Time traveling from 1960s India to early modern Egypt with the acclaimed Urdu writer Qurratulain Hyder and her story “Roshni ki Raftaar.” INTERACTIVE Chats Ep. 4 · On Qurratulain Hyder's sci-fi story “Roshni ki Raftaar” Zuneera Shah · Nur Nasreen Ibrahim Time traveling from 1960s India to early modern Egypt with the acclaimed Urdu writer Qurratulain Hyder and her story “Roshni ki Raftaar.” A reading and discussion of the late Urdu writer Qurratulain Hyder and her short story “Roshni ki Raftaar” by editors Nur Nasreen Ibrahim and Zuneera Shah. Feat.: time travel, women in science, sci-fi traditions in Urdu compared to those in English, and much more. Must-watch: Nur and Zuneera's thoughts on the ending, speculations on whether Hyder intended for a sequel, what she might think of criticisms, how the tonal shift affects the story, and how humor functions in the story. More importantly: why do we expect or want character growth? Is there a fundamental difference with regard to character growth between the Anglophone literary tradition and the non-Anglophone one? Qurratulain Hyder is amongst the most acclaimed and influential Urdu writers of the 20th century, perhaps even the most popular alongside contemporaries like Ismat Chughtai (with whom she had a testy relationship). Best known for her magnum opus “Aag ka Durya” or “River of Fire,” Hyder was also a deeply expansive writer. Here, Nur and Zuneera discuss her use of fantasy and sci-fi framings, the manner of her world-building, and comparisons to contemporary films and TV shows in the most fun and audience-engaging SAAG Chats episode to date. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on SAAG Chats, an informal series of live events on Instagram. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Live Urdu Fiction Posthumous Qurratulain Hyder Science Fiction Time Travel Urdu Criticism Language SAAG Chats Genre Genre Tropes Speculative Fiction Fantasy Philosophical Fiction Syncretism River of Fire Roshni ki Raftaar Sahitya Akademi Genre Fluidity Difficult Reading Esoterica Time & Space Suez Canal Crisis Narrators Petty Bureaucracy Everyday Life Indian Bureaucracy Aligarh Science Characterization Ethical Standards for Fictional Characters Sci-Fi Rockets Romance Bitterness Scientist Characters Surprise Endings Gender Tonal Shifts Humor Short Story Naiyer Masud Zuneera Shah is a gender & development professional and writer based in Lahore. NUR NASREEN IBRAHIM is a journalist and writer currently a Margins Fellow at the Asian American Writers Workshop, and a television producer formerly at Al-Jazeera and Patriot Act . She is based in Brooklyn. Live Urdu Fiction 30th Nov 2020 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

Author Chaitali Sen in conversation with Fiction Editor Hananah Zaheer. COMMUNITY Nation-State Constraints on Identity & Intimacy Chaitali Sen Author Chaitali Sen in conversation with Fiction Editor Hananah Zaheer. I fight for a world without borders, but they're borders wrenched in reaction to colonialism, and fortified against the spread of English. It's interesting how capitalism homogenizes while making people want to put up walls. RECOMMENDED: A New Race of Men from Heaven: Stories (Sarabande, 2023) by Chaitali Sen ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Literary Solidarity Bengali Internationalist Solidarity Black Solidarities Satyajit Ray Statelessness Colonialism Language South Asian Women's Creative Collective South Asians Against Police Brutality Abner Louima Anthony Baez Literature & Liberation Diaspora Identity Community Building Post-George Floyd Moment Immigration Race & Genre Short Stories Fiction Avant-Garde Form Avant-Garde Traditions Emancipatory Politics Experimental Methods Rabindranath Tagore Mrinal Sen Separatism Tamil Separatists Punjabi Separatists Rajiv Gandhi Separatist Movements in India Indian Diaspora Syria CHAITALI SEN is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky (Europa Editions 2015) and the short story collection A New Race of Men from Heaven (Sarabande Books, January 2023) which won the Mary McCarthy Prize for Short Fiction. Her stories and essays have appeared in Boulevard , Ecotone, Shenandoah, New England Review, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, Catapult , and others. A graduate of the Hunter College MFA in Fiction, she is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice. Interview Literary Solidarity 17th Dec 2020 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

Bangalore-based Reliable Copy is an intentionally designed independent publishing collective reshaping the landscape of contemporary art distribution and curation in South Asia. Rooted in friendship, knowledge-building, and a redefinition of what sustainability in art book publishing looks and feels like, their practice bridges transnational modernisms to turn the ‘lull’ in visual art into a space of possibility, where language, community, and curiosity meet at their respective limits to sketch new worlds. FEATURES Beyond the Lull Pramodha Weerasekera Bangalore-based Reliable Copy is an intentionally designed independent publishing collective reshaping the landscape of contemporary art distribution and curation in South Asia. Rooted in friendship, knowledge-building, and a redefinition of what sustainability in art book publishing looks and feels like, their practice bridges transnational modernisms to turn the ‘lull’ in visual art into a space of possibility, where language, community, and curiosity meet at their respective limits to sketch new worlds. In The Significance and Relevance of Early Modern Indian Painters to the Contemporary Indian Art (1971) by Nilima Sheikh , a Fine Arts dissertation published by Reliable Copy, the artist speaks of a “lull” in terms of Modernist painting in India. She reflects on how the Modernist movement emerged out of a reckoning with Mughal artistic traditions, as well as influences from British art. In the conclusion of the dissertation, Sheikh writes: “The task of the individual painter in India is perhaps more difficult because he has to start from scratch and question the basic premises; there is no concerted movement to whose ideologies he can subscribe or even reject as the reference for his own work.” Cover page of The Significance and Relevance of Early Modern Indian Painters to the Contemporary Indian Art (1971) by Nilima Sheikh, published by Reliable Copy in 2023. Image courtesy Reliable Copy. This ‘lull’ still continues to push artistic practices in South Asia to innovate and find unique solutions in order to create meaningful and thought-provoking works. Reliable Copy, a publishing house founded and led by artist duo Nihaal Faizal and Sarasija Subramanian in 2018, is an example of an initiative that has embraced this ‘lull’ as a challenge. In 2021, while helping plan an online conference for emerging arts professionals in South Asia, I kept hearing about Nihaal and Sarasija’s work—my colleagues based in India loved them. At the time, I was working at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka in Colombo, under the guidance of art historian and curator Sharmini Pereira , aiming to start my own writing and publishing practice. At the museum, I was exposed to her immense experience in publishing and the peripheral work of building the publishing house Raking Leaves, with a predominant focus on South Asian artistic practices. When I finally met Nihaal and Sarasija, it was both a revelation and a relief to know that people of my own generation were passionate about independent publishing just like I was and were excited to share more with me. Independent publishing, such as Reliable Copy’s practice, transcends one-off zines and DIY publication models, as well as the nefarious art-world entity of the biographical coffee-table book that is merely aesthetically pleasing. Reliable Copy’s practice prioritises substance, critical thinking, knowledge-building, deliberation, and intentional decision-making. They are currently engaged in two main publication series. The Fine Art(s) Dissertation Series highlights (un)published dissertations from the prominent Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda as a pedagogical tool. The Wiggle Room is a playful take on contemporary art from an international standpoint, bringing together artistic practices that aim for freedom or seek to “wiggle” out of conventionalities. A common thread emerges in how they have positioned one book after another since 2018. “As the publishing practice has evolved, we have been attempting more and more to play the role of positioning the artist, the book, and their contexts,” says Sarasija. This essay unveils different ways in which I have encountered this common thread in Reliable Copy’s work during my years as a fellow dreamer of an independent publishing practice. The Surroundings of the Practice At my first meeting with Nihaal and Sarasija, I was surrounded by a host of books on a busy, traffic-filled day in Bangalore. Our meeting exposed me to the extensive labour that goes into the publication of a book. Each book’s design identity, layout, paper, fonts, and printing technology had been well thought through. I was gifted several books published by them, including Mochu’s