Maidaanam

16/08/2024

New Post! A. Suneetha interviews Afsar Mohammed on his recent publication, "Remaking History: 1948 Police Action and the Muslims of Hyderabad." They discuss the significance of locality, thickening borders, and forgotten eras of Urdu and Telugu mutuality. Afsar asks why we need new histories of Hyderabad and the Deccan and explores how we can begin to make them.
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"When it comes to process, I focused building a multilingual archive. My first intervention was to emphasize both Deccani Urdu and Telugu materials. This included both oral histories and written sources.
In everyday conversations, and scholarly debates as well, we’ve spent too much time talking about the activities and interventions of north Indian Muslims. I felt that approaching the “Muslim dilemma” through the lens of Deccani Urdu and Telugu, two locally-rooted languages and cultures, would open up many fascinating historical possibilities to explore."

Editor’s Note: In the following discussion, A. Suneetha interviews Afsar Mohammad about his recent publication, Remaking History: 1948 Police Action and the Muslims of Hyderabad (Cambridge, 2023). …

17/06/2024

New Post! Nikhil Mandalaparthy explores legends and histories surrounding the fascinating figure of Badsha Peer. One of South Africa's most revered sufi saints, he was an indentured worker who hailed from a Telugu or Tamil-speaking background. Nikhil asks what Badsha Peer's story can tell us about shifting associations between language, religion, and identity in the Deccan as well as South Africa.
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"I found that the story of this “King of Africa,” Badsha Peer, is a tale of multiple migrations, across the Deccan, South India, and beyond. His story involves Konkani Muslims and Hyderabadi Sufi teachers traveling to colonial Bombay, and Tamil and Telugu indentured workers making the long and treacherous journey from Madras to South Africa.
Tracing the story of Badsha Peer—and Soofie Saheb, the man who popularized his memory—shines light on how Indian religious, linguistic, and regional identities were transformed in the Deccan and South Africa, during the colonial period and through indenture and migration."

By Nikhil Mandalaparthy. Nikhil is a journalist, community activist, and consultant focused on religious pluralism and social justice in South Asia and North America. He is the curator of Voices of…

03/05/2024

New Post! Gita Ramaswamy interviews Sudhakar Unudurti on his collection of short stories, recently translated into English and published by SouthSide Books as East Wind: Stories from Kalinga-Andhra. An excerpt from one of his stories has been included.
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"Hyderabad-based writer Unudurti Sudhakar’s stories introduce readers to one of the most overlooked and little known parts of southern India: Kalinga Andhra or the North Andhra coast. Undurti’s stories are genre-bending and break new ground in Telugu fiction, exploring aspects of Alt history and science fiction.
They imaginatively draw attention to the fascinating history of this region and the many communities that call it home. His characters – tragic and comic – are often driven by fundamental questions of dignity and freedom. Spanning over a thousand years, Undurti’s East Wind carries readers on a journey through ancient Buddhist viharas, medieval seaports, colonial zamindari estates, and the modern tragedies of Communist uprisings in Srikakulam."

Editor’s Note: In the following discussion, Gita Ramaswamy interviews Sudhakar Unudurti about translating his own stories in the recently published collection, East Wind: Stories from Kalinga…

15/04/2024

New Post! Adapa Satyanarayana writes on caste, colonialism and migration in colonial Andhra, exploring the forgotten ways Telugu Dalit and oppressed caste migrants sought economic mobility in Burma and shook the foundations of Andhra caste society at home.
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"What drove the Coringhee coolies to leave their homes? One major factor was economic opportunity. Wages for untouchables in the Andhra coastal districts were nearly 25 per cent lower than those paid to caste Hindu labourers for similar tasks in British India. This depression of wages was closely tied to caste and also impacted the possibility to improve life circumstances. In many parts of South India, powerful social sanctions prevented low-caste laborers from owning land and left them with little opportunity to escape their oppressive situations.
Burma also played an important role in the making of a pan-Telugu cultural identity and gave rise to cross-caste cultural solidarities back in Andhra. Language, kinship-bonds, caste-community affiliation, and ancestral origin also became significant symbols for the construction of a separate Telugu ethnic identity and consciousness. Organizations such as the Andhra Mahasabha, Andhra Mahajana Sangham, and Andhra Buddhist Samajam were established mainly for the social upliftment of the Telugu inhabitants in Burma.
Dalit encounters with Buddhism in Burma played an important role in the cultural awakening in Andhra. The Adi-Andhra movement, a Dalit dominated movement in colonial Andhra derived both moral and material support from Telugu Burmese immigrant laborers. For instance, Kusuma Dharmanna, Arjun Rao and others solicited support from the Andhra Buddhist Samajam in Burma."

