New Books in South Asian Studies

Mitra Sharafi, "Fear of the False: Forensic Science and the Law of Crime in Colonial South Asia" (Cornell UP, 2026)

Fear of the False: Forensic Science and the Law of Crime in Colonial South Asia (Cornell University Press, 2026) uncovers colonial South Asia's critical role in the development of forensic science. Around 1900, the government of British India created a web of institutions for the scientific detection of crime. Driven by anxieties about "native mendacity," newly minted forensic analysts focused on uncovering faked evidence planted by South Asians. These experts, joining toxicologists known as "chemical examiners," were supposed to extract objective, scientific truth in the service of British justice. But in trying to counteract the presumed tendency of colonized peoples to lie, the system enabled widespread misconduct by state experts, increasing the risk of wrongful convictions of South Asian defendants. Through scrupulously documented legal cases, Mitra Sharafi reveals that colonial dynamics put special pressure on the relationship between truth and justice. Examining falsity on both sides of the law through the use of testing to (mis)identify poisons, blood, and spermatozoa, as well as debates over adversarialism and inquisitorialism in the colonial courtroom, Fear of the False explores advances in forensic science and shortcuts in criminal procedure against the backdrop of colonial mistrust. Thanks to generous funding from the University of Wisconsin Law School, the ebook editions of this book are available as open access volumes through the Cornell Open initiative. Mitra Sharafi is a legal historian whose research focuses on South Asia. She is the Evjue-Bascom Professor of Law at University of Wisconsin-Madison and currently serves as the president of the American Society for Legal History. She has been the host of the South Asian Legal History Resources website since 2010. Saumya Dadoo is a PhD candidate at Columbia University's Department of Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

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Samantha Iyer, "Agrarian Superpower: Food, Development, and the Global Ascendancy of the United States" (Columbia UP, 2026)

3d ago00:45:42Tap to summarize

The United States’ superpower status is often associated with its industrial, financial, and military might. Yet its global power after the Second World War hinged in part on something often seen as backward: agriculture. In contrast to Britain, the predominant global power of the nineteenth century, which depended on its current and former colonies for food and raw materials, the United States produced vast agricultural surpluses. During the 1950s, an era of decolonization and rising Cold War competition, the United States became the dominant exporter of food staples to industrializing nations in the Third World through its massive food aid program. Through the lens of food and agriculture, Agrarian Superpower: Food, Development, and the Global Ascendancy of the United States (Columbia University Press, 2026) by Dr. Samantha Iyer offers new ways to understand the roots of the post–Second World War global order and the US position in it. Samantha Iyer traces how two former British territories and agricultural competitors of the United States, India and Egypt, became two of the largest importers of US food aid. She investigates the origins and consequences of the US-centric postwar food regime by examining changes in the production, distribution, and consumption of agricultural surpluses from the late nineteenth century to the early 1970s. Bringing together life in villages, towns, and cities with national, imperial, and international affairs, Dr. Iyer demonstrates that food aid was the expression of a changed political, economic, and ecological world that the United States did not create alone. Drawing on sources in Arabic, French, Urdu, and English, Agrarian Superpower is a groundbreaking comparative history of food, agriculture, and development. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

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Lily Kelting, "Against Heritage: The Reinvention of Traditional Foods" (UNC Press, 2026)

4d ago01:03:10Tap to summarize

The rise of “heritage” foods—that is, the reinvention of traditional foods—has enjoyed a high profile thanks to the oft-praised efforts of chefs such as Sean Brock and René Redzepi. But Lily Kelting observes the popularity of heritage foods as something more: a global movement in response to climate catastrophe and the rise of right-wing, populist movements that center a return to the past as part of their ideology. Weaving ethnography, discourse analysis, critical theory, and sensory, embodied critique, Kelting tracks and critiques the boom of traditional food revival movements in the American South, Denmark, and India. Ultimately, Kelting argues that the heritage culinary professionals wish to revive is equal parts nostalgia and invention: They engage, subvert, and ignore food histories in their creation of new food movements. As Kelting documents our contemporary moment, she shows how the conversations surrounding these new food movements leave out people already keeping their traditions alive. Against Heritage: The Reinvention of Traditional Foods (University of North Carolina Press, 2026), then, serves as a reparative revaluation of the work of the cooks largely excluded from the contemporary media conversation about heritage revival. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

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Dominik A. Haas, "South Asia Before Religion: Reflections on an Anachronistic Concept" (Knowledge Commons Works, 2026)

