Talk:Kamala Visweswaran

By Anirudha Patel

Kamala Visweswaran is a Professor of Anthropology, T.T. and W.F. Chao Professor of Transnational South Asian Studies at Rice University. She is also a CWGS affiliate and member of the Medical Humanities Program at Rice as of May 2023. Her research interests span algorithmic cultures, genomic governance, surveillance studies, science and technology studies, feminist theory and ethnography, transnational and diaspora studies, ethnic and conflict, human rights, colonial law, post/colonial law, and literature, comparative South Asia and Middle East studies.

She has published no books, papers, or research pertaining to Hindus, the rights of Hindus, the impact or relationship between Islam and Hinduism / Hindutva, India, the Indian Government in the context of BJP government, the Indus Civilization, the impact or relationship between caste system and Hinduism as of May 2023.

In 2021, she endorsed the "Dismantling Global Hindutva" conference and made the allegation

"the current government of India [in 2021] has instituted discriminatory policies including beef bans, restrictions on religious conversion and interfaith weddings, and the introduction of religious discrimination into India’s citizenship laws. The result has been a horrifying rise in religious and caste-based violence, including hate crimes, lynchings, and rapes directed against Muslims, non-conforming Dalits, Sikhs, Christians, adivasis and other dissident Hindus. Women of these communities are especially targeted. Meanwhile, the government has used every tool of harassment and intimidation to muzzle dissent. Dozens of student activists and human rights defenders are currently languishing in jail indefinitely without due process under repressive anti-terrorism laws."

In 2016, he signed a letter addressed to the State Board of Education, California Department of Education, dated May 17, 2016. The letter stated the following:

1. "There is no established connection between Hinduism and the Indus Civilization. The Rg Veda contains numerous mentions of horses and chariots but there is no conclusive material or fossil evidence for either at any Indus valley archeological site."
2. "It is inappropriate to remove mention of the connection of caste to Hinduism."

Publications related to India

Books:

1. Visweswaran, Kamala. Un/common Cultures: Racism and the Rearticulation of Cultural Difference. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011.
2. Visweswaran, Kamala. Perspectives on Modern South Asia: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2018.

Selected Articles and Book Chapters:

1. Visweswaran, Kamala. "The Anomaly of a Woman Anthropologist in the Field in India." Cultural Anthropology, vol. 5, no. 4, 1990, pp. 428-439.
2. Visweswaran, Kamala. "Sexual Violence and the Politics of Tamil Identity." Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 29, no. 34, 1994, pp. 2186-2193.
3. Visweswaran, Kamala. "The Modernity of Slavery: Domestic Servitude in Chennai." Contributions to Indian Sociology, vol. 31, no. 2, 1997, pp. 239-264.
4. Visweswaran, Kamala. "Race and the Culture of Anthropology." American Anthropologist, vol. 100, no. 1, 1998, pp. 70-83.
5. Visweswaran, Kamala. "Queering the Public Sphere in India." Social Text, vol. 21, no. 3, 2003, pp. 141-156.
6. Visweswaran, Kamala. "Telling Stories: Subaltern Histories and Anthropology." Does the Elephant Dance?: Contemporary Indian Foreign Policy, edited by S. Narayan and D. Chakravarti, Sage Publications, 2006, pp. 168-187.
7. Visweswaran, Kamala. "The Seditious Nature of Difference." The State of Race, edited by K. Kumar and A. Kalra, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, pp. 96-108.