51��� Launches Bhashavaad: India’s First Open-Access Database of Translations

The at 51���, in collaboration with the New India Foundation, launches Bhashavaad, India’s first non-profit, open-access, and crowd-sourced database of Indian translations. Opening with 14,000+ entries, 6,500+ authors, and 7,000+ translators, the aim of the database is to re-energise India’s translation ecosystem with an inventory of demand and supply that is long overdue and extremely valuable for our literary-cultural identity and infrastructure. The database is now live at .

As with any living archive, Bhashavaad will improve with time and will be updated with more data and information to support its purpose. It strives to answer questions like what is and what is not being translated, who is publishing translations, who is translating, which languages are most active, what are the most translated language pairs, and many more. With more data being added to the existing searchable database, it will help us understand our multilingual landscape better and also the dynamics between languages, the communities that use them, and the regions they belong to.

Rita Kothari, Co-director of the Ashoka Centre for Translation and Professor of English at 51���, is credited with extensively translating between Gujarati, Sindhi, English, and Hindi and also for theorising translation in the Indian context. On the launch of this database, Rita Kothari said, “Bhashavaad, as both an idea and archive, is an attempt to listen to what’s left over, as opposed to what’s lost, in translation. As such, ‘vaad’ is also to speak, stemming from ‘vaach’ in Sanskrit. Bhashavaad, therefore, shares not a concern about ‘isms’ but instead about the active ‘ings’—thinking, reading, writing, translating, and publishing—taking place in the wider Indian literary sphere. This interactive database is as much about making Indian languages speak to each other as it is about reading and listening to them.”

Arunava Sinha, Co-director of the Ashoka Centre for Translation and Professor of Creative Writing at 51���, with over 90 published translations between Bengali and English, said “the Bhashavaad database can be used to better understand the multilingual landscape of India. Powered by a diverse team of research fellows, academics, student interns, and project leads from different states and towns across India—working on translations from and into languages ranging from Dogri to Dakhni and Maithili to Mundari—it will improve as public users interact with it. This database is a labour of love of all those who are involved in the business of translation, directly or otherwise, many of whom have voluntarily come forward to support us in this endeavour with their suggestions and resources.”

In its current shape, Bhashavaad has noted a massive leap between the first 50 years of the 20th century, with 125 translations, and the first 20 years of the 21st century, with 2673 translations. While the database is still evolving toward its goal of mapping the full landscape of Indian translations, this remarkable growth marks a strong and credible beginning. Of the translations listed so far, the top ten translated languages are Bengali (1749), Hindi (1155), and Marathi (887), followed by Tamil, Malayalam, Urdu, Telugu, Kannada, Sanskrit, and Odia. The top five languages that receive translations outside English are Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, Bengali, and Telugu. A happy discovery of browsing is the long tail of translations from Manipuri, Maithili, Kodava, Rajbangshi, Mizo, Kokborok, and Bongcher. The top languages for translation from Sanskrit are English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, and Punjabi.

The top publisher of translations is National Book Trust with 2260, closely followed by Sahitya Akademi with 2118. The most prolific translation publishers are Penguin in English, Vani Prakashan in Hindi, Gurjar Grantharatna in Gujarati, DC Books in Malayalam, and Dey’s Publishing in Bengali. The top translated authors include Rabindranath Tagore, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Premchand, Amrita Pritam, William Shakespeare, Saadat Hasan Manto, Mahasweta Devi, Jules Verne, and Satyajit Ray. The database throws up delightful translation heroes like Chandrakant Pokale (127 translations from Marathi to Kannada), Ramanlal Soni (83 translations from Bengali and 7 from English to Gujarati), Sudhindranath Raha (65 translations from English and several European languages to Bengali) and Jai Ratan (36 translations from Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi to English).

Somak Raychaudhury, Vice-Chancellor, 51��� said, “The launch of Bhashavaad marks an important step toward preserving and celebrating India’s rich multilingual heritage. 51��� believes in the power of translation to bridge cultures, deepen understanding, and make literary treasures accessible across languages. We believe this open-access database will serve as an invaluable resource for scholars, researchers, readers, and translators, creating a more connected and inclusive literary ecosystem.”

The Bhashavaad database will continue to be a growing repository of translations where users, including authors-translators-publishers themselves, can add new entries and correct existing ones. Users will soon have interfaces to add or modify information on their books. As it continues to collect data from catalogues, websites, and library lists, Bhashavaad hopes to lead by building further collaborations with repositories of existing records to provide exhaustive documentation in the form of a living archive of India, and Indian literature, in translation.

51���

The Ashoka Centre for Translation partners with Penguin Random House India to unveil ‘Chronicles’

The Ashoka Centre for Translation, in collaboration with Penguin Random House, proudly announces the launch of Chronicles, a groundbreaking non-fiction translation series aimed at bringing creative-critical textual narratives from various Indian languages into English. Supported by the prestigious Manju Deshbandhu Gupta Fellowship, Chronicles seeks to serve as both an archive and a resource, offering readers a wide array of thoughts, ideas, histories, and life stories from across India. Releasing under Penguin’s Vintage imprint, the first of the books under the series is set to release in December 2024.