Nervous Fossils – Syndromes of the Synthetic Nether , The 1Shanthiroad Cookbook , edited by Suresh Jayaram, and Sculptor’s Notebook by Pushpamala N. Nihaal; Sarasija said they wanted the books to travel far. Flexing Muscles (2019) by Ravikumar Kashi caught my attention due to the artist’s detailed treatment of flex banners in Bangalore. The book includes an essay in both Kannada and English, accompanied by photographs. Kashi’s in-depth artistic analysis, of a subject that I had encountered yet ignored during my visits to Bangalore, was a unique way to re-experience that city from my desk in Colombo. Mochu’s book was of a completely different tenor yet felt similar—the artist’s rich imaginarium was salient in the big blue typography, almost-dystopian imagery, and the bright yellow cover. Despite a personal aversion to speculative theory and related fiction, I held onto this book as a reminder to myself of what books can do to their readers: intrigue, move, tell stories, and impart new knowledge and perspectives. In December 2023, I, too, took a leap and published a book with three artists. Sarasija spent hours with me, the designer, and one of the artists to ensure consistency in terms of colours, fonts, paper, and printing options in India (the book was to be mainly distributed in Delhi). This level of friendship-building and support is rare, at least in the phase of the career I am in, as a writer trying to be independent. When they recently sent me a copy of the newly minted publication Supporting Role by Jason Hirata from the Wiggle Room series, I realised that for Reliable Copy, friendship is the core. They began the series in 2023 with the publication High Entertainment by David Robbins, an artist they had developed a strong connection with during their At The Kitchen Table exhibition in 2021. Hirata’s Supporting Role has emerged from the same premise, extending a close relationship with another artist who was present in At The Kitchen Table . The Wiggle Room series’ conceptualisation is immersed in the contemporary and the emerging. Each publication interrogates the meaning of “art,” particularly in relation to contemporary technologies, digital platforms, and the artist’s evolving role within broader socio-cultural and economic structures. Art is never for art’s sake. Cover page of Sculptor’s Notebook (1985) by Pushpamala N, published by Reliable Copy in 2022. Image courtesy Reliable Copy. Beyond the Limits of Language Supporting Role’ s editor’s note refers to Marcel Duchamp ’s thinking about aesthetics, language, and fine art: “What [Duchamp] makes abundantly clear is that language serves a purpose, is essential and inevitable, but that it also comes with certain limits. Sometimes as soon as one’s language is carefully delineated, it starts to impose itself, it becomes an obstacle.” Duchamp, as an art historical example, helps contextualise Hirata’s practice as presented in the book. The book is an extension of Duchamp’s idea, which continues to hold true for most linguistic endeavours. While we encounter many labels and descriptors of visual artworks, the publication never presents what might be considered a conventionally ‘visual’ artwork. We do encounter two works by him: A Storied Past (Il sogno di una cosa) (2022) and the series Grave Fatura (2023–24), but they are not conventional paintings, prints, photographs, or sculptures. The book is composed of an edited selection of texts developed by Hirata to accompany his artworks: labels for the wall, invitations to exhibitions, essays, scripts, press releases, checklists, invoices, curricula vitae, and other paraphernalia he has preserved while working in contemporary art production and display in Berlin. These roles—often performed by those around the artist, such as partners, friends, and family—are frequently overlooked. Hirata’s book documents these contributions across his career, mainly through language-based materials. They are primarily text-based artworks with two qualities innate to books—mobility and reproducibility on paper—enabling sustained engagement beyond the confines of a white cube space. While Duchamp’s critique of language remains relevant to Hirata and the visual arts today, Nihaal and Sarasija push language to its limits. Many of us, myself included, forget its role in and around contemporary art. Though we may begin with the intention to explain and contextualise, the specialised vocabulary often alienates unfamiliar audiences. Supporting Role invites us to see language not as a mere support, but as an artwork in itself. Before Wiggle Room , Reliable Copy had already facilitated unexpected transitions through time and space with language and ephemera surrounding artmaking. Their curatorial project at the kitchen table , first exhibited in 2021 at 1Shanthiroad Studio/Gallery in Bangalore, travelled to the Ark Foundation for the Arts in Baroda in 2023–24. The project considers how publishing practices could inform exhibition-making and curatorial processes. “Through this introduction of artworks as records and documents—as secondary material—and together with cookbooks and videos, at the kitchen table spills its premise across the exhibition and its documentation, the library and the gallery, and the event and its eventual publication,” the catalogue states. The display explored food, with particular attention to the channels and platforms through which food travels, inscribed with material, trace, memory, and cultural politics. It included cookbooks, menus, anthologies of recipes from literary fiction, family archives of ‘secret’ recipes, historical records, and visual and textual references to the feasts held for occasions such as birthdays, funerals, or festivals. The moving image works were particularly compelling, with some questioning, mimicking, or parodying the performative format of instructional cooking shows. Carolyn Lazard’s A Recipe for Disaster (2018) incorporates footage from Julia Child’s The French Chef (1972), which used open captions and images for the deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences. Reflecting on this in the twenty-first century, Lazard foregrounds accessibility as a necessary aspect of social infrastructure, especially in mainstream media. The Community of the Practice During my visit to Bangalore in July 2024, Reliable Copy had just moved into a new studio. We were in the midst of a long-planned book exchange between Reliable Copy, Raking Leaves, Mumbai-based Editions JoJo, and myself. Nihaal, Sarasija, and I spoke at length about how independent publishing had evolved for Reliable Copy after their residency at Amant Art and their debut at Printed Matter’s Art Book Fair in New York earlier that year. This is when I began to consider Reliable Copy as a curatorial practice that exceeded the scope of independent publishing. By their fourteenth publication in late 2024, their carefully chosen collaborations had culminated in a new focus: actively strategising how to disseminate their books or how, as artists might say, to put the work “out there.” Nihaal spoke animatedly about a new project they had initiated: Total Runtime , a curated moving image programme that activates Reliable Copy’s publications. Featuring moving image works by artists previously published by the press, Total Runtime is mobile, flexible, and an answer to the ‘lull’. Its first iteration in New York brought together nine films, two book trailers, seven artists, and one publishing house. The participating artists included BV Suresh, David Robbins, Kiran Subbaiah , Mariam Suhail, Mario Santanilla , Mochu, and Pushpamala N. The next iteration, at Miss Read: The Berlin Art Book Fair, showcased films by David Robbins and Jason Hirata, celebrating the latter’s new publication Supporting Role with Reliable Copy. In late 2023, they also launched Press Works, their own distribution platform, making publications by renowned international independent art book publishers accessible to local audiences. These included Primary Information and New Documents (United States), Kayfa-ta (Gulf), kyklàda.press (Aegean archipelago), Editions JoJo (India), and numerous self-published titles. The curation of this platform is deliberate and thoughtful, drawing on a network of publishers they regard as models of interest. Participation in international art book fairs continues to expand their network and deepen engagement with the global independent publishing community. Each trip to a fair introduces Reliable Copy to new publishers and, in turn, allows them to introduce readers like myself to these practices. Guided by their own interests as readers, Nihaal and Sarasija explore the wider practices behind the books and aim to offer Indian audiences not just individual titles but an understanding of broader publishing patterns. A notable example of this curatorial pattern is the Los Angeles-based New Documents , recommended to me by Sarasija. The Halifax Conference (2019) presents a transcript of a 1970 conference held at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, capturing a cacophony of voices and opinions typical of such events. Intrigued by this, I was particularly drawn to New Forms of Art and Contagious Mental Illness (2023), a collection of transcripts and