"Approaching Religion & Caste before Colonialism : Case Studies & Beyond" workshop in collaboration with Mr. Vikas Rathee at Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg > 9am on 28th July 2012

Time : 9:00 am

Entry : All are welcome but advance intimation will be much appreciated as it will help us with arrangements including lunch.
Those wishing to have their names added to the e-mail list may please e-mail us at:
nmmldirector@gmail.com
Note: There is an elevator for the First Floor for those who may need to use it.

Place : Seminar Room, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML), Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg, New Delhi
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Event Details : The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library cordially invites you to a Workshop on 'Approaching Religion and Caste before Colonialism : Case Studies and Beyond' in collaboration with Mr. Vikas Rathee, Department of History, University of Arizona, USA

Abstract : The idea that present-day social formations and ideologies of South Asia, including communities and concepts built especially around caste and religion, are colonial constructions has always found scholarly detractors. The universalistic projects of secularism and modernity, underpinning the colonial and postcolonial social formations, have had the breadth of vision to shape the histories of previous periods in Indian history as ‘ancient’, ‘early historical’, ‘early medieval’, ‘Buddhist’, ‘Hindu’, ‘Muslim’, ‘medieval’, ‘Mughal’ and so on. In this sense, Indian history is more than linear time, because the history of every other epoch in Indian history is directly linked with the colonial period. Recent attempts to find European or Protestant roots for the secular and modern, leave historians of social formations prior to those of colonial South Asia with
interesting possibilities and challenges. In the first place, can we imagine that there were universalistics ideologies that underpinned social formations of the periods prior to colonialism? Subsequently, how can we identify and define such universalisms, which presumably defined the limits of ideology and social action in particular eras? How did these ideologies change over concatenating social formations in the various epochs of Indian history? Does colonial power over-reach in its academic avatar? Is looking at particular contexts of historical events the only way out for a historian of pre-colonial India?
This workshop focuses on ‘religion’ and ‘caste’, but it is inevitable that other themes would
surface. The papers promise to have methodological and empirical rigour, in order to address and go beyond the issue of continuity/change in thought and society from the pre-colonial to the colonial period.
Programme Schedule
9:00 - 9:05 a.m. : Welcome by Prof. Mahesh Rangarajan, Director, NMML.
9:05 - 9:35 a.m : Key note address by Dr. Dominique-Sila Khan, Institute of Rajasthan Studies, Jaipur .
9:35 - 11:00 a.m. : Session I
Chair : Ms. Anubhuti Maurya, Department of History, Bharati College, University of Delhi.
Speakers : Mr. Mohd. Moti-ur Rehman Khan, Department of History, PGDAV College, University of Delhi.
‘The Institution of ‘Waqf’, and the ideas of Humanism in Northern India during pre-colonial times’.
Mr.Vikas Rathee, University of Arizona, Tucson. ‘Some texts and contexts of the usage of the term ‘Hindu’ in seventeenth-century North India’.
Discussants:

Dr. Najaf Haider, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Prof. Chander Shekhar, Department of Persian, University of Delhi.

11:00 – 11:15 p.m. : Tea Break
11:15 – 1:00 p.m. : Session II

Chair : Prof. Deepak Mehta, Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi

Speakers:- Dr. Sandhya Sharma, Department of History, Vivekanand College, University of Delhi.
‘Religion and Religiosity in Mughal India: Some observations from contemporary literary traditions’
Mr. Syed Faisal, Centre for Studies in Science, Technology and Policy, Bangalore.
‘Shah Waliullah’s Community of Islam’
Discussants:
Dr. Meenakshi Khanna, Department of History, Indraprastha College, University of Delhi.
Mr. Shah Nadeem, Department of History, SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi
1:00 – 2:15 p.m. : Lunch
2:15 – 4:00 p.m. : Session III
Chair: Dr. Milind Awad, Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi.
Speakers: Dr. Dunkin Jalki, Centre for Studies in Local Culture, Kuvempu University, Shimoga.
‘On the Orientalist Fictions of Caste and Hindu Religion: The case of Lingayat tradition’
Ms. Meera Viswanathan, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.
‘The Vajrasuci’s Contestation of Varna-Jati’
Discussants :
Dr. Ranjeeta Dutta, Department of History, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi .
Dr. Shonaleeka Kaul, Department of History, University of Delhi.
4:00 – 4:30p.m.
Concluding Remarks and Tea

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