Talk:Shruti Patel

By Rutvi Dattani

Shruti Patel is an Assistant Professor of History at Salisbury University as of December 2022. In her academia profile, she claims to work on the social and cultural history of South Asia, focusing on religious and social movements, princely states, the relationship between textual and physical culture, and knowledge formation during the early modern, colonial and post-colonial periods, particularly in Gujarat with relation to broader Indian Ocean networks.

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

1. Patel, Shruti. Beyond the Lens of Reform: Religious Culture in Modern Gujarat. Journal of Hindu Studies, 10:47–85 , May 2017. https://www.academia.edu/33003837/Beyond_the_Lens_of_Reform_Religious_Culture_in_Modern_Gujarat
2. Patel, Shruti. An Exercise in Negotiation: Visualizing Devotion in Contemporary Gujarat. Annual Conference on South Asia. 2019
3. Patel, Shruti. Creative Powers: Shaping Swaminarayan Devotion in the Nineteenth Century. University of Victoria. 2019
4. Patel, Shruti. Organizing the Past: Material Houses and Literary Works in the Swaminarayan Sampraday. Association for Asian Studies. 2015
5. Patel, Shruti. Religiously Being, Historically Relating: Distinguishing the Swaminarayan Sampradaya in Gujarat, India. American Historical Association. 2015
6. Patel, Shruti. Memory by Design: Swaminarayan Hinduism through Space & Object in Modern Gujarat. The American Council for Southern Asian Art (ACSAA). 2013
7. Patel, Shruti. Building Modern Vaishnavism in Gujarat: Swaminarayan Identity and Infrastructure. Annual Conference on South Asia. 2013
8. Patel, Shruti. The Challenges & Possibilities of Religious Historiography: Seeking History in Swaminarayan Pasts. Swaminarayan Studies International Conference. 2013
9. Patel, Shruti. The Bhaktacintamani: Sacred Biography, Historicity, and Institutionalization. Annual Conference on South Asia. 2012
10. Patel, Shruti. The Rise and Institutionalization of the Swaminarayan Sampraday. Fulbright Scholars Conference. 2012
11. Patel, Shruti. Bhakti Reincarnated: The Conceptualization of Swaminarayan Sampraday in Nineteenth Century Gujarat. South Asian Conference of the Pacific Northwest (SACPAN). 2009
12. Patel, Shruti. Religions and International Poverty Alleviation: The Pluses and Minuses. Journal of International Affairs. 2007