Through meticulously curated translations, the series aims to shed light on specific moments and movements from India's past to the present, providing readers with a deeper understanding of the country's rich heritage. The inaugural lineup of Chronicles features a diverse selection of works, each offering a unique perspective on Indian society, history, and culture. From memoirs and autobiographies to critical essays and biographies, the series promises to captivate readers with its wide-ranging exploration of the human experience.

Tamil: Ninaivu Alaigal by Dr. T.S.S. Rajan, translated by N. Kalyan Raman, is a sharply observed memoir chronicling a nuanced exploration of socio-political dynamics and personal evolution from the perspective of a progressive, reformist, nationalist, and politician.

Telugu: Yatra Smrithi by Dasarathi Krishnamacharya, translated by T. Vijay Kumar, is an autobiography capturing the poignant narrative of a poet and anti-Nizam rebel, offering a striking story of the making of Telangana's history.

Kannada: Selected Essays of Kirtinath Kurtakoti, translated by Kamalakar Bhat, is a collection of critical essays providing insightful perspectives on arts, aesthetics, and literary practices in South Asian societies. 

Marathi: Raghnak: The Saga of Mahar Landlordism by Shekhar Govindrao Korde, translated by Prashant Ingole, unveils the extraordinary life of Raghunath Mahar, an illiterate member of the ‘untouchable’ caste who rose to prominence as the ‘Kuber of Vidarbha’.

Gujarati: Mari Hakikat by Narmadashankar Dave, translated by Abhijit Kothari, arguably the first autobiography in Gujarati by the prominent writer and social reformer, sheds light on the literary and social changes occurring in Gujarati society during the colonial encounter of the 19th century. 

Hindi: Nij Jivan Ki Chhata, the once-banned autobiography of Ram Prasad Bismil, translated by Awadhesh Tripathi, recounts the daring exploits of Bismil and his fellow revolutionaries and offers an affective glimpse into the trials and triumphs of India's freedom struggle.

Assamese: Anandaram Dhekial Phukan’s Jivan Charitra by Gunabhiram Barua, translated by Banani Chakravarty, provides a biographical window into the process of Assamese modernity during British colonial rule.

Kannada: Bharatayatre by Lakshmisha Tolpadi, translated by Vanamala Viswanatha, winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award 2023 (Essays), is a thought-provoking examination of the Mahabharata in the contemporary context, illuminating moral complexities.

Bengali: Amar Katha by Binodini Dasi, translated by Arunava Sinha, is an original, convention-defying autobiography by the Bengali theatre actress popularly known as Nati Binodini. The book is a combination of two works: My Story and My Life in Acting. 

Malayalam: A Women’s History of Malayalam Theatre by Sajitha Madathil, translated by Jayasree Kalathil, traces a transformative narrative placing women firmly in Kerala's theatre and public sphere, from folk theatre and performance arts to political activism. The book won the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi Award for best book in 2010.

Commenting on the upcoming books, Professor Arunava Sinha and Professor Rita Kothari, Co-Directors, Ashoka Centre for Translation, remark, ‘This series marks the beginning of a sustained effort to expand the readership for great books of non-fiction from India through translation.’ 

Adding to this, Manish Sabharwal, Vice-Chairman and Co-Founder, Teamlease, says, ‘The Manju Deshbandhu Gupta Fellowships aim to bring works from Indian languages into English through high-quality translations that unlock India's treasures for the world.’

Elizabeth Kuruvilla, Associate Publisher, Vintage, Penguin Random House India, says, ‘While books in translation have been receiving enormous attention lately, this has been more prominently in the genre of fiction. It’s exciting to be able to bring to readers in English some of the most stimulating non-fiction writings that have been taking place in different Indian languages. The Ashoka Centre for Translation’s passionate work in the field is to be credited for the series Chronicles taking root, and I cannot thank them enough, and in particular the Manju Deshbandhu Gupta Fellowship, for supporting this invaluable series.’

Milee Ashwarya, Publisher, Adult Publishing Group, Penguin Random House India, says, ‘Chronicles, a unique collaboration between the Ashoka Centre for Translation and Penguin Random House India, for translation of important non-fiction works will be a landmark series. I am proud of this initiative, and I look forward to publishing the books.’

51���

Sisters Shaping Futures: Exploring the Impact of Mary Ward’s Vision on Girls’ Education in India

Mary Ward was born more than 400 years ago, but her life and her vision still have an impact on the world today, specifically on girls’ education in India. Ward was a Catholic born in post-Reformation England. She consequently left her homeland for Continental Europe, where she founded a new group for Catholic women. This group allowed them to be active in the world instead of staying secluded in a convent. During her lifetime, Ward often fell afoul of the Church due to her radical ideas. By the end of her life most of the houses she had founded in Europe had shut down, after a period of house arrest, she died back in England.

