights from debates among historians and anthropologists on the multifarious interactions between archives and ethnography and reflecting on the empirical case of persistent violence between Muslims and Christians in southern India, it argues for a creative synthesis of these two modes of inquiry for an adequate understanding of 'communal' violence and riot inquiry commissions in India. First, the paper critiques how colonial and postcolonial Indian archival reports problematically inscribe violence between any religious communities (such as Muslims and Christians) in the same narrative as the predominant case of Hindu-Muslim conflict. Second, it illuminates how archival ethnography can be an effective way of studying violence between religious communities and thus transcend conventional disciplinary boundaries. Finally, the paper introduces a nuanced approach, called 'ethnography of archiving', to detail the judicial and nonjudicial discourses and bureaucratic manoeuvring involved in the creation of an archival report, thereby unravelling the power relations, mediating processes, manipulations and bureaucratic performances that make commission reports problematic even today.
This chapter is about the disenchantment of development in the coastal villages of the Kerala sta... more This chapter is about the disenchantment of development in the coastal villages of the Kerala state in South India. The essay foregrounds the political ecology approach and spatial dynamics in understanding the disenchantment of development in marginal spaces. It highlights how the everyday manifestation of political ecology rooted in the developmental interventions of the state leads to everyday struggles in the social life of the poor. The essay also demonstrates that the attention to micro context would yield a more nuanced understanding of the crisis of development in contemporary time. The idea of ‘contested space’ can be a useful ploy to understand the everyday manifestation of the disenchantment of development in comparative contexts.
This article is about the question of state power, violence and the identity predicaments of a ma... more This article is about the question of state power, violence and the identity predicaments of a marginalised Muslim community called Marakkayars, living in Beemapalli, a coastal hamlet located in the Thiruvananthapuram district of southern Kerala. Based on insights from judicial discourse and ethnography of an event of spectacle state violence that occurred in Beemapalli in the year 2009, the article shows how the contesting discourses that emerged after the violence are entangled with a larger transformation that has taken place in the recent history of this locality—the shift from an ethnic enclave to a ghetto. The judicial discourse which justifies the police violence in Beemapalli and the counter narratives from the locality that vehemently oppose it give interesting insight into the confrontations between the state and a ghettoised community prior to and after the violence. The article also demonstrates how the relationship between the state agencies and ghettoised Marakkayar Mu...
cultural context in which these movements take place, not to speak of the basic human rights and ... more cultural context in which these movements take place, not to speak of the basic human rights and the social protection mechanisms of the migrants. Unfortunately, this volume has little to say on migration and its implications. A summary of the existing social protection policies in the five countries covered by this volume makes for depressing reading. Thus, in India, where about 93 per cent of the total labour force belongs to the informal work force, barring some examples such as of Kerala, the content, reach, effectiveness, sustainability and impact of the existing social protection programmes remain far from satisfactory. The informal workers, largely from poor households, are paid low wages, have no security of employment or access to any social security in or out of a job. The same holds true of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. In Sri Lanka, despite its relatively higher rank in terms of employment protection and income security indices compared to the other South Asian countries, the informal sector workers continue to be ‘susceptible to future risks, as they have low earnings, savings and assets; their children may not be able to take care of them either, as they will in all probability work in similar circumstances, due to their low educational level’ (p. 230). In the concluding part, the authors highlight the urgent need for more effective and efficient social protection policies and give some pragmatic and meaningful suggestions to improve the focus, reach and impacts of the social protection policies. Overall, the volume is an important contribution to understanding and addressing the needs of the workers in the informal sector in all developing countries.