pamphlets by medical scientist Carl Julius Salomonsen , who argued in 1919–20 that Modernist art constituted a kind of “contagious mental illness.” The book offers a fascinating view of Modernism as something misunderstood, even pathological, in its own time. Its format, resembling a legal document, evoked, for me, a history of ownership and transmission. Until then, my knowledge of modernism had been shaped largely by the Sri Lankan context, due to my museum work on Sri Lankan modern and contemporary art. This book allowed me to see how Europe perceived the movement as it unfolded: not from a scholarly perspective, but through the lens of a medical professional. It felt as though Nihaal and Sarasija had noted my interest in modernist art and fed it back to me through their recommendations, often sent via WhatsApp or email, regardless of distance. These messages and emails lead me to one of the most enduring aspects of Reliable Copy: its ethic of community and friendship. Jason Hirata and Sarasija Subramanian with Marcel Duchamp's The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (1915–1923) at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia. Photograph by Nihaal Faizal. Image courtesy Reliable Copy. Friendship and Publishing I first met Nihaal and Sarasija in Bangalore, during a conference organised almost serendipitously by a mutual friend. Although we have never shared a formal panel as colleagues, I have attended nearly every talk the duo has given, not out of professional obligation, but out of friendship. I have always approached their practice not as a peer, but as a friend and fellow dreamer. At a particularly difficult moment, I wrote them a long, disillusioned email, venting about the challenges of starting my own publishing practice. I spoke of the scarcity of funding and the exhaustion that comes with trying to be creative in an industry already strained by lack, especially in South Asia. Their response was generous and clear-eyed. We discussed pragmatic paths forward, and their questions led me to reconsider what sustainability might truly mean—for work, and for myself. What they offered was not false assurance, but something more lasting: the reminder that while financial stability may always remain elusive, what must persist is commitment—uncompromising, careful, and rooted in a sense of purpose. At the time, I was still grappling with what exactly my priorities were as an independent writer and curator (I still am). They reminded me that patience was not a waiting room, but a form of practice. “Once the light comes on,” they said, “you will not be able to turn it off.” Community is the spine of independent art book publishing, as Nihaal and Sarasija have told me, and as I have come to understand it myself. This community is made up of artists willing to experiment with form and failure, designers who treat legibility and beauty as twin priorities, distributors who care as much about access as they do about profit margins, and a readership that reads not out of habit but out of care. Sustainability, then, cannot be reduced to financial viability alone. It rests on the presence of a community that cares enough to read, respond, and stay. Sarasija and Nihaal have observed a growing interest in the Indian market among international publishers, mainly because there are no dedicated art bookshops or art book fairs in South Asia, and no traditional infrastructure for these books to circulate. My siblings and friends who attend such fairs in the global North have noticed this firsthand. My sister’s visit to Forma’s Art Book Fair in London resulted in a video call from the fair and a parcel of discounted books mailed to me in Sri Lanka. Similarly, for Nihaal and Sarasija, there is a community of publishers that reduces their prices for the Indian market, allowing their books to circulate more widely. There is, for Reliable Copy, a network of publishers who lower their prices for Indian readers; not as charity, but as a gesture of circulation. This atmosphere, shaped by generosity rather than competition, stands in stark contrast to the saturated and often exclusionary contemporary art market. Independent publishing here is marked by specificity and thematic intention. People are not just selling books, but also exchanging ideas, paying attention, and bringing each other’s work home. For Nihaal and Sarasija, the warmth of printed matter is not abstract. It is embedded in the everyday ethic of this community. I remain hopeful about art book publishing, not only as an industry but as a practice shaped by care. My engagement with Reliable Copy has deepened my conviction. The so-called lull of independent publishing is passing. A new generation is ready to learn from it, and to begin again, as every serious artistic movement once did.∎ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Mukhtar Kazi, Untitled (2025). Part of The Sea and the Sahel series. Acrylic on raw linen. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Essay Bangalore Reliable Copy Art History Art Institutions Contemporary Art Publishing Design Visual Art Installation Book Publishing Curiosity Language Community Nilima Sheikh Fine Arts Modernist Painting India Mughal British South Asia Nihaal Faizal Sarasija Subramanian Lull Sri Lanka Colombo Curation Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sharmini Pereira Publishing House Raking Leaves Independent Publishing Zines DIY Dissertation Education Knowledge Pedagogy Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda Art practice Suresh Jayaram Pushpamala N. Nihaal Ravikumar Kashi Kannada Mochu Color Theory Jason Hirata David Robbins Marcel Duchamp Aesthetics Production Friendship PRAMODHA WEERASEKERA is an art writer and curator based in Sri Lanka. She writes regularly about feminist artistic practices and occasionally about art books from South Asia. Her writing has appeared in e-flux , Art Review, Hyperallergic , BOMB , and several exhibition publications. Her curatorial projects have been presented at the Khoj International Artists Association in New Delhi, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Sri Lanka, and the Ceylon Literary and Arts Festival in Colombo. She is the Assistant Curator of Edition 9 of Colomboscope. Essay Bangalore 2nd May 2025 MUKHTAR KAZI is a self-taught artist based in Thane, Maharashtra. His work engages light through abstract forms. His work The Sea and the Sahel was exhibited with Stranger’s House Gallery at the 15th edition of the Dakar Biennale, or Dak’Art - Biennale de l’Art Africain Contemporain, in Senegal. On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

Author and translator Jenny Bhatt in conversation with Editor Kamil Ahsan. COMMUNITY Authenticity & Exoticism Jenny Bhatt Author and translator Jenny Bhatt in conversation with Editor Kamil Ahsan. Often when we get invited to public arenas, we end up having to talk about immigration, or discrimination—and we never really get to talk about craft. RECOMMENDED: The Shehnai Virtuoso and Other Stories , the first substantive English translation of the Gujarati short story pioneer, Dhumketu (1892–1965 .) The first book-length Gujarati to English translation published in the US, translated by Jenny Bhatt. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Dallas Diaspora Short Stories Debut Authors Writing After Loss L.L. McKinney Gujarat Riots Gujarati Modi Kuchibhotla Hindutva Paratext Authenticity Exoticism Desi Books Internationalist Solidarity Literary Solidarity Community Building Translation Affect Personal History Perspective JENNY BHATT is a writer, literary translator, and book critic. She is the founder of Desi Books , a global forum that showcases South Asian literature from the world over. She teaches creative writing at Writing Workshops Dallas and the PEN America Emerging Voices Fellowship Program. She is the author of Each of Us Killers: Stories (7.13 Books, 2020) and translated Ratno Dholi: Dhumketu’s Best Short Stories (HarperCollins India; Oct 2020), which was shortlisted for the 2021 PFC-VoW Book Awards. Her nonfiction has been published in various venues including NPR, The Washington Post, BBC Culture, The Atlantic, Publishers Weekly, Dallas Morning News, Literary Hub, Poets & Writers, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Star Tribune, and more. Sign up for her weekly newsletter, We Are All Translators here Interview Dallas 4th Sep 2020 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

