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Talk:Raja Swamy

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Sachi Anjunkar


Raja Swamy is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville[1] as of May 2024. According to his profile, his research looks into how neoliberal strategies of economic development bring to the fore ongoing struggles over the goals and meanings of development, democracy, citizenship and rights.

He has published no books, papers, or research pertaining to Hindus, the Indus Civilization, or caste.

On November 5, 2017, he signed the letter submitted by the South Asia Faculty Group (SAFG) to the California State Board of Education[2] where he:

  • Misrepresented scholarship stating "Mythological terms substitute for historical ones for example the 'Indus Valley Civilization' (a fact-based geographic term) appears to be replaced with a religiously-motivated and ideologically charged term 'Indus-Saraswati/Sarasvati Civilization'. The Saraswati is a mythical river"[3][4][5]
  • Implied that Christians and Muslims existed in Ancient India, prior to the founding of these religions

In 2016, he signed a letter endorsing a letter submitted by the South Asia Faculty Group[6][7] 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[8] 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 India[edit]

  1. Swamy, Raja. The Fishing Community and Heritage Tourism in Tarangambadi. Review of Development and Change, vol. 14, 2009, pp. 197-226. doi:10.1177/0972266120090111.
  2. Swamy, Raja. Disaster Relief, NGO-led Humanitarianism and the Reconfiguration of Spatial Relations in Tamil Nadu. doi:10.5040/9781350221512.ch-006, 2013.
  3. Swamy, Raja. Risk and Opportunity in Post-Tsunami Tharangampadi. In Beyond Tranquebar: Grappling across Cultural Borders in South India, edited by Esther Fihl and Ā Irā Vēṅkaṭācalapati, pp. 148–177. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2014.
  4. Swamy, Raja, and Prema Revathi. Dispossession and Neoliberal Disaster Reconstruction: Activist NGO and Fisher Resistance in Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu. doi:10.5040/9781350218307.ch-006, 2017.
  5. Swamy, Raja. Humanitarianism and Unequal Exchange. Journal of World-Systems Research, vol. 23, 2017, pp. 353-371. doi:10.5195/JWSR.2017.681.
  6. Swamy, Raja. Tax Cuts and Higher Education. Anthropology News, vol. 59, 2018, e222-e225. doi:10.1111/an.834.
  7. Barrios, Roberto, and Raja Swamy. The Post-Harvey ‘Recovery’ Is a Political Disaster. Anthropology News, vol. 59, 2018, e221-e227. doi:10.1111/AN.946.
  8. Swamy, Raja. Fishers, Vulnerability, and the Political Economy of Dispossession and Reconstruction in Post-Tsunami Tamil Nadu. doi:10.1108/S0190-128120180000038006, 2018.
  9. Barrios, Roberto, et al. Interpreting Catastrophe: An Examination of Houston's Many Voices in the Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. vol. 38, 2020, pp. 121-143. doi:10.1177/028072702003800107.
  10. Swamy, Raja. The Cost of Relocation: Water and Fishers in Post-Tsunami Nagapattinam, South India. doi:10.1108/S0190-128120200000040001, 2020.
  11. Swamy, Raja. The Politics of the Humanitarian Gift Economy: Tamil Fishers and the 2004 Tsunami. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, vol. 44, 2021. doi:10.1111/plar.12449.
  12. Swamy, Raja. Tranquebar—the Tsunami, Heritage Tourism, Power, and Memory in a South Indian Fisher Village. Dialectical Anthropology, vol. 46, 2022. doi:10.1007/s10624-021-09641-6.


References[edit]

  1. ↑ Raja Swamy University Profile accessed 16 May, 2024
  2. ↑ 2017 South Asia Faculty Group (SAFG) Letter to the California State Board of Education
  3. ↑ Chakrabarti, Dilip, and Sukhdev Saini. The Problem of the Sarasvati River and Notes on the Archaeological Geography of Haryana and Indian Punjab. Aryan Books International, 2009.
  4. ↑ Danino, Michel. The Lost River: On the Trail of the Sarasvati. Penguin Books, 2010.
  5. ↑ McIntosh, Jane R. A Peaceful Realm: The Rise and Fall of the Indus Civilization. Westview Press, 2002, p. 24. ​where she stated "Suddenly it became apparent that the “Indus” Civilization was a misnomer—although the Indus had played a major role in the development of the civilization, the “lost Saraswati” River, judging by the density of settlement along its banks, had contributed an equal or greater part to its prosperity. Many people today refer to this early state as the “Indus-Saraswati Civilization” and continuing references to the “Indus Civilization” should be an abbreviation in which the “Saraswati” is implied. There are some fifty sites known along the Indus whereas the Saraswati has almost 1,000. This is misleading figure because erosion and alluviation has between them destroyed or deeply buried the greater part of settlements in the Indus Valley itself, but there can be no doubt that the Saraswati system did yield a high proportion of the Indus people’s agricultural produce"
  6. ↑ 5-17 Prof. S. Shankar et al support letter
  7. ↑ 5-17 Kamala Visweswaran South Asian Faculty Group
  8. ↑ Gupta, S. P. 'The Dawn of Civilization.' In History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization: Volume I: Part 1, edited by G. C. Pandey and D. P. Chattopadhyaya. New Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 1999.
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