ABSTRACT In 2019, India made the unprecedented move of listing 1.9 million people in its northeas... more ABSTRACT In 2019, India made the unprecedented move of listing 1.9 million people in its northeast state of Assam as illegal migrants from Bangladesh in a new National Register of Citizens before passing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which overtly discriminates against the country’s Muslim minority. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork, this paper investigates the reality of precarious citizenship under India’s increasingly anti-migrant regime, particularly for Bengali-speaking Muslims. Going beyond the predominant notion that illegal migrants acquire documentary citizenship through fraudulent means after crossing the porous border between India and Bangladesh, this essay reveals a reverse scenario: those living with citizenship rights and in a regular social world are subjected to the gradual process of detection, detention and ‘deportability’ in India. This paper employs the concept of precarious citizenship to unravel this complex and oscillating world of legality and illegality, citizenship and noncitizenship, and the predicaments of life as a Bengali-speaking Muslim in India.
In 2019, India made the unprecedented move of listing 1.9 million people in its northeast state o... more In 2019, India made the unprecedented move of listing 1.9 million people in its northeast state of Assam as illegal migrants from Bangladesh in a new National Register of Citizens before passing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which overtly discriminates against the country's Muslim minority. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork, this paper investigates the reality of precarious citizenship under India's increasingly anti-migrant regime, particularly for Bengali-speaking Muslims. Going beyond the predominant notion that illegal migrants acquire documentary citizenship through fraudulent means after crossing the porous border between India and Bangladesh, this essay reveals a reverse scenario: those living with citizenship rights and in a regular social world are subjected to the gradual process of detection, detention and 'deportability' in India. This paper employs the concept of precarious citizenship to unravel this complex and oscillating world of legality and illegality, citizenship and noncitizenship, and the predicaments of life as a Bengalispeaking Muslim in India.
Refugees and Religion: By Birgit Meyer and Peter van der Veer. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 198–216. , 2021
This essay goes beyond the immediate humanitarian question of the “stateless” populations in the... more This essay goes beyond the immediate humanitarian question of the “stateless” populations in the wake of these amplified state interventions—including threat of detention and deportation of Muslims —to examine the longer history of violence against migrant Muslims, with a special emphasis on camps and camp life in the Assam of India.
This paper examines the challenges and possibilities of combining archival and ethnographic metho... more This paper examines the challenges and possibilities of combining archival and ethnographic methods in the field of ‘communal’ violence studies in India. Drawing insights from debates among historians and anthropologists on the multifarious interactions between archives and ethnography and reflecting on the empirical case of persistent violence between Muslims and Christians in southern India, it argues for a creative synthesis of these two modes of inquiry for an adequate understanding of ‘communal’ violence and riot inquiry commissions in India. First, the paper critiques how colonial and postcolonial Indian archival reports problematically inscribe violence between any religious communities (such as Muslims and Christians) in the same narrative as the predominant case of Hindu-Muslim conflict. Second, it illuminates how archival ethnography can be an effective way of studying violence between religious communities and thus transcend conventional disciplinary boundaries. Finally, the paper introduces a nuanced approach, called ‘ethnography of archiving’, to detail the judicial and nonjudicial discourses and bureaucratic manoeuvring involved in the creation of an archival report, thereby unravelling the power relations, mediating processes, manipulations and bureaucratic performances that make commission reports problematic even today.
abStract This article primarily assesses the articulations of Mappila Muslim identity in the publ... more abStract This article primarily assesses the articulations of Mappila Muslim identity in the public sphere formed in colonial Malabar, especially after the Malabar Rebellion of 1921. The colonial history of the public sphere in Malabar serves as a backdrop to a better understanding of the construction of present-day Muslim identity in Kerala in terms of power and domination. It is shown that a Muslim community that rebelled against the colonial state in northern Kerala earlier and came to be seen as aggressive, uncivilised and religiously fanatic, still faces strong resentment and distrust today, while the memory of subalternity remains present, too. The notion of public sphere has been widely seen as an appropriate descriptive tool to understand the formations and transformations of community identities in modern socio-political conditions. The term itself was introduced by Habermas (1989), who considered the public sphere as a domain of common concern and a space for critical debate, inclusive in nature. In the context of separation of state and church in Europe and the development of capitalism, the public sphere is a social space of communication, perceived somewhat idealistically, it now seems, where citizens deliberate upon their common affairs in an institutionalised arena of discursive interaction. Free and equal individuals meet to debate issues of common concern, arriving thereby at a normatively binding public opinion (Bhargava and Reifeld, 2005). However, common sense suggests that the nature and mode of the interference of collective forces in this public sphere varies when significant changes take place in society.
