Talk:Bhaskar Sarkar

By Rutvi Dattani

Bhaskar Sarkar is Associate Professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies; Affiliated Faculty in the Comparative Literature Program, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures; and Department of History of Art and Architecture at University of South California, Santa Barbara, as of October 2022. According to his university profile, his research interests include Global Media, Indian Cinema, Emergent Media, Piracy, Risk and Media, Bollywood.

He 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, he along with Hibatullah Akhundzada, the supreme leader of the Taliban, co-signed a letter supporting "Dismantling Global Hindutva" Conference, as an academic and scholar 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 endorsing a letter submitted by the South Asia Faculty Group where it addressed the State Board of Education, California Department of Education, dated May 17, 2016. In this letter they requested removing the word India from textbooks. In addition, they falsely stated:

1. "There is no established connection between Hinduism and the Indus Civilization."
2. "It is inappropriate to remove mention of the connection of caste to Hinduism."

Publications related to Indian Cinema

1. Sarkar, Bhaskar. Mourning the Nation: Indian Cinema in the Wake of Partition. Ed. Rachel Dwyer. Vol. 1: Hindi Cinema Before Bollywood. Routledge Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies. Routledge, 2009. filmandmedia.ucsb.edu.
2. Sarkar, Bhaskar. "Metafiguring Bollywood: Brecht after Om Shanti Om." Figurations in Indian Film. Eds. Anustup Basu and Meheli Sen. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2018. filmandmedia.ucsb.edu.
3. Sarkar, Bhaskar, editor. "Indian Documentary Studies." BioScope: South Asia Screen Studies 3.1 (Jan. 2012). filmandmedia.ucsb.edu.
4. Sarkar, Bhaskar. "Epic Melodrama, or Cine-maps of the Global South." Epic Cinema. Ed. Robert Burgoyne. Routledge, 2010. filmandmedia.ucsb.edu.
5. Sarkar, Bhaskar, and Janet Walker, editors. Documentary Testimonies: Global Archives of Suffering. Routledge, 2009. filmandmedia.ucsb.edu.
6. Sarkar, Bhaskar. "Beyond Partition: The Political Horizon of Contemporary Indian and Korean War Films." Journal of the Moving Image No. 7 (2008). jmionline.org.
7. Sarkar, Bhaskar, and Swati Chattopadhyay. "Introduction: The Subaltern and the Popular." Postcolonial Studies 8.4 (2005). Eds. Chattopadhyay and Sarkar. filmandmedia.ucsb.edu.
8. Sarkar, Bhaskar. "Review of the Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema." Visual Anthropology Review 11.2 (Fall 1995). anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com.