Editor’s note: Adapa Satyanarayna is retired Professor of History at Osmania University. He has published extensively on the social and economic history of modern India with a focus on subalt…

30/10/2023

New Post! Gita Ramaswamy interviews K. Purushotham about his new English translation of Dalit writer Yendluri Sudhakar’s groundbreaking short story collection, Mallemoggala Godugu (1989). An excerpt has been included.
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"Yendluri Sudhakar (1959-2022) was one of the great modern Dalit writers in Telugu. His Mallemoggala Godugu (1989), translated by K. Purushotham as Speaking Sandals, is a collection of stories that bring to the forefront fascinating oral histories and vignettes from Dalit folklore. When it was first published, it was heralded as the first outpouring of the Madiga voice in Telugu literature. The text inspired a whole new appreciation for the unique literary qualities of Dalit writing in Telugu. On the social front, Speaking Sandals represented a powerful assertion of Dalit identity and coincided with the emergence of Dalits as a political force during the 1990s.
Written with the imagery and cadence native to his community, Yendluri Sudhakar’s stories are narrated in the endearing style of visits to his village and reminiscing conversations with relatives and elders. He writes about origin myths, drummers, fierce fighters, skilled artisans, strong matriarchs and other fascinating characters. Underpinning these stories is a robust awareness of the constant re-negotiation of caste hierarchies."

Editor’s Note: In the following discussion, Gita Ramaswamy interviews K. Purushotham about his recent translation of Yendluri Sudhakar’s Speaking Sandals: Narratives from the Madigawada…

02/10/2023

New Post! Philosophy Scholar Kesava Kumar revisits the life and career of the Telugu revolutionary singer Gaddar by tracing the evolution of his political thought through a close reading of his songs. English translations of Gaddar's songs by A. Suneetha and Gautham Reddy.
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"The songs of Gaddar are legendary in the Telugu parts of southern India. Drawing on popular Telangana folk genres, such as Oggu Katha, Veedhi Bhaagavatham, and Yellamma Kathalu, they are powerful expressions of leftist ideas and revolutionary fervor.

Gaddar’s career as a cultural activist spanned over fifty years and consistently focused on the experiences of the poor and the oppressed. His songs reflect a deep engagement with different ideological strands of the Indian left and their evolution. During the 1970s, Gaddar joined the militant Maoist-Naxalite movement and served as a leading figure in the influential revolutionary theater troupe, Jana Natya Mandali (JNM). During this time he achieved widespread popularity for songs that celebrated the martyrs of the armed movement.

Over the next decade, during the emergence of the Telugu Dalit and Feminist movements, his songs displaya notable change in focus. Where they earlier focused on more general experiences of “farmers” (raitulu) and “laborers” (cooleelu), they now spoke to the pain and resistance of specific Dalit communities (Mala, Madiga) and women. During the ’90s Gaddar became an outspoken critic of globalization and increasing religious nationalism. Toward the end of his life, he came out of the Maoist-Naxalite movement and played an important role in the campaign to create a separate Telangana state. Gaddar’s songs, with their dynamic range of themes and tremendous popularity, are an unforgettable monument to the great struggles for dignity and justice that have shaped postcolonial India."