5d ago00:48:59Tap to summarize

South Asia Before Religion: Reflections on an Anachronistic Concept (Knowledge Commons Works, 2026) critically examines the applicability of the concept of religion to premodern South Asian culture. I argue that premodern South Asia did not possess a concept equivalent to religion as understood today – neither as a distinct system of religious teachings and practices, nor as a fundamental cultural category separate from non-religious domains such as the secular, philosophy, or science. Using Āyurveda and philosophy as examples, I show that imposing anachronistic categories on past cultures risks misrepresenting their inner logics and social realities. I advocate deconstructing modern notions of religion and refraining from reconstructing the past with religion as a template. However, concepts of religion can serve a purpose when used as historicized objects of comparison or reference for premodern concepts and systems, in order to facilitate access to premodern cultures and contribute effectively to contemporary discourses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

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Debolina Dutta, "A Jurisprudence of Conversations: Law, Life and Feminism in Post-colonial India" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

6d ago02:01:51Tap to summarize

Grounded in empirical studies, this book is both a history of the emergence of feminist jurisprudence in post-colonial India and a model of innovative legal research. The book inaugurates a creative practice of scholarly activism that engages a new way of thinking about law and feminist jurisprudence, one that is geared to acknowledge and take responsibility for the hierarchies in Indian academic practices. Its method of conversation and accountability continues the feminist tradition of taking reciprocity and the time and place of collaboration seriously. It helps make visible the specific ties between post-colonial life and law and joins the work of refusing and reimagining the hierarchical formation of legal knowledge in a caste-based Indian society. A significant contribution to the history and practice of feminist jurisprudence in post-colonial India, A Jurisprudence of Conversations: Law, Life and Feminism in Post-colonial India (Cambridge University Press, 2026) will appeal to both an academic and activist readership. Debolina Dutta is a Research Fellow at Melbourne Law School's Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (CEVAW) Saumya Dadoo is a PhD Candidate at MESAAS, Columbia University Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

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Caste as a Material Question with Rahul Sonpimple

1w ago01:05:47Tap to summarize

This episode featured a conversation with Rahul Sonpimple, founder of the All-India Independent Scheduled Castes Association. Our conversation began with Rahul’s conception of Indian history and the place of anti-caste struggle within it. We delved further into Rahul’s own understanding of “anti-caste” as deeply rooted in Ambedkar’s own argument about the necessity of force in emancipatory social transformation. Rahul was especially forthright about the political cost of elevating meekness as a moral condition, a choice that he associates with the rise of a Dalit middle class focused primarily on securing its own representational authority. This took us to a discussion of the need for an independent and consolidated Dalit politics rooted in the lives of the Dalit poor with sufficient leverage to negotiate terms with the state. The last part of the episode focused on Rahul’s critique of both Ambedkarites and Indian Marxists for their disregard of caste as a material question. He spoke at particular length about the failure of Indian Marxists to advance a materalist critique of caste and how their analytical separation of caste and class has played into the hands of the Hindu Right. We ended the episode with Rahul laying out his own definition of Ambedkarism as a material and spiritual politics that recognizes the Dalit poor as a revolutionary class with the potential to rebuild society. Read the transcript here Guest Rahul Sonpimple is author and founder of the All-India Independent Scheduled Castes Association. References B.R. Ambedkar, The Buddha and his Dhamma, 1957. B.R. Ambedkar, Small Holdings in India and their Remedies, 1918. B.R. Ambedkar, Buddha or Karl Marx, 1956. B.R. Ambedkar, “Mr. Russell and the Reconstruction of Society,” 1916. Rahul Sonpimple, “Against Hindu Rashtra: Ambedkar’s Buddhist Rashtra as Nation,” The Ambedkarian Chronicle, May 4, 2026. Rahul Sonpimple, “Remembering Babasaheb Ambedkar: The Unfinished Task of Burying Manu,” The Ambedkarian Chronicle, April 14, 2026. Rahul Sonpimple, “Kanshi Ram Sahab: Beyond Bureaucratic Dalit Passivity,” The Ambedkarian Chronicle, March 15, 2026. Rahul Sonpimple, “Spontaneity in Ambedkar: Beyond the Passivity of Popular Dalit Discourse,” The Ambedkarian Chronicle, April 16, 2025. Rahul Sonpimple, “The End of Independent Ambedkarite Dalit Politics?” Round Table India, July 12, 2024. Rahul Sonpimple, “Dalit conversions: An act of rebellion against caste supremacy,” Al Jazeera, 14 June 2018. Himsa and ahimsa are foundational ethical concepts in Buddhism. Himsa refers to injury, harm, or violence and ahimsa to non-harming, non-violence, or compassion. Ambedkar critiqued extreme, blanket doctrines of ahimsa as unworkable and often hypocritical. Chokhamela was a saint-poet from Maharashtra, India who belonged to the Mahar caste and was a devotee of Vitthala. Bhakt: devotee Vitthala: Hindu deity worshipped mainly in the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka as an avatar of Vishnu. Kabir and Ravidas: medieval poet-saints who were part of the Bhakti movement (7th-17th century), which emphasized devotion to a personal god, rather than rituals and scriptural knowledge, as the path to spiritual liberation. Samata Sainik Dal: a social organization founded by B. R. Ambedkar in 1927 with the objective of safeguarding the rights of all oppressed sections of Indian society. Bhima Koregaon: a village in Maharashtra that was the site of an 1818 battle between the army of Peshwa Baji Rao II and an East India Company force comprised mainly of Mahars, a Dalit caste. This battle has attained legendary status for Dalits who view it as a victory of Mahars over the Brahminical Peshwas. Baniya: refers to mercantile castes primarily from the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat. Kanshi Ram: Indian social reformer and politician who founded the All India Backwards and Minorities Communities Employees' Federation (BAMCEF) in 1971 and the Bahujan Samaj Party in 1984. Jogendra Nath Mandal: Bengali politician and Dalit leader who held the law portfolio in the 1946-47 Interim Government of India and served as the Minister of Law and Labor in Pakistan from 1947-50. Rajah: M.C. Rajah was a Tamil politician and Dalit leader who served on the Madras Legislative Council in the 1920s and founded the All India Depressed Classes Association in 1925. Kamble: B.C. Kamble was a Marathi politician and Dalit leader who led the Republican Party of India for decades. BAMCEF: All India Backwards and Minorities Communities Employees' Federation UGC Bill: officially the University Grants Commission (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026, is a set of regulations aimed at ending discrimination against marginalized communities in higher education. Following widespread protests and a public interest litigation (PIL), the Supreme Court of India stayed the regulations in January 2026. Bhagwa kapda: saffron clothing Scheduled Caste Federation: a political organization founded in 1942 by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar dedicated to advocating for the rights and political self-representation of the Dalit community. Republican Party of India: a political party established by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar in 1956. PESA: Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act, 1996 is a landmark legislation enacted by the Government of India to ensure self-governance for tribal communities living in Fifth Schedule Areas. Manusmriti: a text that served as a foundational legal and societal framework in ancient India. EWS: refers to the Economically Weaker Section, a government classification referring to those within the unreserved (general) category eligible for a 10% quota in government jobs and educational admissions. Karan Johar: an Indian filmmaker, producer and television personality. Dharavi: a residential area in Mumbai (Bombay) considered one of the world’s largest slums. Adani: Gautam Adani is an Indian billionaire and chairperson of the multinational conglomerate, the Adani Group. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