Ahead of the presidential election in Sri Lanka, trade unions and political parties have promised a wage increase to tea plantation workers they hope to win over. Many workers are unconvinced, partly because wage increases are often tied to higher productivity targets that far exceed workers’ bodily capacity. THE VERTICAL The Ambivalent Voter Jeevan Ravindran Ahead of the presidential election in Sri Lanka, trade unions and political parties have promised a wage increase to tea plantation workers they hope to win over. Many workers are unconvinced, partly because wage increases are often tied to higher productivity targets that far exceed workers’ bodily capacity. “Let’s say a small child of around five years old is sick,” says Subramaniam Maheswarie, a 47-year-old tea plucker from Bogawantalawa in the Nuwara Eliya district of Sri Lanka’s Central Province. “We have to look after it and give it medicine.” The sick child Maheswarie is referring to is Sri Lanka: a nation on the slow road to recovery from a devastating economic crisis that led to shortages of food and fuel, and saw costs of living soar. The doctor who nursed the child is Ranil Wickremesinghe, the president who took the reins from Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was ousted from office after months of protests. Wickremesinghe is attempting to hold onto power after two years in office as the country gears up for a presidential election tomorrow, 21st September, the first since the crisis. Such conditions are ripe for the playing out of patronage politics. The Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), the largest plantation workers’ trade union, is advocating fiercely on Wickremesinghe’s behalf. Last year, the leader of the CWC was elevated to the position of a cabinet minister by Wickremesinghe’s government, and CWC formed a seat-sharing pact with the UNP (United National Party) aiming to garner votes in the central plantation districts. Maheswarie serves as a local chairwoman for the CWC, although she also continues to work on the plantation. Here in the hill-country region, political parties double as trade unions and vice versa—simultaneously trying to win workers’ votes as well as represent their voices in negotiations with plantations. In May this year, Wickremesinghe promised plantation workers a new wage of LKR 1,700 (US$5.64), a 70% hike from their current wage of LKR 1000 (US$3.32). Plantation companies appealed the wage, and Wickremesinghe’s presidential gazette was found to be unlawful by the Sri Lankan Supreme Court. The Wages Board has now issued a gazette mandating wages of LKR 1,350 (US$4.48) for plantation workers, with an additional productivity incentive of LKR 350 (US$1.16) that requires them to pluck extra kilos. Tea workers, most of whom are part of the Malaiyaha Tamil community—descendants of indentured labourers brought from South India to work on plantations by the British in colonial Ceylon—face a number of challenges including food insecurity, lack of access to educational opportunities, precarious housing, and poor living and working conditions. Maheswarie says the wage increase is positive, but admits that the last wage increase in 2021 led to problems for workers. She says productivity targets increased by 3 kilos at her plantation. Additionally, benefits such as medical care and food provisions were withdrawn or reduced, because the implementation of the new wage led to the collapse of the traditional collective agreement between plantation companies and trade unions. “[As part of the collective agreement], there were a lot of rules and regulations regarding what you should and shouldn’t do with workers,” Maheswarie says. “Now those rules don’t exist. Once we got rid of those rules, it was the companies who [arbitrarily] set the rules. Now that we don’t have the collective agreement, we can’t really go and argue [for more benefits].” Many workers are suspicious of the timing of the wage increase, perceiving it as a political ploy to win their votes in the election. However, Maheswarie is adamant that is not the case and accuses plantation companies of “dragging out” the process to frame the CWC as eking out a wage increase for political gain. Roshan Rajadurai, chairman of the Planters’ Association, which oversees hundreds of plantations in Sri Lanka, said targets would not increase. However, he also said productivity must be improved and that the wage increase was unsustainable. “In Sri Lanka, rationale and reason don’t, unfortunately, apply,” Rajadurai said. He questioned the announcement, saying the plantation sector was being “singled out.” He pointed out that wages for other sectors were not being increased. “We have to agree on something we can [actually] pay,” Rajadurai added. “If they [politicians] did everything they promised, Sri Lanka would be better than Singapore.” He refuted Maheswarie’s claim that benefits were being reduced for workers, saying welfare had actually been increased and that it was in the plantations’ best interests to look after their workers. According to Sri Lanka’s Tea Board, the industry contributed USD 1.26 billion to the Sri Lankan economy in 2022. However, plantation workers were severely hit by the crisis, with many struggling to afford basic necessities. “The election is coming, right? So they likely thought we’d only vote for them if they increased our salaries,” says Santhiappillai Mary, who works at the Loolecondera estate, a state-owned plantation in Kandy District, famously colonial Ceylon’s first tea estate. Mary is unmoved by Loolecondera's storied history. She shares that the plantation makes multiple deductions from workers’ salaries, including small amounts for the work cards they register their picked tea leaf kilograms on and, until recently, for their payslips. She has taken out multiple loans by now and is berated by the companies involved when she cannot pay. She often goes to work even when she is sick or it is raining heavily—simply because she cannot afford to miss a day of pay. “We have to take two meals to work, but sometimes, if I take two meals, my children don’t have enough food to eat at home,” Mary says. “So, I just take one meal and go. And sometimes I don’t take anything at all, because the children need food in the evening. I’ve done that, too.” Santhiappillai Mary, courtesy of Udara Pathum Such dire straits also affect access to free public services. In 2022, Mary’s oldest son had to drop out of school. After her family could not afford the bus fare to school, he was not permitted to advance to the next grade alongside his peers. In Agarapatana, local trade union leaders who were part of the National Union of Workers (NUW) are also not totally convinced by the wage increase. NUW has thrown its support behind presidential hopeful Sajith Premadasa, who has promised to turn estate workers into smallholders and increase their pay. “We can’t be sure we’re going to get the new wage,” said Dayalan Ravichandran, adding that he was surprised to see that he received the same salary in June even after Wickremesinghe promised a higher wage. “They say they’ve agreed to it, but it’s not definite yet. We don’t know if they’re just doing it because of the election.” One estate trade union leader said people’s votes were often won with alcohol, even within her own party. “The people in the party give alcohol to the chairmen and tell them to give it to the men,” she said, adding that the women were struggling without basic facilities. “The chairmen give alcohol to the men and tell them to vote for the party.” But perhaps the larger question is: Would a wage increase even shift the needle for tea workers? If even universal education—which Sri Lanka cites as a major source of pride in comparison to its South Asian neighbours—can seemingly be revoked for tea workers’ children for want of bus fare, can tea workers reasonably aspire to the end of generational poverty in the hill country? Tea leaves at a plantation in Kandy District, Central Province. Courtesy of Udara Pathum. Workers might be divided in their political preferences but are united on one issue. None of them believe the wage increase—of which proof will only emerge after the election when next month’s pay is given—will be definitive proof of improved conditions. Mary feels that any wage increase is unlikely to be the better prospect it’s touted to be. “If they increase the salary,” she says, “they’ll demand more kilos of tea leaves, so it’s difficult for the workers.” She adds that an increase in salary will also mean an increase in the cost of essentials. “So there’s no point in increasing the salary. However much we get, it’s not enough.” This linkage of wage increases to required increases in productivity demands is the root of tea workers’ misgivings about their financial future: indeed, a wage increase may well be thought of as an excuse for the extraction of surplus labour that exceeds the limits of bodily labour. Mahendran, 49, also a worker at Loolecondera, says his family often goes hungry for five or six days every month. He, too, believes estates will increase productivity targets in response to the wage increase, adding that workers “can’t work any more than this.” Rajadurai, the Planters’ Association chair, disagrees. “People are not willing to increase their productivity. Our productivity is the lowest in the world,” he says, comparing expectations for tea pluckers in Sri Lanka favourably to Assam, where he claims tea pluckers have to pluck far more. He argues that pluckers should be able to pluck 1 kilo in 12 minutes.