By P. Kesava Kumar. Kesava Kumar is a Professor of Philosophy at Delhi University. Translations by A. Suneetha and Gautham Reddy. Suneetha and Gautham are members of the Maidaanam Editorial Collect…

24/07/2023

New Post! Dance Studies Scholar Rumya Putcha reflects on sonic and visual elements that contribute to the Telugu film song Naatu Naatu's viral success and its unprecedented legibility to global audiences.
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"For those familiar with TikTok dance challenges, the “hook step” in Naatu Naatu relies on the fundamentals of shuffle, an extremely popular style on the platform. The song’s choreography also features certain kinds of limb independence that are not usually associated with Indian dance and particularly not with kuthu. Put another way, with the exception of one movement – a classic kuthu wide stance – there is very little in Naatu Naatu’s choreography that locates this dance specifically in India.
As interviews with the choreographers and composers have suggested, this was a calculated move, especially for a Telugu language film. Kuthu sounds have traveled from their origins in Tamil-speaking regions, particularly through global circulations like cricket as well as popular musicians like Sri Lankan-Tamilian M.I.A. But Kuthu sounds remain local and tied to the Tamil-language film industry, even as they are now sourced in Telugu cinema and speak to Telugu audiences.
Ultimately, the genius of the Naatu Naatu performance at the Academy Awards, much like Davuluri’s performance at Miss America a decade ago, is that it relies on sounds that can and do resonate with local Telugu and Indian audiences, but are paired with movements that speak to and even appeal to U.S. and global audiences even, and especially, on social media."

By Rumya Putcha. Rumya is an Associate Professor at the University of Georgia in the Institute for Women’s Studies as well as the Hugh Hodgson School of Music. Her research interests include …

21/04/2023

New Post! Historian and Dalit Studies scholar Chinnaiah Jangam shares his notes and reflections on papers presented at the University of Pennsylvania's Second Annual Telugu Studies Conference. The theme for this year was "History, Circulation, and Identity."
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"The Second Annual Telugu Studies conference took place over two days from December 2nd – 3rd, 2022. It featured five panels and was hosted University of Pennsylvania professors Lisa Mitchell and Afsar Mohammed. The central theme of the conference was “History, Circulation, and Identity.”
The papers that were presented drew attention to the migration of Telugu speakers across the globe for centuries. Migration has made Telugu speakers repeatedly reimagine their identities. This has led to the production of multiple forms of history and the circulation of the Telugu language through print and oral forms.
The conference theme aptly forces us to urgently engage with the present formation of a Telugu diaspora in the United States. It was conceived as dialogic with the past and present of Telugu peoples and regions undergoing a profound transformation in terms of caste, history, language, accent, identity, and gender. Notably, the formation of Telangana State in 2014 has led to a reconceptualization of territorial identity and language, especially in how it is spoken and used in literary and public spheres."

By Chinnaiah Jangam. Chinnaiah is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Carleton University in Canada. His research interests include the social and intellectual history of Dalits …

07/04/2023

New Post! Literary scholar Sravanthi Kollu translates and introduces a historically groundbreaking essay in Telugu Feminist criticism by the acclaimed writer Volga.
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"The essay I have translated here, 'Music Emerging from its Shackles (Sankellu Tegutunna Sangitam),' was first published in the foundational 1993 anthology of Telugu women poets, 'Neelimeghalu: Strivada Kavitvam (Blue Clouds: An Anthology of Feminist Poetry).' Volga’s essay was a major milestone in Telugu feminist literary criticism.
It was one of the first Telugu texts to outline a feminist poetics and introduce an empathic framework for reading feminist poetry. Volga’s essay contends with a gap between what the poems emphasize and how they are received by critics. In this case, the mostly male world of Telugu literary critics read women poets’ verses on sexual experience, conjugality, reproductive angst, and gendered social norms as indulgent, obscene and of little poetic or political value.
Volga responds to these criticisms with a rhetorical force unsurpassed in her other writings."