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Renisa Mawani, "Across Oceans of Law: The Komagata Maru and Jurisdiction in the Time of Empire" (Duke UP, 2018)

2w ago00:55:02Tap to summarize

In 1914 the British-built and Japanese-owned steamship Komagata Maru left Hong Kong for Vancouver carrying 376 Punjabi migrants. Chartered by railway contractor and purported rubber planter Gurdit Singh, the ship and its passengers were denied entry into Canada and two months later were deported to Calcutta. In Across Oceans of Law: The Komagata Maru and Jurisdiction in the Time of Empire (Duke University Press, 2018) Renisa Mawani retells this well-known story of the Komagata Maru. Drawing on "oceans as method"—a mode of thinking and writing that repositions land and sea—Mawani examines the historical and conceptual stakes of situating histories of Indian migration within maritime worlds. Through close readings of the ship, the manifest, the trial, and the anticolonial writings of Singh and others, Mawani argues that the Komagata Maru's landing raised urgent questions regarding the jurisdictional tensions between the common law and admiralty law, and, ultimately, the legal status of the sea. By following the movements of a single ship and bringing oceans into sharper view, Mawani traces British imperial power through racial, temporal, and legal contests and offers a novel method of writing colonial legal history. The conversation also covers how the book, published in 2018, has shaped the author’s more recent work as well as how historical methods and approaches have evolved in the years since publication. Helen Dewar is an historian of the Atlantic World and French colonization in North America in the 17th and 18th centuries. She is a professor of history at the Université de Montréal (Québec, Canada) and the author of Disputing New France: Companies, Sovereignty and Law in the French Atlantic, 1598-1663 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022). Helen’s institutional website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

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Luna Sabastian, "Fascism in India: Race, Caste, and Hindutva" (Harvard UP, 2025)

