Articles by Rita Kothari

In the early 20th century, when K M Munshi was making a name for himself in the literary and cultural sphere of Gujarat, he was both intervening in and departing from the past. Curating elements of the past that suited his equally curated modernity, Munshi exemplifies many connections that become evident of Gujarat in the subsequent years. In this paper, we ask: “What was Munshi’s past?” In other words, whom was he responding to from the 19th century? The period of our inquiry in Munshi’s life is the one that witnessed the famous Patan trilogy. The questions are situated in both cultural history and literature.

The writer recalls her long association with her friend, companion, and interlocutor, the Gujarati poet and intellectual, Neerav Patel.

This paper focuses on a new archive of dalit writing in English translation. The "archive" has a forced homogeneity imposed by the term "dalit", which embraces an urban middle-class dalit and a member of a scavenger caste; the homogeneity is consolidated by the fact that the translated texts are in an international language. The questions asked concern the relationship between caste and the English language, two phenomena that represent considerably antithetical signs. Dalit writers accept English as a target language, despite the fact that local realities and registers of caste are difficult to couch in a language that has no memory of caste. The discussion shows how English promises to dalit writers (as both individuals and representatives of communities) agency, articulation, recognition and justice. The paper draws attention to the multiplicity of contexts that make writing by dalits part of a literary public sphere in India, and contribute to our thinking about caste issues in the context of human rights.

RSS and Sindhi Hindus RITA KOTHARI This is in response to Anand Chandavarkar

Over two million Hindu Sindhis (who formed a religious minority in Sindh, now in Pakistan) migrated to India during partition. Their psychic wounds and ruptures remain unknown to most. Of these ruptures, the most serious one has been the community's move towards hardened identities. Yet less than a hundred years ago, the Sindhis practised a very non-textualised form of Hinduism.