This article is about the question of state power, violence and the identity predicaments of a ma... more This article is about the question of state power, violence and the identity predicaments of a marginalised Muslim community called Marakkayars, living in Beemapalli, a coastal hamlet located in the Thiruvananthapuram district of southern Kerala. Based on insights from judicial discourse and ethnography of an event of spectacle state violence that occurred in Beemapalli in the year 2009, the article shows how the contesting discourses that emerged after the violence are entangled with a larger transformation that has taken place in the recent history of this locality—the shift from an ethnic enclave to a ghetto. The judicial discourse which justifies the police violence in Beemapalli and the counter narratives from the locality that vehemently oppose it give interesting insight into the confrontations between the state and a ghettoised community prior to and after the violence. The article also demonstrates how the relationship between the state agencies and ghettoised Marakkayar Muslims is saturated with varied forms of violence: legitimate and illegitimate, physical and symbolic, spectacle and everyday in a complex way.
This book examines conflict and violence among religious minorities and the implication on the id... more This book examines conflict and violence among religious minorities and the implication on the idea of citizenship in contemporary India. Going beyond the usual Hindu-Muslim question, it situates communalism in the context of conflicts between Muslims and Christians. By tracing the long history of conflict between the Marakkayar Muslims and Mukkuvar Christians in South India, it explores the notion of ‘mobilization of religious identity’ within the discourse on communal violence in South Asia as also discusses the spatial dynamics in violent conflicts. Including rich empirical evidence from historical and ethnographic material, the author shows how the contours of violence among minorities position Muslims as more vulnerable subjects of violent conflicts.
This paper examines the challenges and possibilities of combining archival and ethnographic metho... more This paper examines the challenges and possibilities of combining archival and ethnographic methods in the field of 'communal' violence studies in India. Drawing insights from debates among historians and anthropologists on the multifarious interactions between archives and ethnography and reflecting on the empirical case of persistent violence between Muslims and Christians in southern India, it argues for a creative synthesis of these two modes of inquiry for an adequate understanding of 'communal' violence and riot inquiry commissions in India. First, the paper critiques how colonial and postcolonial Indian archival reports problematically inscribe violence between any religious communities (such as Muslims and Christians) in the same narrative as the predominant case of Hindu-Muslim conflict. Second, it illuminates how archival ethnography can be an effective way of studying violence between religious communities and thus transcend conventional disciplinary boundaries. Finally, the paper introduces a nuanced approach, called 'ethnography of archiving', to detail the judicial and nonjudicial discourses and bureaucratic manoeuvring involved in the creation of an archival report, thereby unravelling the power relations, mediating processes, manipulations and bureaucratic performances that make commission reports problematic even today.
This chapter is about the disenchantment of development in the coastal villages of the Kerala sta... more This chapter is about the disenchantment of development in the coastal villages of the Kerala state in South India. The essay foregrounds the political ecology approach and spatial dynamics in understanding the disenchantment of development in marginal spaces. It highlights how the everyday manifestation of political ecology rooted in the developmental interventions of the state leads to everyday struggles in the social life of the poor. The essay also demonstrates that the attention to micro context would yield a more nuanced understanding of the crisis of development in contemporary time. The idea of ‘contested space’ can be a useful ploy to understand the everyday manifestation of the disenchantment of development in comparative contexts.