2w ago00:36:57Tap to summarize

Fascism swept the world in the 1920s and 1930s, but not only because of the seductive rhetoric of Mussolini, Hitler, and their collaborators. In India as well, a distinctive brand of fascist thought emerged—influenced by Euro-American ideologies but also departing from them in critical ways. The first systematic examination of this political philosophy, Fascism in India : Race, Caste, and Hindutva (Harvard UP, 2025) revises our sense of what fascism can be, while demonstrating that it is very much with us in the form of Hindutva, the ethnic-nationalist movement at the center of Indian politics today.Luna Sabastian offers a novel interpretation of Hindutva, both its canonical formulation by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and its reinvention by Deendayal Upadhyaya after Indian independence. Sabastian shows how Hindutva generated ideas of Hindu race and religion that had the potential to erase Muslims not through genocide or ethnic cleansing but by means of violent absorption. Focusing on aggressive miscegenation, Indian fascists proposed a singular kind of racial project, eschewing notions of purity even while maintaining a starkly eliminationist objective. Fascism in India also grapples with Hindutva ideas of caste and its relation to race—particularly in comparison with Nazi uses of these concepts—and of sovereignty, which Indian fascists envisioned beyond the “blood and soil” narrative of the nation-state. Finally, Sabastian reflects on Hindutva’s reorientation toward Hindu piety after the creation of Pakistan effectively resolved India’s “Muslim problem.”Bringing clarity to an ideology little understood in the West, Fascism in India is an eye-opening perspective on Hindutva and a profound meditation on the proliferation and evolution of right-wing thought. Sachin Nikarge has extensively worked in consultative capacity with prominent foreign/diplomatic missions across both ‘hard’ as well as ‘soft’ power domains. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

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Ute Hüsken and Suganya Anandakichenin eds., "Pathika: Studies of South Asian Texts and Traditions" (HAS, 2026)

2w ago00:28:42Tap to summarize

A conversation featuring the editors of the new Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing series Pathika - Studies of South Asian Texts and Traditions  (HAS, 2026) Pathika – Sanskrit for "traveler" or "one who follows a path" – is a new series dedicated to the textual traditions of South Asia, engaging with the rich landscape of South Asian literary and religious traditions. The series encompasses critical editions, annotated translations, and in-depth studies of texts spanning the full breadth of South Asian traditions. From inscriptions to previously untranslated manuscripts, Pathika provides a venue to both established scholars and emerging researchers to publish their work on the textual traditions of South Asia. The volumes adhere to rigorous philological standards while making important texts and translations accessible to a wider academic audience. Pathika particularly welcomes interdisciplinary approaches that situate texts within their historical, religious, and cultural contexts. The series fully supports all South Asian scripts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

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Vignesh Rajahmani, "The Dravidian Pathway: The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Politics of Transition in South India" (Hurst Publishers, 2025)

3w ago00:56:42Tap to summarize

In the rich political landscape of Tamil Nadu, few movements have had as profound and enduring an impact as the Dravidian movement. Vignesh Rajahmani’s The Dravidian Pathway (Hurst Publishers, 2025) offers a compelling and detailed account of how the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) transformed a powerful socio-cultural and anti-caste movement into a highly successful electoral political force. Focusing on the pivotal decades of the mid-20th century, Rajahmani traces the strategic leadership of key figures including Periyar E.V. Ramasamy, C.N. Annadurai, M. Karunanidhi, and others. The book explores how the DMK skilfully synthesised anti-caste ideology, demands for linguistic pride and Tamil identity, socioeconomic reforms, and educational mobility. This synthesis not only resonated deeply with marginalised communities but also enabled the party to translate ideological commitments into concrete welfare policies and political power. The Dravidian Pathway is particularly valuable for its nuanced examination of the transition from movement to party, shedding light on the organisational innovations — such as the spread of reading rooms (padippakams) — that helped build a robust Dravidian public sphere in the 1950s and 1960s. Rajahmani’s work provides fresh insights into one of modern India’s most distinctive and influential regional political traditions. This timely study is essential reading for anyone interested in South Indian politics, federalism, identity politics, and the enduring legacy of social justice movements in India. Host: Dhiren Swain is a j oint PhD Candidate in Urban Studies at The University of Melbourne and IIT Madras. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

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All episodes

Mitra Sharafi, "Fear of the False: Forensic Science and the Law of Crime in Colonial South Asia" (Cornell UP, 2026)

Samantha Iyer, "Agrarian Superpower: Food, Development, and the Global Ascendancy of the United States" (Columbia UP, 2026)

Lily Kelting, "Against Heritage: The Reinvention of Traditional Foods" (UNC Press, 2026)

Dominik A. Haas, "South Asia Before Religion: Reflections on an Anachronistic Concept" (Knowledge Commons Works, 2026)

Debolina Dutta, "A Jurisprudence of Conversations: Law, Life and Feminism in Post-colonial India" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Caste as a Material Question with Rahul Sonpimple

Renisa Mawani, "Across Oceans of Law: The Komagata Maru and Jurisdiction in the Time of Empire" (Duke UP, 2018)

Luna Sabastian, "Fascism in India: Race, Caste, and Hindutva" (Harvard UP, 2025)

Ute Hüsken and Suganya Anandakichenin eds., "Pathika: Studies of South Asian Texts and Traditions" (HAS, 2026)

Vignesh Rajahmani, "The Dravidian Pathway: The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Politics of Transition in South India" (Hurst Publishers, 2025)