However, Ward’s vision of education for Catholic girls lived on in the Sisters of Loreto, founded by Sister Frances Mary Teresa Ball in the early 19th century. Ball named this new convent Loreto House, in honor of Ward’s devotion to the shrine of the Virgin Mary in Loreto, Italy. It was this Irish offshoot of Ward’s mission that came to India in the 19th century due to the efforts of a committee of Irish, Portuguese, Armenian, and Dutch women, known as the Ladies of the Nun Committee, who raised money to start a Catholic school for girls in Kolkata, India. After an exhausting four-month trip from Ireland around Cape Good Hope, the sisters arrived in Kolkata on 30 December 1841, greeted with some fanfare. In the years that followed, they set up the Loreto Schools, a network of educational institutions that became some of the most respected schools for girls in India.

When I came to India in 2018, my research background in early modern England drew me to the continued presence of Mary Ward in North India. While she remains largely a marginal figure in academia, with just a few scholarly books devoted to her, I discovered that she had a tangible presence in the minds of Loreto pupils. Many of my students and colleagues at 51��� had studied at Loreto schools, which prominently displayed pictures of Ward on their walls, and her life history was taught. However, while I had known Ward as a radical figure, challenging the norms of her religion and the patriarchal Catholic Church, I discovered that her role in India was more nuanced. On one hand, her schools provided quality education for women; but on the other hand, they also propagated colonial values, imposing "ladylike values" on Indian girls and erasing aspects of Indian heritage.

Working with my colleague Yashaswini Chandra, who is now a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, I co-authored an article that delved into records of the Loreto sisters—comprising histories and school magazines—alongside Rumer Godden’s 1939 novel about nuns in the Himalayas, Black Narcissus. Our aim was to explore how the portrayal of nuns compared in Godden’s fictional India and the historical reality. What we found surprised us. While Godden’s novel is often praised for its anti-imperialist stance, our analysis revealed that it still retains significant elements of orientalism, portraying the East in a manner that romanticizes and exoticizes it. Meanwhile, the Loreto Schools, while they did exhibit racist and colonialist tendencies, they also helped in giving education to Indian girls early on, which was a step towards women's rights. By reading a novel alongside Loreto’s historical archives, we found that the standard portrayal of nuns— as regressive and lacking agency— does not always hold up. Our research invites readers—both in academia and outside—to look beyond our assumptions about the past; it also prompts us to examine our present and consider how our institutions have been shaped by complex histories that continue to influence our lives.

(Edited by Dr Yukti Arora, Senior Manager, Academic Communications, Research and Development Office, 51���)

Reference Article:
Sister acts: Nuns in Rumer Godden's Black Narcissus and at the Loreto Convents in India
https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.12759

Authors: Yashaswini Chandra, Alexandra Verini

51���

A Unique Epoch in Hyderabad’s Urban Evolution

Aman Krishna is from the ASP batch of 2024 pursuing research under the supervision of Prof. Gaurav Garg. His thesis investigates the pivotal period in Hyderabad's urban development triggered by the calamitous flood of 1908, leading to the establishment of the City Improvement Board (CIB) in 1912. Tasked with the reconstruction of the city, the CIB embarked on a mission involving public buildings, parks, slum clearance, and various city improvement initiatives.

Aman’s research encompasses understanding how the Nizam of Hyderabad strategically utilised the aftermath of the 1908 flood to build a legacy of monumental structures symbolising the city's progress. Additionally, it aims to analyse the distinctive operations of the CIB within a princely state, drawing comparisons with other boards in colonial cities, including Secunderabad. The study also explores the evolving architectural styles and shifting focus of the CIB's buildings, with a particular focus on the contributions of architect Vincent Esch.

To conduct this research, primary sources from the Telangana State Archives and the National Archives (New Delhi)  have been extensively used, including the Annual Records of the City Improvement Board and other reports. Secondary sources include a range of works such as books, articles, etc., on other improvement boards in the subcontinent, Indo-Saracenic architecture, and relevant studies on Hyderabad and Esch.

The anticipated findings of Aman’s research will cover the evolution of the urban development of Hyderabad by focussing on the role of monumental architecture as the face of development of the city. The study aims to explore how Esch’s Osmanian style evolved to become a more general Indo-Saracenic identity under the CIB’s own architects. This exploration is contextualised against the backdrop of Indo-Saracenic architecture, Esch's legacy, and the general urban development of subcontinental cities.

The study's significance lies in uncovering Hyderabad's journey through monumental architecture, providing a nuanced perspective on urban development and architectural history. By using a unique architectural style as a lens, Aman’s thesis contributes to the understanding of urban evolution and architectural trends. The comparative analysis of a princely state's influence on urban development offers distinctive insights applicable to contemporary urban planning.

In essence, the thesis offers a comprehensive exploration of Hyderabad's urban development through the lens of architecture, shedding light on influential factors and key personalities that shaped the city's narrative.