By Sravanthi Kollu. Sravanthi is a Postdoctoral Associate at Kilachand Honors College, Boston University. She writes on literature, history, and community with a focus on colonial and postcolonial …

01/04/2023

https://www.oneating.in/on-a-sour-note/?fbclid=IwAR3VUGZGYP6j5fEHfbmcAkoHtuI0W-c5E138FTpLn6L-Tfl9YiUrcA9BtBo

It was a time when Showaddywaddy, the rock & roll revival band, was topping the pop music charts. I was the proud owner of their LP record and the hit single “Under the Moon of Love” had craftily manoeuvred itself into the core of my being even as the periodic brick would crash through a window ...

10/03/2023

New Post! Film scholars Monika Mehta and Anupama Prabhala discuss the international recognition and commercial success of the Telugu blockbuster RRR with an eye to its multiple audiences and contexts.
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"While such readings have their merits, RRR can also be read as a film that stretches the boundaries of the anticolonial genre.
Both location and multiplicity are important ways to approach this film. The film begins in different locations in Andhra Pradesh, comes to the outskirts of Delhi and then returns to these locations in Andhra Pradesh. One would think that if either of these characters wants to be part of the “national” struggle against the British they would contact the Indian National Congress and its affiliated icons such as Gandhi, Nehru etc. But they don’t! Instead, they return to their respective communities.
Moreover, we don’t get a sense that Bheem and Rama Raju will be joining forces to fight against the British in the future. The film underscores that anticolonialism and anticolonial nationalism originate in multiple places in India.
The use of creative set design, rather than exact locations, to transform New Delhi into a space of historical imagination acts as mirrors for representing a Telugu nation. Naatu Naatu, which means “raw and rustic,” enacts the distinctive flavors of what it might mean to be Telugu at different moments in a colonial arc imagined through the present. Shot in Kiev in Ukraine before the war, location is indispensable to understand Naatu Naatu‘s resourceful use of cinematic space as a site for projecting this desire.
Rajamouli is effortless and totally at ease with his style in RRR, the twelfth film in his directorial oeuvre. All have been hugely successful. While only the last three were dubbed in Hindi, Telugu viewers and media possess a lively and sophisticated understanding of Rajamouli’s use of history because they are familiar with his unique style of representation. Viewers of Hindi cinema and international audiences, on the other hand, are just beginning to understand the contradictory sensations RRR evokes as well as its frequently uncomfortable pleasures."

Monika Mehta is Associate Professor of English at SUNY Binghamton. She is the author of Censorship and Sexuality in Bombay Cinema (2011). She has co-edited Pop Empires: Transnational…

08/03/2023

An excerpt from ‘Tirukkural: The Book of Desire,’ by Tiruvalluvar, translated from the Tamil by Meena Kandasamy.

06/03/2023

This week’s post is by guest writer Namrata B. Kanchan, PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Austin. Her dissertation examines the courtly Dakhni literary and manuscript culture between 1500 and 1700 CE. One of the gems to emerge from the early modern Deccan manuscript corpus is a sumptuous...

26/02/2023

https://www.epw.in/engage/article/pushpa-rise-circulation-marginal-hypermasculinity?fbclid=IwAR37Up3pBvANk_ibzK5hqsxpKjxu1KRhyENcqmact6vC-9NL6EW1F-_pgow

Telugu cinema's presence in India has become ubiquitous with dubbing and remaking of Telugu films in all regional language film industries. It has been established that, in India, youth use film and its stars as aspirations of ideal practice and performance of masculinity and femininity. The recent....

19/02/2023

Scholar Prachi Deshpande positions the ancient cursive script as an unusual but enriching vantage point to understand Maharashtra’s history and regional identity

12/02/2023

https://vimeo.com/375334527

The Dalit community reclaims its place in the history, culture and identity of the city of Pune, increasingly being usurped by the upper castes. Screened at festivals…

