Talk:Sharika Thiranagama

By Anirudha patel

Sharika Thiranagama is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University as of April 2023. According to her university profile, her research interests include Ethnicity, Enslavement, Labor, Violence, Gender, Kinship, Caste, Displacement, History, Political Anthropology and Political Theory, Sri Lanka, India, and South Asia.

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."

Articles/Book chapters Related to India

1. Thiranagama, Sharika. "Rural Civilities: Caste, Gender and Public Life in Kerala." South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, vol. 42, no. 2, 2019, pp. 310-327.

   This article explores caste practices of the CPI–M (Communist Party of India–Marxist) in Kerala. Despite her focus on the CPI-M and exposition that they follow caste discrimination -- Sharika makes unsubstantiated allegations that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) were actually forcing the CPI-M into bringing caste from the private domain into the public domain.

2. Thiranagama, Sharika. “Respect Your Neighbor as Yourself: Neighbourliness, Caste, and Community in South India.” Comparative Studies for Society and History, vol. 61, no. 2, 2019.

References

• Sharika Thiranagama page on Stanford University accessed September 28, 2022
• Sharika Thiranagama CV accessed September 28, 2022