Edited by Dr Yukti Arora and Sanyukta Singh

51���

Why Did the Emperor Become a Pilgrim?

In 1562, the Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605) travelled westward from Agra on a hunting expedition. He eventually landed up at the shrine of Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti (d. 1236) in Ajmer. Originally from Khurasan, Muinuddin was one of the earliest and most revered Sufi saints of South Asia. This would be the first of Akbar’s many pilgrimages to the shrine. In the 18 years between 1562 and 1579, he would visit Ajmer as many as 17 times. 

Akbar’s fascination with this shrine had as much to do with his engagements with religion as with political and strategic considerations for his empire. Let us consider the issue of religion first. The young emperor was keen to project himself as a pious king during the first half of his reign. The Chishtiyyas were a popular Sufi order in South Asia and Muinuddin’s dargah was a particularly venerated one. Associating himself with this shrine promised to lend Akbar political legitimacy. These factors must have helped him choose the Ajmer shrine as the site of his devotion and patronage.

To demonstrate his piety, Akbar would usually cover at least a part of the pilgrimage on foot in the course of the pilgrimages; on some occasions, he walked the entire way. Once in Ajmer, he would express his devotion by circumambulating the shrine, offering gifts at the Sufi’s grave and to the dargah officials, distributing alms among the devotees, and sponsoring the construction of new religious buildings in the town. He would pray at the dargah before going on important campaigns. On two occasions, he also saved certain possessions of defeated adversaries captured in the course of military campaigns and submitted them at the shrine eventually. This conveyed the idea that the victories of the Mughals in these campaigns had resulted from the blessings of the Sufi master.

Yet, for all the religious importance, Akbar’s pilgrimages to Ajmer were also shaped by political and strategic considerations. For the nascent empire, Ajmer held great strategic importance. It stood at a major nodal point of land routes in western and central India. It provided easy access to Malwa, Rajasthan, and Gujarat. Mughal forces had already conquered Malwa in 1561-62. Akbar’s frequent visits to Ajmer helped him consolidate his hold over the region. They also facilitated new expeditions against Rajput houses in Rajasthan that refused to bow down to Mughal authority. This involved the occupation of important forts like Mirtha (1562), Chitor (1567-68), and Ranthambhor (1569), as well as the conquest of Mewar (1576). The emperor’s presence in Ajmer also helped him personally lead the conquest of Gujarat in 1572–1573 and counter-insurgency operations in that region thereafter. All this helped Akbar project himself as a warrior king.

The pilgrimages showcased the dynamics of royal mobility as a form of statecraft. As the abode of the sovereign, the mobile imperial court was the prime seat of political power. As such, Akbar's journeys to and from Ajmer did not signify a break from regular administration; rather, they were an integral part of it. Away from the confines of the palace, the publicness of the pilgrimages allowed the emperor to perform the various aspects of kingship in front of a much larger audience. They gave him the scope to personally forge diplomatic ties with local chieftains, organise the production of public infrastructure, keep an eye on imperial commanders posted in neighbouring areas, and intervene in the day-to-day life of his subjects.

Interestingly, the pilgrimages stopped altogether after 1579. Aside from the changed strategic needs of the empire, this had to do with the transforming conception of Akbar’s kingship. In this new ideological paradigm inaugurated around 1580,  Akbar was projected as a universal sovereign. The spiritual status of the living emperor overshadowed the mystical authority of the dead sufi. Having briefly enjoyed the status of an imperial shrine, Ajmer was now overshadowed in sacrality forever by the imperial court of living Mughal emperors and the monumental tombs of deceased ones.

Reference article: 

, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Volume 33, Issue 2, April 2023, pp. 271 - 296.

Author: Pratyay Nath

51���

<strong>Saikat Majumdar appointed a Fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study, South Africa</strong>

The Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study, located in Stellenbosch, near Cape Town, is one of the leading research centres in Africa. Here, leading researchers and intellectuals from across the globe are supported to think innovatively and to pursue sustainable strategies to the challenges facing the world, with a special reference to, but not limited to Africa. Recent fellows include the writer Abdulrazak Gurnah, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, 2021; Tsitsi Dangarembga, novelist from Zimbabwe; James Ferguson, the leading African anthropologist; Derek Attridge, noted literary scholar.

STIAS launched the Nobel in Africa Initiative in partnership with Stellenbosch University, under the auspices of the Nobel Foundation and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences with funding from the Knut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation. The Nobel Symposium activities were initiated in 1965. Through the Initiative, STIAS will become the first institution outside of Scandinavia to host Nobel Symposia on behalf of the Nobel Foundation.

Saikat Majumdar has been awarded the fellowship to support his research project – The Amateur: autodidactism and self-making in the postcolony, a book about unexpected forms of reading, writing, and learning as they unfolded on the corners of the historical British Empire. It offers accounts of autodidactism and personal growth under forms of colonial rule and repressive or exclusionary systems of education – and the consequent amateurism that have shaped public intellectuals of wide and popular appeal.