“If they want to earn, they earn.” Pluckers, he says, “should not get into the mindset that 18 is an impossible target.” When informed that tea pluckers said they had a daily target of 13 kilograms before the 2021 wage increase, Rajadurai told SAAG: “What are they doing plucking 13 kilos for the whole day? It’s absurd.” If estates and plantation companies increase productivity targets with wage increases, the much-touted increase can arguably be equated not just to an effective wage stagnation but also a more significant risk to the lives and bodies of tea workers and their families. The firm productivity targets tied to the 2021 wage increase demonstrably taxed workers with less flexibility than before. Many workers say the work was harder after the wage increase. Maheswarie says that estates no longer weed the tea bushes properly. Instead, they expect workers to do so and then pluck 18 kilograms on top of that. Ramalingam Priyadharshini, 42, a tea plucker from Agarapatana, is still undecided about who to vote for. She’s been let down in the past by promises to fix the roads in her area and to build housing. Currently, her family has no toilet. Priyadharshini has to use the toilet at her mother’s house, a ten-minute walk away. At night, or in an emergency, she has to ask her neighbours if she can use theirs. “I’m wondering whether I should just not vote at all because our main problem is the road. But it’s only during election time that they come and say they’ll do everything for us,” says Ramalingam. Her mother, Palanimurthy Jeyam, is a retired tea plucker who plans to spoil her ballot after years of involvement with CWC as a local chairwoman. “The current government is only doing everything for the rich,” she says angrily. “But they’re letting the hungry people go hungry and die.” Mary also says she doesn’t feel hopeful that anything will change. Meanwhile, Priyadharshini argues that the state only really thinks of plantation workers when election campaigns are underway, a sentiment that brings to the fore the historical trend, since independence, of Sri Lankan political parties jockeying for power during election campaigns by promising welfare services like food subsidies and wage increases. Indeed, tomorrow’s election may well show the risk of taking plantation workers’ votes for granted—or their successful co-optation by trade unions.∎ Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 “Into tea forest I,” 2024. Pen and tea stain on brown board, 91.4cm x 121.9cm, part of a triptych. Courtesy of Arulraj Ulaganathan. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Dispatch Sri Lanka Plantation Workers Tea Estates Ceylon Workers Congress Ranil Wickremasinghe UNP Central Province Malaiyaha Tamil Community Indentured Labor Agricultural Labor Agriculture Plantations Labor Wage Labor Wages Political Agendas Patronage Politics Clientelism Surplus Value Productivity Demands Production Planters’ Association Political Economy Loolecondera Kandy District Nuwara Eliya District Political Parties False Promises Effective Wage Stagnation JEEVAN RAVINDRAN is a multimedia journalist based in Jaffna and London, with bylines in VICE , Reuters , CNN, and more. She reports on human rights and politics. Dispatch Sri Lanka 20th Sep 2024 ARULRAJ ULAGANATHAN is a member of the Malaiyaga Tamil tea plantation worker community, and an artist. His work has previously been exhibited at the JDA Perera Gallery, the Kochi Muziris Student Biennale, and Colomboscope. His most recent solo exhibition, "A Life in Tea" at Barefoot Gallery Colombo, combines elements from the tea estates, such as name cards, tea pruning knives, and bruised feet. On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

On the evening of 20th July, Shahidul Alam communicated a dispatch from Dhaka via WhatsApp to SAAG and other media organizations, briefly getting through the internet shutdown to request that the scale of the brutal violence against student protests in Bangladesh be widely shared. Accompanying this piece was the clipped message: “Hundreds killed. It’s a massacre.” THE VERTICAL Urgent Dispatch from Dhaka I Shahidul Alam On the evening of 20th July, Shahidul Alam communicated a dispatch from Dhaka via WhatsApp to SAAG and other media organizations, briefly getting through the internet shutdown to request that the scale of the brutal violence against student protests in Bangladesh be widely shared. Accompanying this piece was the clipped message: “Hundreds killed. It’s a massacre.” EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is a dispatch from Dhaka by the renowned Bangladeshi photojournalist, educator, and civil-rights activist Shahidul Alam, sent to SAAG and other media organizations via WhatsApp on July 20th, as he briefly managed to get past the internet blackout. “Massacre going on. 100s killed. Please get the story out," Alam said tersely. Bangladesh is witnessing its largest political protests—and the deadliest state repression against political dissent—in its recent history. Since early July 2024, university students across the country have organized in opposition to a Supreme Court verdict that overturned an earlier ban on the deeply divisive policy of reservations in public-sector jobs and higher education. With the decision, Bangladesh was poised to return to a system of quotas that reserved 30 percent or more of government jobs and university admissions for descendants of the 180,000 officially registered freedom fighters, a secure constituency of the ruling Awami League, which led Bangladesh’s 1971 liberation. In response, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government has unleashed a systematic campaign of police violence against student activists, imposed a nationwide curfew, deployed the military, and initiated a near-total internet shutdown. The number of those killed and injured has escalated; at least 67 protesters were killed on July 19 alone. Alam’s note paints a picture of shocking violence over the last few days but also of a larger social crisis brewing in Sheikh Hasina’s Bangladesh. This is a world of routine torture, extrajudicial killings, social-media surveillance, gangsterization of student politics, and large-scale political corruption, all of it in rude contrast to headlines of soaring macroeconomic growth. Arrested and imprisoned for criticizing the prime minister, Alam is familiar with the state’s capacity for arbitrary violence. To preserve the urgency of his tone, the piece has been only lightly edited. —Shubhanga Pandey It would be a mistake to see this as simply a demand for more jobs. The quota movement, justified as it is, is simply the tip of the iceberg. A rampant government running roughshod over its people for so very long has led to extreme discontent. The quota issue has merely lit the fuse to this tinderbox. As citizens counted the dead and the injured, the prime minister fiddled, advising attendees at an aquaculture and seafood conference on tourism prospects in Cox’s Bazaar. The original quota had been designed shortly after independence in 1972 to be an interim arrangement to acknowledge the contribution of freedom fighters who constituted less than 0.25 percent of the population. Since a government known to be incredibly corrupt is responsible for creating the list of freedom fighters, over 50 years later, the 120-fold allocation through a 30 percent quota has become an easy backdoor for party cadres to much sought-after government employment. Confirmation came through of senior Awami Leaguers saying: “Just get through the initial screening, and we’ll get you through in the viva,” and simultaneously, that the “government jobs will only go to party people.” The resentment had resulted in protests in 2008 and 2013, but it was in 2018 that it gathered steam. When repressive measures failed to quell that unrest, the prime minister, in a moment of rage, overstepped her authority and cancelled the entire system. This had never been a demand of the protesters, who recognised the need for positive discrimination for disadvantaged communities. There are plenty of other reasons for the unrest. The price of essential goods has skyrocketed over the years, and people have their backs against the wall. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister herself publicly announces that her peon has amassed $40 million and only travels by helicopter. The peon is not the only one to travel by helicopter. Choppers were sent yesterday to rescue police trapped on a rooftop by angry protesters. 