Dr Dhaneswar Bhoi - Caste, mental health and self-harm: emotive experiences of Dalit students at the Indian University

Special Episode - (Re)Claiming Space for Academic Freedom in South Asia

Academic freedom across South Asia is under growing pressure, narrowing the spaces in which scholars, students, and public intellectuals can research, teach, debate, and speak openly. Universities, research centres, and think tanks are increasingly affected by political interference, censorship, harassment, funding pressures, punitive legislation, and — in some cases — arrest. In association with the British Association of South Asian Studies (BASAS), Contemporary South Asia journal (Taylor & Francis), and the Contemporary South Asia Podcast, this event asks what it means to (re)claim space for academic freedom in South Asia. It will explore how scholars and students are resisting intimidation, sustaining critical inquiry, and building formal and informal networks of solidarity within the region and beyond. The discussion will also consider the role of the BASAS South Asian Studies Observatory of Academic Freedom (SASOAF) in documenting attacks, publicising cases, and supporting those affected. Panellists Dr Dhaneswar Bhoi University of Edinburgh Prof Maya Tudor Oxford University Dr Madura Rasaratnam St George’s, University of London Dr Laraib Niaz University of Cambridge Prof Christophe Jaffrelot KCL Prof Jeevan Sharma University of Edinburgh Prof Pritam Singh Oxford Brookes Dr Ashraf Hoque UCL

Dr Chandan Bose - Sustaining craft markets in urban India: a case study of Shilparamam, Hyderabad

This episode explores the intersections of migration, labour, and aspiration within the urban handicraft economy of contemporary India through an ethnographic study of Shilparamam, an artisanal market in Hyderabad. Focusing on biographical narratives of artisans, shopkeepers, and their assistants who have migrated from regions such as Mithila (Bihar), Mednipur (West Bengal), Manikpatna (Odisha), and Agra (Uttar Pradesh), Chandan examines how urban markets mediate relationships between local economies and craft production. It privileges the site of distribution over production to understand how artisans position themselves within the infrastructures and affective landscapes of the city. The analysis unfolds in three parts: first, it introduces the concept of “surrogate migration,” where objects and kinship-based networks substitute for physical mobility; second, it discusses how artisans draw upon artisanal and familial histories to frame themselves as agents of regional development and community leadership; and third, it considers how Shilparamam becomes a space of aspiration and temporary mobility for youth entering the craft sector. By attending to the affective and relational dimensions of craft labour, Chandan contributes to broader discussions on urban informality, artisanal subjectivity, and the reconfiguration of rural-urban ties in India's contemporary craft economies. keywords: Urban handicraft markets, Migrant artisans, Surrogate migration, Hyderabad, craft production.

Dr Mudassar Munir - The state through intermediaries: Dhara Bandi, mediation,and the politics of survival in Punjab, Pakistan

Across rural Punjab, formal state institutions are often experienced as distant, opaque, and unreliable. In this context, intermediaries occupy central roles in the everyday political and social life of villages. This article examines how their authority is built and sustained through dhara bandi (a Punjabi term for factional loyalty and social-political alliances, maintained through everyday acts of mediation, presence, and performance). Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Bhi Nagar, a pseudonym for a central Punjab village, I show how intermediaries’ practices – hosting gatherings in baithaks, mediating disputes, navigating bureaucracies, and cultivating digital visibility – both bind villagers in durable networks of allegiance and render the state locally intelligible. These actors are not merely brokers who facilitate access to resources; their performative labour enacts authority, sustains factional cohesion, and materializes the state in everyday life. By linking local practices of factionalism to the symbolic authority of national leaders, intermediaries also translate national charisma into tangible forms of engagement that reinforce the perception of state responsiveness. This analysis situates intermediaries at the heart of rural governance in Punjab, contributing to broader debates on hybrid governance, the endurance of weak states, and the everyday production of political order.

Dr Dhaneswar Bhoi - Caste, mental health and self-harm: emotive experiences of Dalit students at the Indian University

We discuss Dhaneswar's study examining the daily social realities and emotive experiences faced by Dalit university students. The study analyses their mental and emotional suffering caused by the university’s social dynamics, casted behaviours, particularly from upper-caste groups. These contour Dalit students’ casted experiences, potentially leading to self-harm with, in extreme cases, a fatal outcome. The study analysed the gathered data through theoretical frameworks such as ‘humiliation’, ‘disgust’ and ‘everyday social dynamics’ in the university. In a mixed-method approach, quantitative survey data was collected from 250 students and qualitative responses from 10 case studies and 5 focus group discussions with Dalit students in a university located in Odisha, India. Using data triangulation, the study reveals the underlying causes of mental health struggles among Dalit students. The study shows how societal bias, stigma, discrimination, untouchability and a pervasive sense of ‘unseeability’ within the university environment plays a significant role in fostering despair and self-harm.

Dr Aparna Agarwal - The making and unmaking of the Bhalswa landfill in Delhi

This paper explores the politics of invisibilising waste through peripheral spaces and built infrastructures of landfills. In particular, it examines the socio-spatial making and unmaking of the Bhalswa landfill in Delhi, from colonial to post-colonial times. It seeks to understand the processes and politics behind the opening of the landfill and the recent attempts at its closure, which have effectively failed. In doing so, it analyses the association of waste with urban marginalities both physical and social—in terms of the spaces it occupies and the lower-caste and class communities residing in the neighbouring areas of the landfill. Furthermore, the article critically explores the role of technology recently installed around the landfill in eliminating the waste crisis by invisibilising it – both spatially and materially, by incinerating waste and converting it into energy for profiteering purposes and creating new peripheries, i.e., in the atmosphere. This ‘dirty’ landscape of discarded materials, thus, offers us complex insights into the production of spatial inequalities, entrenchment of caste-based social hierarchies and the limits of technology.