This article is about the question of state power, violence and the identity predicaments of a ma... more This article is about the question of state power, violence and the identity predicaments of a marginalised Muslim community called Marakkayars, living in Beemapalli, a coastal hamlet located in the Thiruvananthapuram district of southern Kerala. Based on insights from judicial discourse and ethnography of an event of spectacle state violence that occurred in Beemapalli in the year 2009, the article shows how the contesting discourses that emerged after the violence are entangled with a larger transformation that has taken place in the recent history of this locality—the shift from an ethnic enclave to a ghetto. The judicial discourse which justifies the police violence in Beemapalli and the counter narratives from the locality that vehemently oppose it give interesting insight into the confrontations between the state and a ghettoised community prior to and after the violence. The article also demonstrates how the relationship between the state agencies and ghettoised Marakkayar Mu...
cultural context in which these movements take place, not to speak of the basic human rights and ... more cultural context in which these movements take place, not to speak of the basic human rights and the social protection mechanisms of the migrants. Unfortunately, this volume has little to say on migration and its implications. A summary of the existing social protection policies in the five countries covered by this volume makes for depressing reading. Thus, in India, where about 93 per cent of the total labour force belongs to the informal work force, barring some examples such as of Kerala, the content, reach, effectiveness, sustainability and impact of the existing social protection programmes remain far from satisfactory. The informal workers, largely from poor households, are paid low wages, have no security of employment or access to any social security in or out of a job. The same holds true of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. In Sri Lanka, despite its relatively higher rank in terms of employment protection and income security indices compared to the other South Asian countries, the informal sector workers continue to be ‘susceptible to future risks, as they have low earnings, savings and assets; their children may not be able to take care of them either, as they will in all probability work in similar circumstances, due to their low educational level’ (p. 230). In the concluding part, the authors highlight the urgent need for more effective and efficient social protection policies and give some pragmatic and meaningful suggestions to improve the focus, reach and impacts of the social protection policies. Overall, the volume is an important contribution to understanding and addressing the needs of the workers in the informal sector in all developing countries.
ABSTRACT In 2019, India made the unprecedented move of listing 1.9 million people in its northeas... more ABSTRACT In 2019, India made the unprecedented move of listing 1.9 million people in its northeast state of Assam as illegal migrants from Bangladesh in a new National Register of Citizens before passing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which overtly discriminates against the country’s Muslim minority. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork, this paper investigates the reality of precarious citizenship under India’s increasingly anti-migrant regime, particularly for Bengali-speaking Muslims. Going beyond the predominant notion that illegal migrants acquire documentary citizenship through fraudulent means after crossing the porous border between India and Bangladesh, this essay reveals a reverse scenario: those living with citizenship rights and in a regular social world are subjected to the gradual process of detection, detention and ‘deportability’ in India. This paper employs the concept of precarious citizenship to unravel this complex and oscillating world of legality and illegality, citizenship and noncitizenship, and the predicaments of life as a Bengali-speaking Muslim in India.
In 2019, India made the unprecedented move of listing 1.9 million people in its northeast state o... more In 2019, India made the unprecedented move of listing 1.9 million people in its northeast state of Assam as illegal migrants from Bangladesh in a new National Register of Citizens before passing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which overtly discriminates against the country's Muslim minority. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork, this paper investigates the reality of precarious citizenship under India's increasingly anti-migrant regime, particularly for Bengali-speaking Muslims. Going beyond the predominant notion that illegal migrants acquire documentary citizenship through fraudulent means after crossing the porous border between India and Bangladesh, this essay reveals a reverse scenario: those living with citizenship rights and in a regular social world are subjected to the gradual process of detection, detention and 'deportability' in India. This paper employs the concept of precarious citizenship to unravel this complex and oscillating world of legality and illegality, citizenship and noncitizenship, and the predicaments of life as a Bengalispeaking Muslim in India.
Refugees and Religion: By Birgit Meyer and Peter van der Veer. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 198–216. , 2021
This essay goes beyond the immediate humanitarian question of the “stateless” populations in the... more This essay goes beyond the immediate humanitarian question of the “stateless” populations in the wake of these amplified state interventions—including threat of detention and deportation of Muslims —to examine the longer history of violence against migrant Muslims, with a special emphasis on camps and camp life in the Assam of India.