The book draws on three locations: a group of black intellectuals in mid-century South Africa in the aftermath of the exclusionary Bantu Education Act of 1953, a number of 20th century Caribbean writers who offer diffident encounters with England as part of their literary bildung, and a group of writers from late-colonial and early-postcolonial India whose intellectual amateurism chart dissident relations with the British project of professionalizing a particular kind of colonial subject. The book will be published internationally by Bloomsbury, who has also published a collection of essays on this subject, The Critic as Amateur (2019), edited by Saikat and Aarthi Vadde from Duke University, with contributions from India, US, UK, Australia, and South Africa.

“I’ve been working and thinking about this project for several years now,” Saikat said. “the core question I’m trying to address is whether thinking and writing about art and literature is a specialist pursuit, or can anyone with passion for them join the conversation productively, irrespective of training or background. As a novelist who also writes about literature and education for the mainstream media, the idea of amateur, popular, or generalist criticism has occupied me for a long time. Looking at the growth and development of writers and thinkers who variously struggled with poor or exclusionary education systems in the colonized world but developed as entertaining amateurs has given me many insights.”

“South Africa, particularly black intellectuals under apartheid, play a crucial role in this book, so I’m excited to be able do some of the work while based at the Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study.”

Some of Saikat’s work on this subject has already been published – in the journals PMLA (Publication of the Modern Language Association) and New Literary History, and is forthcoming in the Cambridge Companion to the Essay, as well as in popular venues such as the Los Angeles Review of Books, Hindu, Scroll, etc.

“This project, along with the South African experience,” Saikat said, “I’m hoping, will also re-energize my teaching as a return to Ashoka after my sabbatical, particularly with my Foundation course, Literature and the World, and my course for English majors, Postcolonial Literature.”

51���

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a Co-Curricular

It all happened near the mess, beneath the giant mudras and not far from the Vitruvian man.  Lights sparkled.  Music rumbled.  To the north, film projections on the walls.  To the east,  poetry readings.  To the east, a  crafts bazaar. To the south, a Plautus comedy staged with abstract masks. Crowds of  performers mingled with throngs of attendees in two hours of choreographed bedlam. This was the last live co-curricular event before the pandemic hit.

As the Ashoka campus came to life in 2014, the first students, baffled and excited, came face to face with co-curricular courses, the brainchild of professors Madhavi Menon and Jonathan Gil Harris. The initial idea was to encourage  receptivity to the creative, thereby expanding a student’s gaze towards the wider world of knowledge. This intention still holds today. Back then there were just four courses  in art, music, theatre and dance. We now have 20 courses per semester  with a culminating event often referred to as the CC Mela and characterised by its creative use of the many indoor and outdoor spaces on campus for performances, baithaks and exhibitions.

So, come every Wednesday evening and  the campus receives 20-odd visitors, all practicing artists, performers and poets.  They animate a wide variety of courses that change with every new semester. The ideal co-curricular course is one in which every student, regardless of previous exposure, tastes the pleasures and difficulties of sculpting, designing, singing, dancing and acting within the vocabulary of a given art or language. A fine balance is attempted between skill and knowledge, all the while recognising the tentative nature of the enterprise.  A co-curricular professor has to facilitate experience while avoiding giving the students a false sense of too-easily acquired mastery.

Most courses have gone well (repeated in a later semester by popular demand). And some have not gone well, an occasional professor disappointing as well as an occasional student behaving badly! But by and large, most students-  some cheerful, some grumpy-  seem to finish by getting excited about the programme. 

Because of the interactive nature of the courses, the pandemic-induced shift to online classes initially caused ominous uh-oh’s,  but  most of them have worked surprisingly well.  I was touched to see the students peering tentatively into the screen from their homes. On the ground, I and my associate Abhinaya Penneswaran have spent a lot of time organising materials-  special paper, brushes, clay, design tools, flutes, books, cloth, etc,-  and sending them to the students all over the country. Even the co-curricular mela has gone online three times now with professors and students creating online events to convey the essence of their courses.

And who are these wonderful professors?  They are photographers, designers, sculptors, painters, actors, directors, musicians, dancers, poets and more.  The initial class is never quite what they had expected (as I well know from the first time I taught here!), but they soon learn the ins and outs of the Ashoka prototype student and usually go on to a friendly semester of exciting exchanges with their pupils. 

Painter Sheila Makhijani says, “I remember one student who said now he felt he could do anything in life. If painting can give that self-confidence, then that is amazing!”  Theatre director Neel Chaudhuri adds, “I’m always delighted to see how the creative unknown ruffles the students’ mundane regularities.”  Over to first batch student Apuroop Sethupathy, “The co-curriculars, while not always perfect, taught me to view art as a process that encourages questioning and discussion.”  And the final word is from recent graduate Sahana Hegde, who responds with a less-than-cryptic “Positive”!

