News Type: Event

In our upcoming public lecture on August 28, 2024, NLSIU will host a book discussion with Prof. A. R. Venkatachalapathy, Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai. The discussion is on his book titled ‘Swadeshi Steam: V.O. Chidambaram Pillai and the Battle against the British Maritime Empire’. NLS faculty member Dr. Samyak Ghosh will be the discussant.

About the Speaker

A. R. Venkatachalapathy (1967), Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, completed his PhD in history from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has taught at Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli, the University of Madras and the University of Chicago, and has held research assignments in Paris, Cambridge, London, and Harvard. He was the ICCR Chair in Indian Studies at the National University of Singapore (2011–12). He has been awarded the V.K.R.V. Rao Prize (History, 2007); Vilakku Pudumaippithan Award (lifetime contribution to Tamil, 2018); Bharati Award (2021) and Iyal Virudhu (lifetime contribution to Tamil, 2021).

Chalapathy has published widely on the social, cultural and intellectual history of colonial Tamil Nadu. Apart from his scholarly writings in English he has written/edited over thirty books in Tamil. His publications in English include – Swadeshi Steam: V.O. Chidambaram Pillai and the Battle against the British Maritime Empire (Penguin Allen Lane); The Brief History of a Very Big Book: The Making of the Tamil Encyclopaedia; Tamil Characters: Personalities, Politics, Culture; Who Owns That Song?: The Battle for Subramania Bharati’s Copyright; The Province of the Book: Scholars, Scribes, and Scribblers in Colonial Tamilnadu, and In Those Days There Was No Coffee: Writings in Cultural History.

Abstract

In 1906, Britain’s grip on the world was unassailable. Its navy ruled the seas, and its trade empire spanned the globe. But in the small port town of Tuticorin, a lawyer named V.O. Chidambaram Pillai (VOC) had a novel idea that challenged the might of the empire itself. Influenced by economic nationalist ideas in the wake of the Swadeshi movement originating in Bengal he decided to launch the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company, a venture that would compete head-on with the British India Steam Navigation Company, the shipping giant that controlled coastal trade, passenger traffic and mail contracts. Rallying native traders and patriotic citizens, he raised the capital needed to launch this enterprise. British mercantile interests and the imperial state both backed its competitor. Based on his recently published book, Swadeshi Steam: V.O. Chidambaram Pillai and the Battle against the British Maritime Empire, A.R. Venkatachalapathy situates rivalry in the context of the Swadeshi movement and the first phase of mass nationalism in India. The book has been longlisted for the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize 2024.

The National Law school of India University (NLSIU), ILS Law College Pune and the University of Leeds, UK, are organizing a Workshop for Pedestrians on Street Accessibility, “Pedestrians with Disabilities: From Barriers to Awareness” under the Inclusive Public Space Project, in Pune.

This event will be conducted by a team of the Inclusive Public Space (IPS) Research Project to present emerging findings from the Inclusive Public Space, to generate feedback and for raising awareness amongst Pedestrians about the Accessibility. Learn more from the project website.

Prof. Anna Lawson, from the University of Leeds is the principal investigator of this project. NLS Faculty, Prof. Sanjay Jain, is the country advisor for the project. NLSIU is the collaborating partner in India, along with the University of Leeds, UK. ILS Law School Pune, is a former partner on this project and is co-organizing this workshop along with NLSIU and the University of Leeds.

This workshop is being organized on Saturday, August 17, 2024, at 11:00 p.m.

Please note: Only the online session from 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm is open to the public. The link to join the session is available here.

About the Inclusive Public Space (IPS) Project

The Inclusive Public Space project investigates the social justice problems caused by city streets which exclude some pedestrians – particularly pedestrians whose circumstances mean that they do not meet general expectations about mobility or ability. The Project aims to deepen understanding of what aspects of streets are experienced as exclusionary and by whom, how these problems affect the lives of the people concerned, and how effectively law and politics are responding to problems caused by inaccessible or difficult streets. It also aims to increase shared concern about these social justice problems and to raise awareness of how law and politics can be used to challenge them.

Geographical Focus

The problems with which the Inclusive Public Space project is concerned are relevant to all countries. The particular focus however will be on five countries – India, Kenya, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. In each of these countries, there will be case studies of two cities – in the UK, Leeds and Glasgow; in India, Delhi and Pune; in Kenya, Nairobi and Mombasa; in the US, Syracuse (New York) and Atlanta (Georgia) and in the Netherlands, Utrecht and Almere.

In all the afore mentioned countries, the field work has been completed. In India, Pune is one of the cities covered under this project, therefore this workshop is being organised to engage with pedestrians and stakeholders.

Methods

The project takes a transdisciplinary, comparative and participatory action research approach. For the first phase of fieldwork (up to end of 2021) no research participant will need to leave their home in order to take part – although they will be able to choose to assist with or feature in filming of difficult streets. The methods include interviews, focus groups, story-telling, films of street journeys selected by participants, and surveys. Find out more about how the team will work with pedestrians, stakeholders and the public here.

NLSIU’s HUPA Chair on Urban Poor and the Law is organising a talk titled ‘Notes Toward a City without Sorrow’, being delivered by Rahee Punyashloka.