04/02/2023

The Telugu blockbuster RRR has attracted significant global attention. It recently received the Golden Globes award for "best song" and has been nominated for the Oscars "best original song." Chris Chekuri unpacks the widespread popularity of this film and its hit song 'Naatu Naatu' for Telugu audiences.
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"This intense longing for land, village, family is now the mainstay of Telugu cinema and offers a new idiom for cultural and social life–a poetics of the vernacular, which is lost when Telugu films are dubbed into other languages.
In Hindi, for example, the use of ‘desi naach’ in place of the Telugu ‘naatu’ abandons many of these elements of caste and agrarian life. This poetics of the vernacular is not easily available in traditional print culture. However, it is widely dispersed in Telugu visual and social media realms worldwide.
But this Telugu nostalgia is also evident in the way the lyricist Chandrabose talks about Naatu Naatu. He notes that the world of this song is suffused with the aura of village life–its sights, sounds, tastes and implied histories. Chandrabose’s favored line in the song, and one that he often returns to in his interviews, is “jonna rotte lo mirapa thokku” or pickled chili with red millet bread. He sees this simple dish as a metaphor for the life worlds he wishes to conjure in the song."

By Chris Chekuri. Chris teaches History at San Francisco State University. He is a managing editor at Maidaanam. Edited by: Gautham Reddy పొలంగట్టు దుమ్ములోన పోట్లగిత్త దూకినట్టు పోలేరమ్మ జాతరలో ప...

12/01/2023

Journal of Asian Studies is paywall-free for a few months

The Journal of Asian Studies is now published by
Duke University Press! All JAS articles from 1941 to the present are available paywall-free at the Duke University Press website for the first few months of 2023. https://buff.ly/3GZ8p2k

10/10/2022

"An Evening with a Sufi" is the first collection of Telugu poet Afsar's poems in English translation. Maidaanam is delighted to share 5 poems from this new volume along with an appreciative afterward by David Shulman. Afsar Mohammed
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A well-known Telugu poet and literary critic, Afsar Mohammad brings new attention to questions around Indian Muslim identity and regional belonging. He first rose to prominence in the 1990s during a period of invigorating literary innovation. This decade saw new Feminist, Dalit, and Muslim poets moving boldly beyond the Marxist imagination that had captivated the Telugu literary world for decades and fashioning a radically new poetics of liberation. Afsar is particularly known for his subversive use of language and the understated quality of his poems.
An Evening with a Sufi offers us the first collection of Afsar’s poems in English translation. Newly published by Red River Press, the volume includes a reflection on translation by Shamala Gallagher, an interview with the poet by Rohith, and two essays by David Shulman and Cheran Rudhramoorthy. Maidaanam is pleased to share a selection of poems from this exciting new collection followed by a thoughtful afterword by David Shulman.

Poems by Afsar Mohammad with translations in collaboration with Shamala Gallagher. Afterword by David Shulman. Afsar Mohammad teaches at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of The Fest…

19/09/2022

"The parties do not listen to the villagers." A. Suneetha and R.V. Ramanamurthy interview Gita Ramaswamy on her exciting new memoir and revisit the significance of left activism in the Telugu states beyond offical party politics or armed militancy. We also include an excerpt, "Stripping the Master of his Whip" from Ramaswamy's recent book for our readers.
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"The Sangam organised strikes for wage increases, helped bonded labourers repudiate debts, helped the poor access welfare schemes and government entitlements, organised campaigns against caste atrocities, and created an awareness about Ambedkarite anti-caste ideology. It took up all land issues of the poor.
I certainly did not expect that so much could be done through the government's labour and revenue courts or its local offices when I began my work. But of course, none of this would have been possible without a robust organisation of the poor themselves – this was the single most important element in working through the official system."

Editor’s Note: In the following essay, A. Suneetha and R.V. Ramanamurthy present an overview of the recently published autobiography, Land, Guns, Caste, Woman: The Memoir of a Lapsed Revolutionary …

09/09/2022

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPFcjjFtoTPCHgYP_y5MvSg

The Casteless Collective is an idea initiated by Celebrated Filmaker Pa. Ranjith's Neelam Cultural Centre and Madras Records. Is is India's largest ensemble ...

07/09/2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd9g7X0DasA

Betül Basaran discussed Ottoman princess brides, Princess Niloufer in Hyderabad and a visual journey of exile. Betül Basaran is associate professor of reli...

