Book by Rashmi Sadana
University of California Press, 2022
My ethnography of Delhi's Metro system, an analysis of the social and infrastructural impact of t... more My ethnography of Delhi's Metro system, an analysis of the social and infrastructural impact of the system on the city, is now out with the University of California Press. You can read the first part of the Intro here. A South Asian version of the book has been published by Roli Books with the title: Metronama: Scenes from the Delhi Metro.
The back cover blurb:
The Moving City is a rich and intimate account of urban transformation told through the story of Delhi's Metro, a massive infrastructure project that is reshaping the city's social and urban landscapes. Ethnographic vignettes introduce the feel and form of the Metro and let readers experience the city, scene by scene, stop by stop, as if they, too, have come along for the ride. Laying bare the radical possibilities and concretized inequalities of the Metro, and how people live with and through its built environment, this is a story of women and men on the move, the nature of Indian aspiration, and what it takes morally and materially to sustain urban life. Through exquisite prose, Rashmi Sadana transports the reader to a city shaped by both its Metro and those who depend on it, revealing a perspective on Delhi unlike any other.
English Heart, Hindi Heartland examines Delhi’s postcolonial literary world—its institutions, pri... more English Heart, Hindi Heartland examines Delhi’s postcolonial literary world—its institutions, prizes, publishers, writers, and translators, and the cultural geographies of key neighborhoods—in light of colonial histories and the globalization of English. Rashmi Sadana places internationally recognized authors such as Salman Rushdie, Anita Desai, Vikram Seth, and Aravind Adiga in the context of debates within India about the politics of language and alongside other writers, including K. Satchidanandan, Shashi Deshpande, and Geetanjali Shree. Sadana undertakes an ethnographic study of literary culture that probes the connections between place, language, and text in order to show what language comes to stand for in people’s lives. In so doing, she unmasks a social discourse rife with questions of authenticity and cultural politics of inclusion and exclusion. English Heart, Hindi Heartland illustrates how the notion of what is considered to be culturally and linguistically authentic not only obscures larger questions relating to caste, religious, and gender identities, but that the authenticity discourse itself is continually in flux. In order to mediate and extract cultural capital from India’s complex linguistic hierarchies, literary practitioners strategically deploy a fluid set of cultural and political distinctions that Sadana calls “literary nationality.” Sadana argues that English, and the way it is positioned among the other Indian languages, does not represent a fixed pole, but rather serves to change political and literary alliances among classes and castes, often in surprising ways.
Table of Contents
Prologue: The Slush Pile
1 Reading Delhi and Beyond
2 Two Tales of a City
3 In Sujan Singh Park
4 The Two Brothers of Ansari Road
5 At the Sahitya Akademi
6 Across the Yamuna
7 “A Suitable Text for a Vegetarian Audience"
8 Indian Literature Abroad
9 Conclusion
Edited Volume by Rashmi Sadana
Table of Contents
Chronology
Introduction Rashmi Sadana and Vasudha Dalmia
Part I. Cultural Cont... more Table of Contents
Chronology
Introduction Rashmi Sadana and Vasudha Dalmia
Part I. Cultural Contexts:
1. Scenes of rural change Ann Grodzins Gold
2. The formation of tribal identities Stuart Blackburn
3. Food and agriculture Amita Baviskar
4. Urban forms of religious practice Smriti Srinivas
5. The politics of caste identities Christophe Jaffrelot
Part II. Cultural Forms:
6. History and representation in the Bengali novel Supriya Chaudhuri
7. Writing in English Rashmi Sadana
8. Dalit life histories Debjani Ganguly
9. Three traditions in modernist art Sonal Khullar
10. Mass reproduction and the art of the bazaar Kajri Jain
11. Urban theatre and the turn towards 'folk' Vasudha Dalmia
12. Aesthetics and politics in popular cinema Ravi S. Vasudevan
13. Musical genres and national identity Amanda Weidman
14. Voyeurism and the family on television Amrita Ibrahim
Further reading
Index
Articles by Rashmi Sadana
The Ethnography of Reading at Thirty, 2023
In good anthropological fashion, Jonathan Boyarin's idea of an "ethnography of reading" posits th... more In good anthropological fashion, Jonathan Boyarin's idea of an "ethnography of reading" posits the written text as being in an always evolving relationship with the readers of that text. Further, reading is seen as a set of social practices, whereby texts are stories reaching out to the public and books are material objects in circulation. Or as he puts it, "textuality" is "a field of interaction" (Boyarin 1993, 2). Reading Boyarin in the early 2000s, when I was studying how novels from India were being read transnationally, the volume helped me to think anthropologically about texts. In my ethnographic case, it meant to see the languages of the text (written in English but describing lives lived in Hindi) as a way to document and analyze postcolonial language politics (Sadana 2012). Getting out of the text was my first real anthropological instinct-to unravel these novels' social and cultural contexts at regional, national, and international levels. This meant studying book reviewers, prize committees, translators, publishers, editors, lay readers and more. But then I realized I could go back
City and Society, 2022
This essay is in response to the question "What is 'critical' in critical urban anthropology?" My... more This essay is in response to the question "What is 'critical' in critical urban anthropology?" My answer to this question delves into my experience of doing ethnographic research at the ends of Delhi Metro lines, places that I came to see as critical sites of urbanism-ruralism and the intersecting mobilities of the National Capital Region. The "critical" is a method and position that both reveals and interrogates social inequity and power differentials on and through the urban-peri-urban and more rural landscapes.