15th July 2024 It was reminiscent of 2018. The police van with water cannons and the long line of policemen standing at the Nilkhet corner on Monday made it abundantly clear that they were prepared. What were they prepared for? Certainly not the defence of unarmed students or the general public. They failed to lift a finger when the students were being attacked. The armed goons of the Chhatra League (CL, the ruling party’s student organisation) had been bussed in the previous night along with, apparently, youth gangs and leaders for hire. Their leaders had openly threatened the protesting students. CL was clearly the one the police were on standby to defend. It was CL that quota backdoors were designed to favour. As it turned out, there was little the unarmed students could do against the helmeted, armed, pro-government forces let loose. The police were content to let the mayhem continue, stepping in only when the ferocity of people’s power took the goons aback. We walked past blood and strewn sandals in the streets. People stopped us to say the injured had been taken to Dhaka Medical College Emergency Ward. CL goons took positions around the ward where some of the injured were being treated while others marched around the wards, weapons in hand, and the police conveniently stayed away. They continued to look away when CL members went inside the ward to beat up injured students. There was no need to intervene. CL was not in danger. The nation was. Democracy was. Common decency was. The public was in grave danger, but that was not their concern. The fact that the protection of the public was their primary task had never been part of the equation. Several were killed all over the country that day. “Justice will take its own course” is a common refrain of the law minister. The separation of the judiciary and the executive has never existed in Bangladesh. With this government, it has merged into one. It is used whenever the government wants to play good cop/bad cop. The court enacts government directives. The government takes credit. The blame goes to the court. The quota drama is no exception. Torture cells in public universities. Suppression of all forms of dissent. Jailing of opposition activists. The extra-judicial killings, the disappearances. India has been given huge concessions, and in return, it has helped prop up this illegal regime in many ways, all of which are causes of anger. Abrar Fahad, the bright BUET student who had critiqued Indian hegemony in social media, was bludgeoned to death on campus by party cadres. The same cadres the quotas would provide back doors for. An entire generation of Bangladeshis is growing up hating India. The Boycott India campaign is gaining steam. Hasina is getting to be a liability, even for our “friendly” neighbour. 16th July 2024 In a recent Facebook status, Abu Sayeed, the unarmed student of Begum Rokeya University whom police had pumped four rubber bullets into, had written an ode to his favourite teacher Shamsuzzoha, a chemistry teacher at Rajshahi University, who had died at the hands of the Pakistani army in 1971 while trying to save the lives of his students. “Yes, you too will die, but while you are alive, don’t be spineless. Support just causes. Come out to the streets. Be a shield for the students. It is then that you will be respected and honoured. Don’t fade away in the annals of time through your death. Stay alive forever. Stay Shamsuzzoha.” No chopper arrived, nor indeed any attempt made at rescuing the hapless student. He became Shamsuzzoha. The televised murder is an indictment of a rogue government that has long lost its right to rule. The defiant outstretched arms of the young man, a televised murder that will remain etched in public memory. His body shudders after the first bullet, yet he stands defiant. Then another bullet, and another, and yet another. All from close range. The body crouches, then crumples and folds. His outstretched arms as he had faced the police will become the Tiananmen Square moment in Bangladesh’s history. 17th July 2024 Border guards of Bangladesh, inept at protecting its citizens from becoming victims of the regular target practicing by Indian Border Security Forces, seem happy to turn their own guns towards unarmed students instead. The police were clearly lying when they claimed they had fired grenades to try and control unruly students. There were only four students at Raju Bhashkorjo. The only ones who had been able to get past the CL and police cordon. They wanted to hold a funeral for Abu Sayeed and other slain friends. When the police started shoving them away, they lay down on the ground in protest. They were surrounded by journalists. The police hurled a sound grenade which sent both the journalists and students scurrying. They then hurled further grenades at the journalists and bystanders left standing. That was when my colleague was injured. The police were the only ones conducting violence. The space was encircled by hundreds of armed police. There were armoured vehicles. Water cannon trucks and even a prison van. I wonder which country has supplied our police with the 48 mm sound grenades (NF24. NENF24BP. MFG: 2022. Bangladesh Police/ BP). The grenade was hurled directly at my colleague. It was the first time she had joined a protest. At least she got to see how brave our police force is. 18th July 2024 A group of feminists who had planned to gather at Shahbag to express solidarity with the quota protesters should not have posed a major threat. Police and government goons didn't allow them to gather, so they regrouped outside the Naripokkho office in Dhanmondi. They were attacked too. Safia Azim was injured, but did not require hospitalisation. The law minister, known for lying through his teeth, said earlier on BBC that it was the protesters who instigated the violence. Meanwhile, the state-run BTV, the National Television Station, had been set on fire. Mobile data was blocked. Things were escalating. That night Internet went down completely. Rumours spread about the military moving in, fuelled partially by sightings of a convoy of APCs in the streets. Other sightings of 15 helicopters taking off from the Prime Minister’s official residence gave fuel to the rumours that the Prime Minister was trying to make a getaway. The sound of shelling and gunfire rang throughout the night. 19th July 2024 The internet had been down, as had BTV, the national television station. Over 50 have allegedly been killed. Pro-government news outlets describe the protesting students as “miscreants.” A throwback to the term used by the Pakistani Army in 1971. There are other similarities. A flailing tyrant is lashing out to survive against an enraged public that has shaken free of its fear of a repressive regime. The attempt to disrupt the morning protest outside the Parliament Building in memory of Abu Sayeed failed. Far too many protesters had gathered. The Internet had been partially restored, but not BTV. That’s when news of attacks all across the country started pouring in. The leftist leader Zonayed Saki and other party members had been badly beaten in Purana Paltan. Police-backed vigilantes desperately tried to quell the increasingly angry protesters. A desperate government offered a deal. The court would convene on Sunday, and they were prepared to engage in dialogue. “Not over spilled blood,” the students replied. Fresh rumours emerged of the military having been given magisterial powers and asked to intervene “in aid to civil power.” Ironic. The people have spoken. The end is nigh. ∎ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 In the Land of Golden Hay (paint and digital work on canvas, 2020), Dhruba Chandra Roy. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Dispatch Dhaka Quota Movement Fascism Student Protests Bangladesh Awami League Sheikh Hasina Police Action Police Brutality Economic Crisis 1971 Liberation of Bangladesh BTV Zonayed Saki Internet Crackdowns Internet Blackouts BSF Abu Sayeed Begum Rokeya University Abrar Fahad BUET Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology Mass Protests Mass Killings Torture Enforced Disappearances Extrajudicial Killings Chhatra League Bangladesh Courts Judiciary Clientelism Bengali Nationalism Dissent Student Movements National Curfew State Repression Surveillance Regimes Repression in Universities July Revolution Student-People's Uprising Authoritarianism SHAHIDUL ALAM is a Bangladeshi photographer, writer and social activist. He co-founded the photo agencies Drik and Majority World . He founded Pathshala , a photography school in Dhaka, and Chobi Mela , Asia’s first photo festival. He is the author of Nature's Fury (2007) and My Journey as a Witness (2011). His work has been featured and exhibited in MOMA , Centre Pompidou , Tate Modern , Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art , the Royal Albert Hall , among others. He was one of TIME Magazine's person's of the year in 2018. Dispatch Dhaka 20th Jul 2024 DHRUBA CHANDRA ROY is a self-taught Bangladeshi visual artist and activist. Born in Sultan-Khali in northeastern Bangladesh, he attended Shahid Syed Nazrul Islam College, Mymensingh, and Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST), Sylhet. His participation in various political movements, close interaction with people from diverse socio-economic backgrounds and regions, and interest in human relations with nature, and class struggle inform his practice. On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