About the talk

The question of a city that is free from the shackles of caste lines is an integral aspect of anti-caste creative expression at least since the work of Ravidas, who imagined Begumpura, literally, the city without sorrows, as an artistic response to the strictures of the caste system in the 15th century. Drawing from this framework laid down by him, my multidisciplinary, research-based project, fieldnotes from begumpura, tries to speculate what such a city may look like in the current (and future) modernity. Drawing on this project, as well as the work of several anti-caste artists, my talk tries to delineate how modern cities continue to carry systemic, casteist legacies laid down by Brahminism, and the brief glimpses of resistance from oppressed caste communities against them.

About the speaker

Rahee Punyashloka (b. 1993, Bhubaneswar) (they/he) is an artist, writer, researcher, and experimental filmmaker based out of Bhubaneswar and New Delhi. Working across disciplines, he seeks to illuminate the vastly unrepresented/underrepresented artistic history of the anti-caste struggle and the Dalit identity. His works have been exhibited in numerous venues including Pulp Society (New Delhi), Latitude 28 (New Delhi); International Film Festival Rotterdam; Athens Video Art Festival; Tribeca Film Festival (New York); ARKIPEL (Jakarta); Ishara Art Foundation (Dubai); KHOJ (New Delhi); Museum of Art and Photography (Bangalore); Arts House (Melbourne), among others.

In this week’s faculty seminar, Apoorv Chaudhary will present his paper titled ‘Disparagement vis-à-vis Social Media Influencers: Balancing Free Commercial Speech with Protecting Consumer Interest’.

Abstract

The ascent of social media influencers has posed new challenges to the brands, where a negative review has the potential to make or break businesses.The interface of the law on disparagement with the reviewers of social media has become a cause for scuffle. On one hand, brands are at risk of losses from false or misleading reviews. On the other hand, the reviewers are facing increasing threats from brands to remove their reviews. This paper attempts to explore this interface with respect to law in India, particularly with regard to freedom of speech and expression. The author argues that the treatment of critical reviews from Indian courts has not been uniform and requires a careful implementation by the courts to balance a mark’s reputation with free speech and consumer interests.

In this week’s faculty seminar, Dr. Sudheesh R.C., will present his paper titled ‘Make Live and Let the Land Question Die: Surplus Populations and the Welfare State’.

Abstract

In a worldwide scenario in which a large number of people are struggling to find gainful work under capitalist relations, welfare programmes have provided a much-needed lifeline. In contexts where these ‘surplus populations’ have been demanding land to address the crisis of reproduction, what implications does their biopolitical inclusion into welfare programmes have for their land question? This article seeks answers to this question through an ethnographic enquiry into state responses to Adivasi land struggles in the caste-ridden society of Kerala, India. A biopolitical regime that ‘makes live’ through welfare programmes may surely be desirable. At the same time, it may ‘let the land question die’ by erasing the demands for land. The implication is that those who were historically dispossessed from the land, such as Kerala’s Adivasis, are divorced from land discursively as well.

The National Law School of India University (NLSIU) is organizing a book talk by Dr. Nandagopal R. Menon on his book ‘Intra-Muslim Polemics in South India: Intimacies, Mass Publicity, and Secularism‘. NLS Faculty Padmini Baruah will be the discussant.

About the book

How do we understand differences and disputes among various branches of Islam? This book places intimacies, rather than radical incompatibilities, at the centre of its in-depth ethnographic account of mass-publicized theological polemics among Sunni Muslims in the south Indian state of Kerala. What unites Muslims of different Sunni groups also divides them and incites polemics—Islam as a shared system of knowledge and practices, bonds of kinship and other social relations, and the common condition of being a beleaguered religious minority in a Hindu majoritarian democracy. Diverging from works that have focused on how Islamic practices like ritual prayers facilitate the fashioning of theologically grounded pious selves, the book argues that intra-Muslim polemics marginalize theology and have little to do with cultivating piety. Instead, polemics constitute inter- and intra-religious socialities, enable Muslims to articulate their connections to India and other imaginaries, and produce Islam as a public religion in a secular nation-state.

About the author

Dr. Nandagopal R. Menon is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Center for Modern Indian Studies (Cemis) of the University of Göttingen. His academic interests include religion, secularism, media and Islamic movements in south Asia. His research has appeared in edited volumes and journals such as History of Religions and Modern Asian Studies.

There will have two presentations in the faculty seminar this week. The first presentation will be by Pranav Verma, followed by a joint paper by Dr. Salmoli Choudhuri and Dr. Moiz Tundawala (Leverhulme ECF at Oxford).

Pranav Verma
Title: Forty-Five Years of Public Interest Litigation in India: Its Changing Constituencies and the Rise of the Regulatory Court

Dr. Salmoli Choudhuri (NLSIU, India) and Dr. Moiz Tundawala (University of Oxford)
Title: Gandhi’s Law of Satyagraha

There will be two presentations by NLS Faculty in this week’s seminar. The first presentation will be by Prof. Arun K. Thiruvengadam, followed by a presentation by Dr. Debangana Chatterjee.

Prof. Arun K. Thiruvengadam
Title: ‘Constitutions  and the Rule of Law in Asia’ (draft encyclopaedia entry for the Oxford Research Encyclopaedia for Politics)

Dr. Debangana Chatterjee
Title:  ‘An Empire of Artificial Intelligence: Exploring an Intersection of Politics, Society and Creativity’ (draft manuscript currently under review by the International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society)