51���

‘We are still in the closet in our thinking about desire’

Ashoka Professor of English and noted queer theorist Madhavi Menon has always been interested in the law. Her latest book, The Law of Desire: Rulings on Sex and Sexuality in India, has just arrived on the stands with rave reviews from leading newspapers and magazines. Published by Speaking Tiger, the offering presents the many ‘conundrums and paradoxes’ that result when the law is entangled with sex and sexuality.

A go-to guide for everybody interested in gender, desire, sexuality and obscenity and how the Indian judiciary has reacted to it over time, the book is up for grabs at leading bookstores across India and e-commerce platforms.

We sat down with Professor Menon, who is also the Director of the Centre for Studies in Gender & Sexuality at 51���, to understand her motivation behind writing this book as well as to assess the key arguments that she has put forth in this timely offering. In her responses to some specific questions pertaining to her book and a few rhetorical ones, Professor Menon provides an overview of her book and is unflinching in calling a spade a spade, contending that like many judiciaries and legal systems around the world, India’s too is steeped in misogyny and sex-phobia.

Excerpts from an interview:

What is your motivation behind writing The Law of Desire? How did this process begin and can you take us through the journey of writing this book?

I have always been interested in the law. As the overarching structure within which we live our daily lives, the law affects us on both micro and macro levels. Law is both upper-case and lower-case: social laws both produce the Law and are produced by them. Does a change in the Law trickle down to changes in social and sexual laws? Is law ~ both lower- and upper-case ~ only restrictive or does it also create spaces for flourishing? Does restriction enable desire to thrive instead of only thwarting it? These are some of the questions I was interested in exploring in The Law of Desire. Despite the use of the definite article "the" and the upper-case "Law" in the title, I explore the ways in which law is always multiple and capable of different interpretations. It can neither define nor be defined with universal precision.

The blurb of the book asserts that we need to play with, rather than stay with, the Law of Desire. Are you suggesting that we need to introspect and reevaluate the laws that seem to govern desire in our society?

The book suggests that both law and desire have a fundamental relationship with plurality rather than singularity. This means that both law and desire preside over realms that are too multiple to be fathomed in any one way alone. But the difference between the law and desire is that law has aggrandised itself to such an extent over the centuries that it now believes itself to be The Truth. All the language surrounding the law is steeped in the absoluteness of religion ~ you "pray" to the Court, judges are called "Your Lordship" (even when they're women), and you can be held in "contempt" of court for criticising it. Law attempts to place itself above the realm of the common, on a perch from which it can direct the ways in which people should live and list the punishments that will accrue to them if they do not live in that prescribed manner. And when it comes to desire ~ even in cases where there is no victim, as in the case with homosexual or trans* desire ~ the law prescribes what people should and should not do, and where they should or should not do it. This is where law and desire are most at odds, with the former trying to squeeze multiplicity into a one-size-fits-all paradigm. But this attempt to squeeze can also be pleasurable, and desire has historically found ways of getting around the vice-like grip of the law.

What is your evaluation of the judiciary’s handling of gender, sexuality and obscenity in India?

Like many judiciaries and legal systems around the world, ours too is steeped in misogyny and sex-phobia. This means that no matter how progressive an individual judgment might seem to be, it continues to depend on ideas of sex that are closely attached to shame. Thus, the wonderful 2018 Supreme Court judgment on Section 377, for instance, which decriminalised "carnal acts against the order of nature," nonetheless continues to think of sex as something that should only happen in private. Whether criminal or not, then, we are still in the closet in terms of how we think about desire and its "proper" realm. As for obscenity, this is famously the legal realm that lacks all definitional precision. What is obscene for one person is not so for another, and this is true also for judges. Different judges look at the same piece of art or literature differently, and rule accordingly. Obscenity might mark the limit of the law's narrative about its own clarity and objectivity. 

Is it necessary to ensure heterosexuality in our society?

 If this were a face-to-face interview, then I would laugh at this point! It is so delicious, isn't it, to think that something we consider "normal" and "natural" might actually be legally mandated and reinforced? But I do think that is the case. In an overwhelming confluence between big Laws and small ones, heterosexuality is socially-procreated and legally protected. Every child is assumed and then encouraged to be heterosexual, just as many laws are premised on a husband and wife unit. What makes this heterosexism delicious, though, is the fact that if heterosexuality really were "natural," then surely it would not need to be mandated, and people would not need to be encouraged to move in its direction? This is a good example of how the law pretends that only one desire is natural even and especially when it is faced with multiple versions of desire.  

From where does desire gain its legitimacy? Is it dependent on the law to approve of its existence or is it a natural process that needs no hindrance from the law?

