In ‘Native ball’, the artist presents life in Kerala through a deliberate mix of fact and fabrication, combining photography and text to evoke a kind of magical realism
Namit Arora and Romila Thapar on how identities in early and medieval India were formed, contested, and why a shared sense of “Indianness” may be a colonial-era development
The professor of critical geography discusses how climatic variability, unregulated development and colonial water governance exacerbates Pakistan’s flood vulnerability
Uncovering her maternal ancestors’ past rooted in the Bhantu identity, Jafri offers a rare account of the so-called criminal tribe, the circumstances of their conversions and the continuities of caste oppression in India today
The history of LGBTIQA+ organising and activism in Sri Lanka contains many hard-won victories, but the target of undoing the colonial-era Sections 365 and 365A remains unrealised
The Indian-Francophone writer Ari Gautier on Black and Dalit struggles, indentured labour, and the little-known histories of French colonialism in South India
It is natural to compare Gaza today and Tamils’ plight at the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War – but claims that the LTTE stood in solidarity with Palestine and got training from the PLO are dangerously misleading
The past struggles of brown and black immigrants have brought improvement in racial equality in the United Kingdom – but recent books make clear that British liberalism’s claims of substantive progress are overly optimistic
India and China’s close interactions over the centuries – literary or otherwise – make for important and interesting reference points, but much work needs to be done to address the failings and inadequacies of comparing the two
In ‘Waiting on Empire’, Arunima Datta resurrects the largely forgotten travelling ayahs – one of the many groups of Southasian migrant workers in the British Empire