This paper examines the challenges and possibilities of combining archival and ethnographic metho... more This paper examines the challenges and possibilities of combining archival and ethnographic methods in the field of ‘communal’ violence studies in India. Drawing insights from debates among historians and anthropologists on the multifarious interactions between archives and ethnography and reflecting on the empirical case of persistent violence between Muslims and Christians in southern India, it argues for a creative synthesis of these two modes of inquiry for an adequate understanding of ‘communal’ violence and riot inquiry commissions in India. First, the paper critiques how colonial and postcolonial Indian archival reports problematically inscribe violence between any religious communities (such as Muslims and Christians) in the same narrative as the predominant case of Hindu-Muslim conflict. Second, it illuminates how archival ethnography can be an effective way of studying violence between religious communities and thus transcend conventional disciplinary boundaries. Finally, the paper introduces a nuanced approach, called ‘ethnography of archiving’, to detail the judicial and nonjudicial discourses and bureaucratic manoeuvring involved in the creation of an archival report, thereby unravelling the power relations, mediating processes, manipulations and bureaucratic performances that make commission reports problematic even today.
abStract This article primarily assesses the articulations of Mappila Muslim identity in the publ... more abStract This article primarily assesses the articulations of Mappila Muslim identity in the public sphere formed in colonial Malabar, especially after the Malabar Rebellion of 1921. The colonial history of the public sphere in Malabar serves as a backdrop to a better understanding of the construction of present-day Muslim identity in Kerala in terms of power and domination. It is shown that a Muslim community that rebelled against the colonial state in northern Kerala earlier and came to be seen as aggressive, uncivilised and religiously fanatic, still faces strong resentment and distrust today, while the memory of subalternity remains present, too. The notion of public sphere has been widely seen as an appropriate descriptive tool to understand the formations and transformations of community identities in modern socio-political conditions. The term itself was introduced by Habermas (1989), who considered the public sphere as a domain of common concern and a space for critical debate, inclusive in nature. In the context of separation of state and church in Europe and the development of capitalism, the public sphere is a social space of communication, perceived somewhat idealistically, it now seems, where citizens deliberate upon their common affairs in an institutionalised arena of discursive interaction. Free and equal individuals meet to debate issues of common concern, arriving thereby at a normatively binding public opinion (Bhargava and Reifeld, 2005). However, common sense suggests that the nature and mode of the interference of collective forces in this public sphere varies when significant changes take place in society.
This article is about the question of state power, violence and the identity predicaments of a ma... more This article is about the question of state power, violence and the identity predicaments of a marginalised Muslim community called Marakkayars, living in Beemapalli, a coastal hamlet located in the Thiruvananthapuram district of southern Kerala. Based on insights from judicial discourse and ethnography of an event of spectacle state violence that occurred in Beemapalli in the year 2009, the article shows how the contesting discourses that emerged after the violence are entangled with a larger transformation that has taken place in the recent history of this locality—the shift from an ethnic enclave to a ghetto. The judicial discourse which justifies the police violence in Beemapalli and the counter narratives from the locality that vehemently oppose it give interesting insight into the confrontations between the state and a ghettoised community prior to and after the violence. The article also demonstrates how the relationship between the state agencies and ghettoised Marakkayar Muslims is saturated with varied forms of violence: legitimate and illegitimate, physical and symbolic, spectacle and everyday in a complex way.
This book examines conflict and violence among religious minorities and the implication on the id... more This book examines conflict and violence among religious minorities and the implication on the idea of citizenship in contemporary India. Going beyond the usual Hindu-Muslim question, it situates communalism in the context of conflicts between Muslims and Christians. By tracing the long history of conflict between the Marakkayar Muslims and Mukkuvar Christians in South India, it explores the notion of ‘mobilization of religious identity’ within the discourse on communal violence in South Asia as also discusses the spatial dynamics in violent conflicts. Including rich empirical evidence from historical and ethnographic material, the author shows how the contours of violence among minorities position Muslims as more vulnerable subjects of violent conflicts.
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