A panel on dominant narratives about Kashmir: the longue durée of Kashmiri struggle, the continued movement-building between Kashmir & Palestine, the People's Alliance for Gupkar, and what the repeal of Article 370 really entailed. COMMUNITY Discourses on Kashmir Huma Dar · Hilal Mir · Ather Zia A panel on dominant narratives about Kashmir: the longue durée of Kashmiri struggle, the continued movement-building between Kashmir & Palestine, the People's Alliance for Gupkar, and what the repeal of Article 370 really entailed. Just over a year after the repeal of Article 370 from India's constitution, pro-India Kashmiri political parties called for an alliance. What did it all mean? In our second panel from October 2020, Kashmiri activist-scholars Ather Zia & Huma Dar, and journalist Hilal Mir, discuss the predominant discourses of Kashmir that pervade public and international narratives with Editor Kamil Ahsan. The wide-ranging discussion discusses Indian-occupied-Kashmir, India as a settler-colonial state, journalism & how the Azadi Movement and the repeal of Article 370 are depicted, and the many self-serving narratives that don’t take Kashmiri realities into account. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the panel on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Panel Kashmir Intellectual History Settler-Colonialism Longue-Duree of Kashmiri Struggle Movement Organization Revolution Colonialism Burhan Wani People's Alliance for Gupkar Subaltern Studies Palestine Affect Internationalist Solidarity Media Blackout Radicalization Narratives Bollywood Occupation Genocide Pogroms Erasure Mass Protests War Crimes Movement Strategy Emancipatory Politics Humanitarian Crisis Activist Media International Law Hindutva Military Crackdown Military Operations Kashmiri Struggle Discourses of War Nationalism HUMA DAR 's paternal family was ethnically-cleansed from Srinagar, Kashmir in 1948 for demanding plebiscites under the UN Resolutions. Her maternal family, exiled from Kashmir after accepting Islam during the Dogra regime, fought for Independence from the British. With a background In interdisciplinary Studies, Dar lectures in the departments of Gender & Women’s Studies and Ethnic Studies at University of California at Berkeley and in the Department of Critical Studies and Philosophy at California College of the Arts. Dar’s work is focused on the intersections and co-formations of race, religion, class, caste, gender, sexuality, and national politics of South Asia and South Asian diasporas, centered on intellectual and political activism for social justice, especially in Indian Occupied Kashmir. Her published work includes “Cinematic Strategies for a Porno-tropic Kashmir and Some Counter-Archives” in the Journal of Contemporary Theory and pieces in several edited volumes focused on South Asia. Dar is a feature writer at Pulse Media , a collaborative political, activist, and academic weblog, and is a published poet. She is a founding member of the working group on “Muslim Identities & Cultures,” and organized the feminist conference, Boundaries in Question on the theme of Women and War, both at UC Berkeley. HILAL MIR is a freelance Srinagar-based journalist. He has previously reported for Greater Kashmir, Hindustan Times, The Huffington Post, and Kashmir Reader . Ather Zia is a political anthropologist, poet, short fiction writer, and columnist. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Northern Colorado Greeley, the author of Resisting Disappearances: Military Occupation and Women’s Activism in Kashmir, and The Frame , and the co-editor of Can You Hear Kashmiri Women Speak , Resisting Occupation in Kashmir, and A Desolation called Peace. Her work has received the Gloria Anzaldua Honorable Mention award, the Public Anthropologist Award, among many others. She is the founder-editor of Kashmir Lit and is the co-founder of Critical Kashmir Studies Collective . Panel Kashmir 24th Oct 2020 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

Novelist Shehan Karunatilaka in conversation with Fiction Editor Kartika Budhwar. COMMUNITY A State of Perpetual War: Fiction & the Sri Lankan Civil War Shehan Karunatilaka Novelist Shehan Karunatilaka in conversation with Fiction Editor Kartika Budhwar. The stereotypes of the commercial sphere, the smiley, happy go lucky, Sri Lankans—there is something to that stereotype. It's not a grim place, even though a lot of grim things take place here. A tragedy will happen, the jokes will start almost immediately. Maybe it's gallows humor or a coping mechanism. Whatever it is, that seems to always be there. RECOMMENDED: This interview took place prior to the publication of Shehan Karunatilaka's Booker-Prize winning novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (Penguin), which he discusses in the interview as a work-in-progress. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Sri Lanka Sri Lankan Civil War Satire Chinaman Tamil Tigers Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Enforced Disappearances Cricket Extrajudicial Killings Kumar Sangakkara Shakthika Sathkumara Sri Lankan Literary Tradition Chats with the Dead Booker Prize Buddhism Ghost Stories Theater South Asian Theater Carl Muller Anarchist Writing Writing about Recent History Discourses of War Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna Marxist-Leninist Uprising JVP Worrying Humor Gallows Humor Absurdity Queerness Gananath Obeyesekere SHEHAN KARUNATILAKA was born in Galle, Sri Lanka. He grew up in Colombo, studied in New Zealand and has lived and worked in London, Amsterdam and Singapore. He emerged on the world literary stage in 2011 when he won the Commonwealth Prize, the DSL and Gratiaen Prize for his debut novel, Chinaman . Karunatilaka is considered one of Sri Lanka's foremost authors; his most recent novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, is the winner of the Booker Prize 2022. In addition to novels, he has written rock songs, screenplays and travel stories, publishing in Rolling Stone, Gentleman's Quarterly and National Geographic . He lives mostly in Colombo and partly in Singapore with a wife, two kids, four guitars, and 27 unfinished stories. Interview Sri Lanka 10th Jan 2021 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

“We looked at all these old EMI vinyl album covers. I remember listening to the song and thinking: 'This song is pink.'” INTERACTIVE Natasha Noorani's Retro Aesthetic Natasha Noorani “We looked at all these old EMI vinyl album covers. I remember listening to the song and thinking: 'This song is pink.'” Natasha Noorani released “Choro,” the first single from her new album, on 24th May 2021. She first performed it unplugged for SAAG's previous online event, FLUX . As part of In Grief, In Solidarity , Noorani discussed what inspired the music video's aesthetic with SAAG advisory editor Senna Ahmad, with whom Noorani collaborated on “Choro.” For both, it was a risk, a labor of love, and a long-awaited collaboration—each of which speaks to how Noorani chooses to provoke and pay homage to Pakistani pop music in equal measure. Watch to hear more about their vision, how the pandemic affected the shoot of the music video, their numerous inspiration boards, their shared love for the music of the eighties and nineties, Urdu typography, and more. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Follow our YouTube channel for updates from past or future events. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Live Lahore Music Contemporary Music Retro Aesthetics Nostalgia Typography Contemporary Pop Pakistani Pop Music Video Homage Cover Art In Grief In Solidarity Fashion Haseena Moin Selfies Embroidery Color Art Practice Visual Art Collaboration Vinyl Urdu Music NATASHA NOORANI is a musician, festival director and ethnomusicologist from Lahore. Noorani has a diverse range as a singer-songwriter, playback singer and voice-over artist. While pursuing contemporary Pakistani pop music, she has also been training in khayal gayaki, and was awarded the Goethe Talents Scholarship in 2019. Her solo EP Munaasib is inspired by r’n’b, neo-soul, and prog rock. Noorani is part of the band Biryani Brothers, and has collaborated on recordings with Strings, Abdullah Siddiqui, Sikandar Ka Mandar, Talal Qureshi, Gentle Robot & Jamal Rahman. Noorani was featured on Velo Sound Station (2020), and has also recorded on soundtracks for the films Baaji (2019) and Chalay Thay Saath (2017). Live Lahore 5th Jun 2021 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

"Our priority is to meet the needs of people on this planet. Not just workers. Not workers at all." A multimedia short using video archival footage, this faux-advertisement is equal parts a history of advertising & the legacy of fossil fuel companies’ manipulation and a disturbing, singular dystopia from one aesthete's point of view. BOOKS & ARTS It's Only Human Furqan Jawed "Our priority is to meet the needs of people on this planet. Not just workers. Not workers at all." A multimedia short using video archival footage, this faux-advertisement is equal parts a history of advertising & the legacy of fossil fuel companies’ manipulation and a disturbing, singular dystopia from one aesthete's point of view. Like having the imagination to envision oblivion. And make it reality. Special Thanks to: Varshini Prakash Narration by: Jessica Flemming EDITOR'S NOTE: This multimedia piece, by graphic designer and artist Furqan Jawed, is the result of a collaborative effort, initially conceptualized as a story about the history of advertising & fossil fuel companies’ manipulation of the public across the world. It took place over a number of months, supplemented by reminiscences and stream-of-consciousness ideas by Varshini Prakash, co-founder and Executive Director of the Sunrise Movement, as well as exchange with editors Vishakha Darbha & Kamil Ahsan. Furqan plumbed the archives of advertising across a number of decades in India and the United States. The product was, at the time, an unanticipated, serendipitous, and surprising product of an inquisitive but seemingly-directionless collaboration. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Video Still by Furqan Jawed SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Short Film Global Climate Change Multimedia Fossil Fuel Companies Oil Oil Production Advertising Electoral Politics Multimodal Simultaneity Sunrise Movement Neoliberalism Performance Art Mimesis Anthropocene Satire Absurdity Voiceover Archival Practice Video Archives Archiving Reminiscence Archives Public History Manipulation Affect Agriculture Mega Conglomerates Apocalyptic Environmentalism Art Activism Experimental Methods Video Form Graphic Design Capitalism Class Climate Anxiety Complicity Crisis Media Media Landscape False Advertising FURQAN JAWED is a freelance artist and graphic designer based in Brooklyn. A recent MFA graduate from the Yale School of Art, his practice focuses on the circulation of images and analysing the semiotics of representation within these images in the public and the private sphere. Short Film Global 26th Apr 2021 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