As my previous answer suggests, I am very wary of using the word "natural" to describe any aspect of desire. Doing so immediately opens us up to judgments about desires that are "unnatural. After all, what is deemed "natural" needs to be pitted against something that is deemed to be its opposite. But at this moment in our history, we carelessly equate what is legal with what is natural, without thinking for a minute about the contingent status of both these categories. Even further, we equate what is legal with what is natural with what is good. Thus, different people want their sexual desires to be validated by the law in order to feel good about themselves. To my mind, such dependence on the law to validate one's desire and one's being sets a dangerous precedent. It allows the law to categorise neatly what can only be understood and experienced as the messiness of desire. We then start to feel like our desire too should be neat, legal, and natural rather than unruly, but it never can be, and so that becomes a source of tension for us. I think it's time that we start to enjoy messiness rather than categorisation as the hallmark of desire. This would mean that instead of rushing to the law to have our desire "recognised," we should bring the law to its limit, where it is faced with its own incoherence. For instance, "carnal acts against the order of nature" has been interpreted legally to mean non-reproductive sex. This class of sex acts covers all sexual orientations even as the law has settled it narrowly on homosexuality. Instead of rushing to legitimate homosexuality, then, we should insist that heterosexuality too is, within this definition, illegal. 

Tell us about one major judgment around desire that you think was not necessary?

There are so many! But the Hadiya judgment, to take one fairly recent example, is something that I consider not just unnecessary, but also pernicious. I have written about this case in detail in The Law of Desire, but for now, suffice it to say that this case showcased the most misogynistic and communal strands of thinking that seem rampant in the legal system in our country. The Kerala High Court in 2017 dissolved the marriage of Hadiya and Shafin Jahan because Hadiya's father said she was a young and impressionable girl and should be under her father's care rather than being allowed to choose what religion to follow and who to marry. Shockingly, the Court agreed with this paternalistic argument despite the fact that Hadiya was then a 24-year-old adult.  The Supreme Court overturned this ruling in 2018, though it allowed the NIA to investigate Shafin Jahan based on the spurious allegations of Hadiya's father. The NIA found no grounds to prosecute Shafin Jahan, but the conviction of a Muslim man's criminality and women's unreliability in matters of desire is an old trope that te law never seems to tire of. Indeed, it seems to have got a fresh lease on life with the insidious political insistence on "love jihad," where the woman is too foolish to know her own desires and therefore needs to be "protected" by the pater and the paternalistic law.  

Going forward, what is your prescription for improving the laws that seem to be built on very weak and often casteist and patriarchal assumptions?

I am not sure I have a prescription for the law. Instead I have a plea for us all: that we be creative and critical thinkers who assume nothing and question everything. The law pretends it is based on truth, but it reflects the worst phobias that plague our society. Lawyers were once upon a time great intellectuals and radicals ~ that is why they were able to lead India to independence from the British ~ but now they seem increasingly politically corrupt and intellectually moribund. Perhaps they need a liberal arts education at Ashoka in order to understand that the law requires more flexibility and imagination? The fear, though, is that then it will no longer remain the law.   

(Written by Saket Suman)

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From Lucknow, with love: Decoding the city through letters

‘We wanted to search for the other, more elusive city that was so historically rich, yet projected only for its kebabs and nawabs.’

When Justin McCarthy, head of the Performing Arts department at Ashoka, heard about the performance put together by Saman Habib and Sanjay Muttoo on tracing the history of Lucknow from 1857 to present times through reading letters, he knew he had to organise it for the students. 

This was both in line with the idea of performing arts as an integral part of education at Ashoka, and McCarthy’s personal fondness for the city. Thus, when Habib and Mattoo arrived at Ashoka, we interacted with them to provide you a glimpse into their ‘labour of love’, and a peek into the vibrant cultural milieu at Ashoka.

Below are excerpts from the conversation and highlights from the performance.

How did the idea of this performance take shape?

Saman: I have lived and worked in Lucknow for the last 20 years, but did not grow up there. Although my paternal grandfather's family was from Lucknow, our links to the city were minimal as subsequent generations settled in other places and countries. Some stories about the city's syncretic culture and colorful social and political history had attracted me, but also led to disappointment as I encountered retrogressive attitudes when I moved to Lucknow for work. That was, perhaps, the trigger to search for the other side of Lucknow through personal letters and what the city meant to its people.

Sanjay: I am a sixth generation born in Lucknow, now based in Delhi. I did not grow up in Lucknow but spent time there. My fascination for the city began when I relocated there from a Bokaro Steel City and had to reconcile myself to a traditional haweli situated in a gulley, in sharp contrast to the modernity of Bokaro. It was a culture shock for me and thus started the search for identity – what was the city and what was my relationship with it. 

Sanjay Muttoo and Saman Habib were part of a reading on 'Feminists of Awadh' during the 'Mahindra-Santkada Lucknow Festival' in 2014 when they formed the idea of doing a reading together on Lucknow. A hazy concept, the idea was both exciting and daunting for them as they began their search for the letters. 

Friends were pestered, family boxes were emptied out and books were smelt afresh. As our collection of letters started building up, a clearer idea of what exactly we could and would do took shape. It was to be a story of Lucknow, a narrative weaving history, memory, personal relationships and contemporary politics over a span of more than hundred and fifty years starting from 1857 to the present  times. It would bring alive the joys and sorrows of everyday life in the city, sacrifices during the national movement, memories of separation and longing as the partition of 1947 split families, the resolute valour of revolutionaries as they fought British rule during the revolt of 1857 and the determined effort of the oppressed and marginalized groups as they struggled for their right to lead a life of dignity in a free and democratic India. It was also to be a story of negotiating inter-community marriages, of childhood pranks, of constructing dream houses and bathrooms... 

Could you tell us a little bit about the personal letters? Are they part of your own personal collection? 

Saman: There were personal letters in the family and did form the base from where the search began. A branch of the family that had lived on in Lucknow had preserved one side of a fascinating exchange of letters between a much loved aunt and uncle. My search for letters began by looking for the other side of the exchange. These were found by my cousin in Pakistan and form an important part of our reading. Other family members pitched in too. My spouse (a seventh generation Lakhnavi) dug out his collection, and my parents let me use old letters from the time of my grandparents' marriage across communities. Sanjay also has family roots in Lucknow and discovered old letters that he hadn't known about!

Do you want to say something about the nature of letter writing itself in connection with this particular project?

Saman: In addition to the experiences and events they represent, the major charm in the letters we have selected is their literary merit. They also serve as a reflection of change in language as we move from 1857 to present times. The reading is multilingual (Urdu/Hindi/English – as the letters were written) with a commentary in Hindustani to keep it as close to the spoken language of the city as possible. 

Why did you decide on 1857 as the starting point?

Saman: We wanted the historical experience of the city to be reflected in the reading and 1857 was a turning point in Awadh's history. Moreover, there is accessible material for that period onwards. 

Sanjay: We also felt that since we were looking at the experience of having lived in Lucknow, we wanted a historical framework within which we could situate those personal experiences. In the revolt of 1857, Lucknow was a very important centre, and it changed the city in many ways.  After the revolt, physical transformation of the city took place. For instance, the British widened the roads given the fact that the narrow gulleys had been very convenient for the mutineers to come through. The British also destroyed many of the high rise buildings and the palaces of the Nawab to reconstruct the city in their own imagination.

What are the main themes you bring out in your reading?

Sanjay: The themes are broadly structured around periods of history. From 1857 onward, we look at some of the letters written by colonial administrators and their experience of the city as they wrote back to their families at home. For instance, Edward Brownsdon writes in the 1930s about the flood in Lucknow and describes how he became acquainted with the ‘less attractive’ aspects of the caste system during aid disbursal as he was in-charge of providing relief. A British visitor describes the plague in the city in his letter, while in another letter regarding the opening of a new hotel called Carlton, a British officer writes about his delight at the prospect of proper English baths. 

Another theme we look at is the freedom struggle, such as the protest against the Simon Commission through a letter written by Gandhi to Nehru praising him for the role he played in the protest. We also have the last letters written from the jail by Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaqulla Khan who were sentenced to death for the Kakori train robbery case, in which they are exhorting people to maintain communal harmony. 

We explore the theme of partition and the separation of families drawing on exchanges of letters between cousins living in India and Pakistan and their written correspondence for over 50 years, even though they apparently never met.

In another interesting aspect, we also look at personal letters about marriages; between friends plotting and planning about awaragardi; and about inter community marriages between the Shias and the Sunnis.  

Lastly, Lucknow was an important centre for the Progressive Writers’ Movement, which believed that art and literature must serve the interest of the common man and speak out for the common man. For instance, we have personal exchanges between Kaifi Azmi and S M Mehdi who were important members of the Movement. Finally, we also look at social movements like the rise of the Dalit movement through these letters. 

How did you pull such diverse threads into one narrative?

Saman: It took us about three months to put all the elements for a performance together. Writing a commentary that would string all the letters in a comprehensive narrative was an immensely creative challenge. How do you extrapolate from the particularities of individual letters to present a ‘bigger’ picture? We had to be careful not to over generalise for that would take away from the essence of each letter. It is our interpretation of what the letters may mean in the ‘larger scheme of things’ that informs the commentary in the performance and we bear all responsibility for any errors / misjudgements in our interpretation.

What influenced you in choosing images of particular buildings and using particular musical excerpts?

Saman: We talk about real people, places, experiences, events through letters, and what better way of connecting than actually 'seeing' them. There is also visual impact of the writing, paper and colour of the letters themselves. Music is used to reflect a mood; we also have some music pieces that are part of the Lucknow story. 

In the end, how would you sum up this experience for yourself?

Sanjay: For me, this journey has challenged the stereotype of Lucknow.  What emerges is the sheer diversity of the experiences of the city – how it meant different things to different people and how they experienced it differently. It has been a wonderful experience to bring alive the city through its lived experiences. 

Saman: For me, the deep connection that people have with this city is best reflected in a letter from a cousin in Pakistan, in which he movingly says, “My body may be in Pakistan but my soul lives on in Lucknow”. When we received a standing ovation after our first performance, we knew that the letters had resonated with different people in different ways. There was a ‘connect’. ‘Lucknow in Letters’ is a continuing project that we hope to enrich with a greater diversity of letters.

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