24/08/2022

“My dream is to fly on an airplane.” Neilesh Bose and Andrea Wright discuss the dreams and realities of Indian Gulf migrants and how this contributes to the reshaping of global capitalism. We also include an excerpt, "The Rig and the Temple" from Wright's recent book for our readers.
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"Over the course of my research, many of the Indian workers I interviewed in the Gulf associated Hindu nationalism with modernity and development. In the book, I wanted to depict the variety of ways migrants engaged with Hindu nationalism in order to draw attention to and reframe the meanings of state and nation. In particular, I was interested in showing how migrants position themselves as part of India’s development and how they critically insert themselves as part of the national body.
For example, Mohammed, a Muslim from northern India, worked at the rig construction project. As he described the importance of his work building oil infrastructure, he told me it helped him be a good son by allowing him to send money to his father. But the meaning he gave his work at this project extended past fulfilling his familial obligations to also reflecting a way he contributed to the future of India. Mohammed explicitly connected his work to the process of “making India modern” and described his migration as a way to help both his country and his community progress economically and ideologically.
Mohammed was not the only person who situated work on Gulf oil projects as part of India’s modernization. Both prospective migrants and current migrants tell me, with sincerity and excitement, that they work, or want to work, in the Gulf to “make India modern.” When men like Mohammed tell me this, I usually inquire as to what “modern” means, as the word seems, to me, to be amorphous and fleeting.
In their answers, Indian migrants describe modernity and development as improvements to infrastructure, which includes airplanes, electricity, and clean running water. They also describe it as the increased consumption of commodities.
In addition, workers from groups that face structural inequalities, such as Muslims, Adivasis (indigenous Indians), and Dalits, tell me their work in the Gulf contributes to modernity because it helps their community “stop being backward” or improves their community’s socioeconomic status.
However, “making India modern” is not limited to material consumption and infrastructure; it implies more difficult-to-articulate dreams, including freedom; living in the city; doing what you want; and love matches as opposed to arranged marriages."

Editor’s Note: In the following essay, Neilesh Bose presents an overview of the recently published book, Between Dreams and Ghosts: Indian Migration and Middle Eastern Oil (2021) by Andrea Wr…

31/07/2022

https://alablog.in/issues/46/rethinking-keraleeyatha-sreekumar/?fbclid=IwAR3CIg5XPlgEt-_QxVzl1pHpacpgZxjXD6Wjv_gAo94A46GWXRAcEo6q-Q4

Why then do we see 'modernity' as something that emerged only in the colonial era? What do the three medieval texts tell us about alternative strands of literature? Why do we mainstream some histories while marginalizing others? In this episode, we discuss these questions with Prof. T.T. Sreekumar.

24/07/2022

https://thewire.in/history/deccani-identity-instrumental-logic-or-deep-love-of-land

The diverse ways in which the Deccani identity is invoked in textual sources and oral traditions indicate that newcomers to the Deccan adapted to the ways of the land, developed strong affinities to local landscapes, and adopted cultural practices and markers.

23/07/2022

The documents hint at more give-and-take in the scribal environment than the one-way “imperial” narrative premised on modern mono-linguistic identities.

21/07/2022

ONE OF THE MOST commonly cited impacts of TV’s ongoing golden era is how screenwrit­ing techniques have found their way into the novelist’s playbook. Writers are competing not just with each other now; they’re compet­ing with Netflix (which itself is competing with sleep, as founder Reed Has...

20/07/2022

Sagari Ramdas shows how agribusiness use big tech and big data to fulfil their ‘sustainability goals’ from indigenous Adivasi farmers of Andhra Pradesh, India. It turns out to be a case of exploitation in the name of sustainability.

20/07/2022

On the Idara archives' efforts to preserve Deccan literary, artistic, and historical cultures.

19/07/2022

A significant feature of Persian poetry that distinguishes it from most verse written in a European language is that almost all of it—from the earliest poems, written over a thousand years ago, to …