Talk:Malavika Kasturi

By Sachi Anjunkar

Malavika Kasturi is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Toronto as of October 2022. According to her university profile, her research interests include Monasticism and asceticism, Gurus and guru movements, Religion and the public sphere, Hindu nationalism, Gender and households, Urban history, memory and community, Historiography, and Historical Anthropology.

As per her bio, 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, or the Indian Government in the context of BJP government.

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."

Publications related to India

Book

1. Kasturi, Malavika. Embattled Identities: Rajput Lineages and the Colonial State in Nineteenth Century North India. 1st ed., Oxford University Press, 2002.

Book Chapters

1. Kasturi, Malavika. “‘This Land is Mine’: Mahants, Civil Law and Political Articulations of Hinduism in Twentieth Century North India.” In Filing Religion, State Hinduism and the Court, edited by G. Tarrabout, D. Berti, and R. Voix, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2016,
2. Kasturi, Malavika. “Negotiating the Sacred in Twentieth Century Gorakhpur: The Nathyogis, the Gorakhnath Math and Contested Urban Space.” In Urban Spaces in India, edited by Narayani Gupta and Partho Datta, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, 2018, pp. 189-206.
3. Kasturi, Malavika. “The Lost and Small Histories of the City of Patronage, Poor Mughal Pensioners in Colonial Banaras.” In Banaras, Urban Forms and Cultural History, edited by M. Sinclair Dodson, Routledge, New Delhi, 2012, pp. 110-139.

Journal Articles

1. Kasturi, Malavika. “Pir Ratannath in Devi Patan: Nathyogis, Monastic Networks and Historical Memories Along the Anglo-Gorkha Frontier.” Journal of Hindu Studies, vol. 14, no. 2, Aug. 2021, pp. 121-48.
2. Kasturi, Malavika. “Gurus and Gifting: Dana, the Math Reform Campaign, and Hindu Sangathan in Twentieth Century India.” Modern Asian Studies, vol. 52, no. 1, Jan. 2018, pp. 99-131.
3. Kasturi, Malavika. “Sadhus, Sampraday and Hindu Nationalism in the Early Twentieth Century: The Dasnamis and the Bharat Dharma Mahamandala.” Nehru Memorial Museum Library Occasional Papers, Aug. 2015.
4. Kasturi, Malavika. "All Gifting is Sacred: The Sanatana Dharma Sabha Movement, Civil Society and the Reform of Dana in Late Colonial India.” Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol. 47, no. 1, Jan.-Mar. 2010, pp. 107-39.
5. Kasturi, Malavika. "Asceticising Monastic Families, Ascetic Genealogies, Property Feuds and Anglo-Hindu Law in Late Colonial India." Modern Asian Studies (MAS), vol. 43, no. 4, Sept. 2009, pp. 1039-83.
6. Kasturi, Malavika. "Rajput Lineages, Banditry and the Colonial State in Nineteenth Century British Bundelkhand." Studies in History, vol. 15, no. 1, 1999, pp. 75-108.
7. Kasturi, Malavika. “Crime and Law: British Policy and the Female Infanticide Act of 1870.” Indian Journal of Gender Studies, vol. 1, no. 2, Oct. 1994, pp. 170-93.