India: Topics in Anthropology & History

(4 Credits)

This course offers multiple approaches to India under broad the conceptual frameworks of caste, communalism and sectarianism. The geographical focus for the course is India, broadly conceived to include its diaspora and in relation to other South Asian states. The disciplinary location for the course is in Social and Cultural Anthropology and History. Caste is the lens through which a range of social and cultural issues such as gender, class, modernity and food are considered. Key historical moments are examined via the anthropological and historical study of communalism and sectarianism. Such key moments may include some of the following: Partition (1947), the State of Emergency (1975-77), the destruction of the Babri Masjid, Ayodhya (1992), the Gujarat riots (2002) and the Citizenship Amendment Bill (2019).