Roadsides, 2021
This multimedia essay explores how the Delhi Metro has created a new sensory ecology of mobility ... more This multimedia essay explores how the Delhi Metro has created a new sensory ecology of mobility that reflects and reforms the hierarchies of mobility in the city. The essay illustrates how infrastructure serves as a mechanism of inclusion and exclusion from “sensory modernity” by immersing readers in the sounds, sights and feel of the high-speed Metro. In the process new relationships between self and technology emerge between the lines of belonging and nonbelonging in the city.
Crowds: Ethnographic Encounters, 2019
City & Society, 2018
To what extent is Delhi's metro rail system a social leveler and a global emblem of middle-class ... more To what extent is Delhi's metro rail system a social leveler and a global emblem of middle-class modernity—in idea and practice? This essay illustrates how the language and aims of planning and infrastructural development achieve class-based goals in a city of deep social inequalities. Based on fieldwork in Delhi, the essay details architects' visions and work practices on the Metro, and how they interact with new forms of technocratic governance instituted by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation. By breaking down the broader development-based ideology that the Metro represents, the essay tracks how architects and planners are involved in diverse forms of " aspirational planning " that ultimately privilege and enact a notion of upward mobility rather than social equality. The urban extends through space, which it modifies. —Henri Lefebvre (2014), The Urban Revolution The Metro as idea and object D elhi's metro rail system extends into geographic space—with its 8 lines and 184 stations to date—and concretely into people's lives. Like much transport infrastructure in the world, it is meant to intervene and fix—not only traffic, but also pollution, stress, and social inequality itself—as it modernizes life and instills national pride. But to what extent can the system be a social leveler and a global emblem and enactment of middle-class modernity? The Metro is about the movement of people—nearly three million a day—but in the larger schema of city-and nation-building, it is also a premier symbol of capital interests. It is both a form of transport and an urban plan. The Metro serves mostly working-, lower-, and middle-class commuters, alongside land and property developers and global financiers; it has multiple constituencies. In the process of making and running the system, a host of questions arise about what a city is and who this city is for. These questions are addressed in the planning and construction of the Metro, in its everyday operations , and in a larger symbolic realm that goes beyond this city and its people.
Anthropology and Humanism, 2018
Meeting runaway intercaste couples hiding in a safe house in Delhi led me to reflect on the kinds... more Meeting runaway intercaste couples hiding in a safe house in Delhi led me to reflect on the kinds of mobility at work in their lives and in the city today. By highlighting the social and physical parameters of their mobility in a single ethnographic frame, I argue that it is the quest for mobility rather than an expression of individual choice that is most significant about their flouting of social norms.
A reflective essay on applying anthropological fieldwork methods to the study of literary languag... more A reflective essay on applying anthropological fieldwork methods to the study of literary language, and more recently the new circuits of mobility and sociality in Delhi's metro rail system.
The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism, Feb 2016
Sanskritization is a theory of social change advanced by the sociologist M. N. Srinivas in 1952 t... more Sanskritization is a theory of social change advanced by the sociologist M. N. Srinivas in 1952 to describe how upward mobility occurs in India's caste society, previously thought to be static. It is the process by which lower caste groups attempt to raise their status and position within the caste hierarchy by emulating upper caste social norms, such as the adoption of vegetarianism and the worship of Brahminical gods. The theory of Sanskritization recognizes the great regional variation of caste groups across linguistic, ethnic, and geographical boundaries, and the local power struggles that may shift a subcaste group's position in the hierarchy, even if it does not lead to any structural change in the overarching caste schema. The theory also reinforces the idea of a Brahmin-centric society that relegates the lower castes to the role of imitators, thereby making it out of step with contemporary caste politics.
In "A History of the Indian Novel in English," edited by Ulka Anjaria. Cambridge University Press, 2015: pp. 147-161.
This chapter highlights translated texts in a volume that would otherwise only discuss literature... more This chapter highlights translated texts in a volume that would otherwise only discuss literature written originally in English. I argue that translations should also be seen as contributions to Indian English, both the literary corpus and the language itself. In doing so, I frame translation itself as part and parcel of the understanding and forging of an Indian literature. To illustrate these points, I compare Tagore's "Gora", Ananthamurthy's "Samskara", and Omprakash Valmiki's "Joothan" to talk about issues of language, caste, and the form of the novel. I detail how notions of caste as expressed in translated texts in particular have been central to Indian modernity and self-formation.
Economic & Political Weekly, Jan 1, 2010
Public Books, Sep 2012
An article adapted from my book, English Heart, Hindi Heartland, about the publisher Ravi Dayal a... more An article adapted from my book, English Heart, Hindi Heartland, about the publisher Ravi Dayal and his role in the post-1970s 'boom' in Indian fiction in English. Why is global Indian literature represented by works originally written in English rather than translations from Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Marathi, or a host of other languages that are spoken by many more people? I argue that we need to study literary production in order to understand the historical and political dynamics that led to the flourishing of English after the British left India in 1947.
Economic and Political Weekly, 2010
Public Culture, Jan 1, 2007
This essay is based on ethnographic research of Delhi's literary field and looks at competing lan... more This essay is based on ethnographic research of Delhi's literary field and looks at competing language ideologies of English, Hindi, and other languages as played out among writers, translators, critics, and others. It reveals several layers of obfuscation (relating to caste, especially) in a controversy that erupted over the Hindi translation of Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy.
Interventions, Jan 1, 2009
This essay is about the place of English in the multilingual literary consciousness and the work ... more This essay is about the place of English in the multilingual literary consciousness and the work it does as a mediator in the Indian linguistic landscape. It links the transnational production of literature, especially the framing of Salman Rushdie in Granta in 1980 versus in the New Yorker seventeen years later, to a comparison of Ahmed Ali's Twilight in Delhi and Anita Desai's In Custody.
Book Reviews by Rashmi Sadana
South Asian History and Culture, 2024
Between searing oral histories and complex political ones, there has been a plethora of important... more Between searing oral histories and complex political ones, there has been a plethora of important scholarship on the Partition over the last few decades. Rotem Geva’s book, Delhi Reborn, is distinctive for the way it focuses entirely on Delhi as a political and cultural staging ground for the Partition and emergence of the newly independent Indian nation-state. Geva’s is a story of how a secular and democratic India comes into being and how it is challenged at every step by communalism and the unravelling and then reconstituting of religious identities.
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Book by Rashmi Sadana
The back cover blurb:
The Moving City is a rich and intimate account of urban transformation told through the story of Delhi's Metro, a massive infrastructure project that is reshaping the city's social and urban landscapes. Ethnographic vignettes introduce the feel and form of the Metro and let readers experience the city, scene by scene, stop by stop, as if they, too, have come along for the ride. Laying bare the radical possibilities and concretized inequalities of the Metro, and how people live with and through its built environment, this is a story of women and men on the move, the nature of Indian aspiration, and what it takes morally and materially to sustain urban life. Through exquisite prose, Rashmi Sadana transports the reader to a city shaped by both its Metro and those who depend on it, revealing a perspective on Delhi unlike any other.
Table of Contents
Prologue: The Slush Pile
1 Reading Delhi and Beyond
2 Two Tales of a City
3 In Sujan Singh Park
4 The Two Brothers of Ansari Road
5 At the Sahitya Akademi
6 Across the Yamuna
7 “A Suitable Text for a Vegetarian Audience"
8 Indian Literature Abroad
9 Conclusion
Edited Volume by Rashmi Sadana
Chronology
Introduction Rashmi Sadana and Vasudha Dalmia
Part I. Cultural Contexts:
1. Scenes of rural change Ann Grodzins Gold
2. The formation of tribal identities Stuart Blackburn
3. Food and agriculture Amita Baviskar
4. Urban forms of religious practice Smriti Srinivas
5. The politics of caste identities Christophe Jaffrelot
Part II. Cultural Forms:
6. History and representation in the Bengali novel Supriya Chaudhuri
7. Writing in English Rashmi Sadana
8. Dalit life histories Debjani Ganguly
9. Three traditions in modernist art Sonal Khullar
10. Mass reproduction and the art of the bazaar Kajri Jain
11. Urban theatre and the turn towards 'folk' Vasudha Dalmia
12. Aesthetics and politics in popular cinema Ravi S. Vasudevan
13. Musical genres and national identity Amanda Weidman
14. Voyeurism and the family on television Amrita Ibrahim
Further reading
Index
Articles by Rashmi Sadana
Book Reviews by Rashmi Sadana