Group Photo from the All India Kalwar Conference, 1924

The 20th and 21st Century Cultures Workshop is pleased to welcome:

Sthira Bhattacharya

PhD Candidate in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago

How to Read a Report: Affects, Tropes, and Caste Publics in Colonial India

Tues, May 28, from 6:00-7:30pm

Hybrid: Classics 110 & Zoom

with respondent

Alexis Chema, Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature, University of Chicago

This paper explores how conference reports in Hindi were used to build publics among marginalized castes in colonial India during the 1910s and 1920s. As a genre closely linked to modern voluntary associations across the globe, especially since the nineteenth century, conference reports have been typically mined for their rich historical-anthropological insights. Taking a more literary approach, I read reports produced by writer-reformers from three intermediate castes—Ahirs (a traditionally pastoral caste), Kurmis (cultivators), and Kalwars (liquor distillers)—as well as notices, advertisements, and commentaries on reports that appeared in their caste journals. I argue that, given the unequal socio-economic terrain of the Hindi public sphere, reformers evoked pride in and attachment to the report as a material object and the caste conference as an event that enhanced the prestige of their community in the eyes of more powerful groups. At the same time, the narrative portions that punctuated the formal proceedings of the conference mobilized a range of registers (civic, imperial, sacred) to not only imbue the text with authority but also draw in those sections of the community who were unlikely to be invested in the nitty-gritty details of the conference. In particular, I argue that reformers emphasized ‘seeing’ as a mode of participation that could ethically transform caste subjects. The paper concludes by suggesting that the use of formulaic tropes of public celebration in reports—tropes monopolized by upper castes till the recent past—was a crucial move in intermediate castes’ efforts at assimilating upwards into the modern public sphere.

Sthira’s paper (to be read in advance) can be found here. The password will be distributed to our listserv. Click here to join. 

Our meetings are open to the University of Chicago community and visitors who comply with University of Chicago vaccination requirements. We are committed to making our workshop fully accessible for people with disabilities. Please direct any questions and concerns to the workshop coordinators, Cassandra Lerer (crblerer@uchicago.edu) and Rhya Moffitt (rhya@uchicago.edu).