“If you truly believe someone is suppressing you, you can end up in jail for 15 years. So is there really a space for citizen journalism? I truly don't have an answer.” COMMUNITY Storytelling in Post-Aragalaya Sri Lanka Andrew Fidel Fernando · Benislos Thushan · Darshatha Gamage · Raisa Wickrematunge · Kanya D'Almeida “If you truly believe someone is suppressing you, you can end up in jail for 15 years. So is there really a space for citizen journalism? I truly don't have an answer.” The SAAG launch event for Vol. 2, Issue 2 in Colombo, on 7th May 2024, began with a panel introduced by Chief Editor Sabika Abbas. The panel, moderated by Andrew Fidel Fernando, discussed whether storytelling is possible in post-aragalaya Sri Lanka. How do artists and writers of all persuasions deal with the disappeared? How do we face a state that refuses to even let remembrance occur, particularly regarding the events of 18th May 2009, or Mullivaikkal Remembrance Day? How did the events of 2022, the aragalaya in all its optimism, and the sharp break that followed affect the nature of reporting, fiction, social media, and the work of youth tech organizations? The panel included: Kanya D'Almeida, an award-winning writer and podcaster Benislos Thushan, a digital storytelling enthusiast and lawyer Darshatha Gamage, a youth empowerment and development specialist Raisa Wickrematunge, Deputy Editor at Himal Southasian We can't even remember our loved ones. Even regarding May 18th, we simply don't have any war memorials for people to go and mourn, and no national initiatives. Before, people at least went to social media. now it specifically says if you use social media, if you talk against the military, guess what? You'll be put into prison for five years—or more. If you truly believe someone is suppressing you, you can end up in jail for 15 years. So is there really a space for citizen journalism? I truly don't have an answer. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Follow our YouTube channel for updates from past or future events. Artwork courtesy of Hafsa Ashfaq. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Panel Colombo Aragalaya Storytelling Citizen Journalism Social Media Fiction Media Landscape State & Media Corporate Corporate Media Sri Lanka Mullivaikkal Remembrance Day War Memorials Post-Aragalaya Moment Narratives Complicating the Unity of the Aragalaya Optimism on the Local Level Youth Media Youth Tech Remembrance Mourning State Repression Social Media Crackdown Sentencing Laws Ranil Wickremasinghe Gotagogama ANDREW FIDEL FERNANDO is a journalist, senior writer at ESPNcricinfo , and the award-winning author of Upon a Sleepless Isle . BENISLOS THUSHAN is a citizen journalist, photographer, and lawyer. He is the founder of Digital Storytelling, which aims to empower citizen journalism in Sri Lanka, and the co-curator of Everyday Sri Lanka . DARSHATHA GAMAGE is currently the Head of Programmes at Hashtag Generation . He has worked on youth participation, preventing violent extremism, countering harm online, and elections. He has designed and implemented capacity-building programmes focused on critical thinking, digital media literacy, peacebuilding, and youth development. RAISA WICKREMATUNGE is Deputy Editor at Himal Southasian , based in Colombo. She formerly worked at the Sunday Leader and the digital civic media initiative Groundviews . Her work has been published in The Guardian and First Post , among others. KANYA D'ALMEIDA is a writer and reporter whose work has appeared in Granta, BBC Radio 4 , and the Bombay Review . She was formerly the race and justice reporter for Rewire.News, and regional editor for Asia and the Pacific for the Inter Press Service . From 2010-2015 she reported for IPS from the United Nations, Washington, Mexico, and Sri Lanka. She hosts The Darkest Light , a podcast exploring stories of birth and motherhood in Sri Lanka. Panel Colombo 27th Aug 2024 Hafsa Ashfaq is a visual artist, graphic designer, currently an editorial designer for DAWN . She is based in Karachi. On That Note: The Citizen's Vote 16th JUL Chokepoint Manipur 3rd OCT Whiplash and Contradiction in Sri Lanka’s aragalaya 27th FEB

What is the utility of global history? In recent years, new approaches of global history have emerged. Whether as a challenge or companion to area studies, and specific and local histories within academia, global history has often aimed to become more inclusive of histories of migration, diasporas, labor, legal regimes within colonial and postcolonial chronologies from Guyana to China to South Africa. INTERACTIVE Chats Ep. 8 · On Migrations in Global History Neilesh Bose What is the utility of global history? In recent years, new approaches of global history have emerged. Whether as a challenge or companion to area studies, and specific and local histories within academia, global history has often aimed to become more inclusive of histories of migration, diasporas, labor, legal regimes within colonial and postcolonial chronologies from Guyana to China to South Africa. Drama Editor Neilesh Bose, also the editor of the recent volume South Asian Migrations in Global History: Labour, Law, and Wayward Lives (Bloomsbury, 2020) discussed the genesis of the project & new ways of telling history with Kamil Ahsan on Instagram Live in May 2021. The edited volume began at a workshop at the University of Victoria. It explores how South Asian migrations in modern history have shaped key aspects of globalization since the 1830s, using global history to cast many contemporary dynamics and geographies into sharper relief. Including original research from colonial India, Fiji, Mexico, South Africa, North America and the Middle East, the essays explore indentured labour and its legacies, law as a site of regulation and historical biography. It includes recent scholarship on the legacy of issues such as consent, sovereignty and skilled/unskilled labour distinctions from the history of indentured labour migrations, and brings together a range of historical changes that can only be understood by studying South Asian migrants within a globalized world system. Here, Bose discussed the nature of global history, the approach taken at the workshop and beyond, and the many scholarly contributions to the volume. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on SAAG Chats, an informal series of live events on Instagram. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Live Global Global History The Nature of Global History Migrant Workers Temporality Imperial Labor Indigeneity Indigeneous Spaces Histories of Revolutionary Politics Politics of Indigeneity South Africa Canada Indian Migrants in Canada Settlement Guyana Assimilation Alienation Settler-Colonialism Narratives South Asian Studies Cultural Narratives of Immigration Public Space Epistemology Knowledge University of Victoria Intellectual History Himalayas Indian Ocean Ocean History Oceans as Historical Sites Gaiutra Bahadur Sunil Amrith Indo-Caribbean Research Methods Research Experimental Methods Historiography Indentured Labor Legacies of Slavery Slavery Transatlantic Slavery Diaspora Diasporas North American Diaspora Pluralism Popular Culture Histories of Migrations Nation-State Atlantic World Multimodal Archival Practice Boundary Formation Empire Nation The Local and Global Moving Beyond Boundaries Arabian Peninsula Sugar Colonies Coolies Renisa Mawani Devarakshanam Govinden Senthamani Govender Daniel Kent-Carrasco Pandurang Khankhoje Naturalizado Mexico Marina Martin Riyad Koya Ashutosh Kumar Andrea Wright Goolam Vahed Uma Dhupelia-Meshtrie Indian indenture in South Africa Legal Regimes Law International Law Internationalism Internationalist Solidarity Internationalist Perspective Legal Frameworks Capitalism Vivek Chibber Academia Affect Agrarian Economy Anti-Colonialism Apartheid Archives Archiving Big History Cartography China Class SAAG Chats Neilesh Bose is an historian, theatre artist, critic, and the author of Recasting the Region: Language, Culture, and Islam in Colonial Bengal , among others. He is Associate Professor of History and Canada Research Chair of Global and Comparative History at the University of Victoria. Live Global 4th May 2021 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct