Talk:South Asia Faculty Group

The South Asia Faculty Group is not a real organization but a hastily assembled coalition of academics formed to maintain existing materials and replace references to India with South Asia in textbooks. They submitted two letters to the State Board of Education in 2016 and 2017 with respect to changes to History/Social Science materials discussion of India and Hinduism.

South Asian Faculty Group submitted a letter addressed to the State Board of Education, California Department of Education, dated May 17, 2016 and November 2017. The 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."

In the letter submitted to the California State Board of Education on November 5, 2017, by the South Asia Faculty Group (SAFG) they misrepresent the scholarly consensus and distort the current state of academic affairs. They states:

• They state that Christians and Muslims existed in Ancient India prior to the founding of those religions
• They misrepresent scholarships that dates prior to the submission of the letter "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".

Jane McIntosh contradicted this statement a few years earlier and was never disproven:

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.

Academics who signed this letter without any publications on the topics discussed

1. Chris Chekuri, Associate Professor, History Department, San Francisco State University
2. Gurinder Singh Mann, former Kundan Kaur Kapany Chair in Sikh Studies and Professor Emeritus, University of California, Santa Barbara
3. Vijaya Nagarajan, Associate Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of San Francisco
4. Kamala Visweswaran, Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego
5. Shahzad Bashir, Lysbeth Warren Anderson Professor of Islamic Studies, Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University

Academics who have some publications related to the topics discussed

1. Ramnarayan Rawat, Professor of History, University of Delaware
2. Robert Goldman, Catherine and William L. Magistretti Distinguished Professor of South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley
3. Stephanie Jamison, Distinguished Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures and of Indo-European Studies, University of California, Los Angeles
4. Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. (Field Director and Co-Director of the Harappa Archaeological Research Project since 1986)
5. V. Narayana Rao, Visweswara Rao and Sita Koppaka Professor in Telugu Culture, Literature and History, Emory University
6. Sudipta Sen, Professor of History, University of California, Davis
7. Banu Subramaniam, Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
8. Rita P. Wright, Professor of Anthropology, New York University, and member of the NYU Center for Human Origins
9. Shailaja Paik, Assistant Professor of South Asian History, University of Cincinnati
10. Thomas R. Trautmann, Professor Emeritus of History, University of Michigan

Academics who supported the 2016 letter

Academics who signed this letter without any publications on the topics discussed

1. Prof. S. Shankar, University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa
2. Prof. Bruce Robbins, Columbia University
3. Prof. Vijay Seshadri, Sarah Lawrence College
4. Prof. Cristina Bacchilega, University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa
5. Prof. Charu Gupta, Delhi University, India
6. Prof. Keya Ganguly, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
7. Prof. Timothy Brennan, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
8. Prof. Kanishka Chowdury, St. Thomas University
9. Prof. Akshaya Saxena, University of Minnesota
10. Prof. Anushiya Ramaswamy, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville
11. Prof. Ketu Katrak, University of California, Irvine
12. Jael Silliman, Independent Scholar, Kolkata, India
13. Prof. Aparna Dharwadker, University of Wisconsin, Madison
14. Prof. Amna Akbar, Ohio State University
15. Prof. Cynthia Franklin, University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa
16. Prof. Purnima Bose, Indiana University, Bloomington
17. Prof. Laura Lyons, University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa
18. Prof. Barbara Foley, Rutgers University, Newark
19. Prof. Anjali Arondekar, University of California, Santa Cruz
20. Prof. Tithi Bhattacharya, Purdue University
21. Prof. Bill Mullen, Purdue University
22. Prof. Paula Chakravartty, New York University
23. Prof. Nidhi Srinivas, New School, New York City
24. Prof. M. V. Ramana, Princeton University
25. Prof. Saloni Mathur, UCLA
26. Prof. Pranav Jani, The Ohio State University
27. Prof. Yumna Siddiqi, Middlebury College
28. Prof. Ravi Arvind Palat, State University of New York at Binghamton
29. Prof. Carol Murry, DrPH, Retired U Hawai'i Manoa
30. Prof. Chandana Mathur, National University of Ireland, Maynooth
31. Prof. Salah D Hassan, Michigan State University
32. Prof. Richard Cullen Rath, University of Hawaiʿi at Mānoa
33. Prof. Adam Miyashiro, Stockton University
34. Prof. Satya P Mohanty, Cornell University
35. Prof. Valerie Wayne, University of Hawai'i at Manoa
36. Prof. Junaid Rana, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
37. Prof. Raza Mir, William Paterson University
38. Prof. Monika Mehta, Binghamton University
39. Prof. Yasmin Saikia, Arizona State University
40. Prof. Shefali Chandra, Washington University in St. Louis
41. Prof. Lamia Karim, University of Oregon
42. Gautam Premnath, Independent Scholar
43. Prof. David Palumbo-Liu, Stanford
44. Prof. Rima Najjar, Al-Quds University (Retired)
45. Prof. Amit R. Baishya, University of Oklahoma
46. Prof. Belinda Edmondson, Rutgers University-Newark
47. Prof. Meena Alexander, City University of New York
48. Prof. Rohit Chopra, Santa Clara University
49. Prof. Bhaskar Sarkar, UC Santa Barbara
50. Prof. Ashwini Tambe, University of Maryland
51. Prof. Juan E. Campo, University of California, Santa Barbara
52. Prof. Sarada Balagopalan, Rutgers University
53. Prof. Ritu Birla, University Toronto
54. Prof. Valerie Forman New York University
55. Prof. Lalitha Gopalan, The University of Texas at Austin
56. Prof. Madhurima Chakraborty, Columbia College, Chicago
57. Prof. Harsh Mathur, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio
58. Prof. Martha C. Nussbaum, the University of Chicago
59. Prof. Raja Swamy, University of Tennessee
60. Prof. Mari Yoshihara, University of Hawai'i
61. Prof. Marcus Rediker, University of Pittsburgh
62. Prof. Waqas Khwaja, Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA
63. Prof. Cheryl Narumi Naruse, University of Dayton
64. Prof. Naoko Shibusawa, Brown University
65. Prof. Lisa King, University of Tennessee
66. Prof. Caren Kaplan, UC Davis
67. Prof. Sunaina Maira, UC Davis
68. Prof. Hosam Aboul-Ela, University of Houston
69. Prof. Ned Bertz, University of Hawai'i
70. Prof. Philip Oldenburg
71. Prof. Amritjit Singh, Ohio University
72. Prof. Neil Larsen, University of California, Davis
73. Prof. Junyoung Verónica Kim, University of Iowa
74. Prof. Shankari Patel, UC Santa Cruz
75. Prof. S. Charusheela, University of Washington, Bothell
76. Prof. Edali Pollard. Antioch College, LA
77. Prof. Claudia Arteaga, Scripps College
78. Prof. Anuradha Dingwaney Needham, Oberlin College
79. Prof. David Gordon White, University of California, Santa Barbara
80. Prof. Karam Dana. University of Washington, Bothell
81. Prof. Shelley Feldman, Cornell University
82. Prof. Alka Kurian, University of Washington, Bothell
83. Prof. Karen Graubart, History, University of Notre Dame
84. Prof. Suzanne Bergeron, University of Michigan Dearborn
85. Prof. Nancy A. Naples, University of Connecticut
86. Prof. Peter J. Carroll, Northwestern University
87. Prof. Sangeeta Kamat, UMASS Amherst
88. Prof. Vidya Kalaramadam, William Paterson University of New Jersey
89. Prof. Zoe Sherinian, University of Oklahoma
90. Prof. Karen Leonard, Anthropology, UC Irvine
91. Prof. Ania Loomba University of Pennsylvania
92. Richard Falk, Research Fellow, Orfalea Center, UCSB
93. Martha Escobar
94. Prof. Shubha Tewari, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
95. Prof. Timothy J. Reiss, New York University
96. Prof. Monisha Bajaj, University of San Francisco
97. Prof. Paul R. Brass, University of Washington, Seattle
98. Prof. Weihsin Gui, University of California-Riverside
99. Prof. Mayfair Yang, UC Santa Barbara
100. Prof. Divya Nair, Community College of Philadelphia
101. Prof. Juliana Spahr, Mills College
102. Prof. Darshana Mini, University of Southern California
103. Prof. Ann Christensen, University of Houston
104. Prof. Aradhana Sharma, Wesleyan University
105. Anirban Mukhopadhyay
106. Prof. Kamran Asdar Ali, UT, Austin
107. Abikal Borah, University of Texas at Austin
108. Prof. Megan Moodie, UC Santa Cruz
109. Prof. Iftikhar Dadi, Cornell University
110. Prof. Jih-Fei Cheng, Scripps College
111. Nisha Kunte, Sage Hill School
112. Prof. Danielle Widmann Abraham, James Madison University
113. Prof. Kasturi Ray, San Francisco State University
114. Mitul Baruah, Syracuse University
115. Prof. Patricia Morton, UC Riverside
116. Prof. Piya Chatterjee, Scripps College
117. Prof. Jigna Desai, Univ. of Minnesota
118. Prof. Tariq Thachil, Yale University
119. Prof. Nayan Shah, University of Southern California
120. Prof. Nilanjana Bhattacharjya, Arizona State University
121. Prof. Steven Salaita, American University of Beirut
122. Clarissa Rojas

Academics who have some publications related to the topics discussed

1. Prof. Jesse Knutson, University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa
2. Prof. Arvind Rajagopal, New York University
3. Prof. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia University
4. Prof. Partha Chatterjee, Columbia University
5. Prof. Mary Hancock, University of California, Santa Barbara
6. Prof. Rachel Sturman, Bowdoin College
7. Prof. Inderpal Grewal, Yale University
8. Prof. Modhumita Roy, Tufts University
9. Prof. Mona Bhan, DePauw University
10. Prof. Sankaran Krishna, University of Hawaii at Manoa
11. Prof. Erika Rappaport, University of California, Santa Barbara
12. Prof. Nyla Ali Khan, University of Oklahoma
13. Prof. Tharakeshwar V.B., the English and Foreign Languages University, India
14. Prof. Tara Doyle, Emory University
15. Prof. Suvir Kaul, University of Pennsylvania
16. Prof. Balmurli Natrajan, William Paterson University of New Jersey
17. Prof. Satish Kolluri, Pace University
18. Prof. Biju Mathew, Rider University, NJ
19. Prof. Anustup Basu, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
20. Prof. Farah Godrej, University of California, Riverside
21. Arunima Paul, PhD, English, Gender and Visual Studies, University of Southern California
22. Huma Dar
23. Prof. Gyanendra Pandey, Emory University
24. Pallavi Rao, PhD Student, Indiana University, Bloomington

Fraudulent Signatories

1. Prof. Richard Forster, University of Hawaii at Manoa
2. Katarina Figueroa
3. Munawwar Kavungal
4. Mara Ahmed
5. Shanthanu Bhardwaj
6. Yashna Panda, the Ohio State University

Contributing signatories to 2016 letter

1. Asad Q. Ahmad, Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley
2. Kathleen D. Morrison, Neukom Family Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology and the Committee on Southern Asian Studies, University of Chicago
3. Luis González-Reimann, Ph.D. South Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Signatories for 2017 letter

Academics who signed this letter without any publications on the topics discussed

1. Sareeta Amrute, Associate Professor, Anthropology, University of Washington, Seattle
2. Anjali Arondekar, Associate Professor, Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz
3. Sarada Balagopalan, Associate Professor of Childhood Studies, Rutgers University, Camden
4. Purnima Bose, Associate Professor, English and International Studies; Chair, International Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington
5. Paula Chakravartty, Associate Professor, Department of Media, Culture and Communication and Gallatin School, Faculty Affiliate at South Asia @ NYU, New York University
6. Piya Chatterjee, Backstrand Chair and Professor, Feminist Gender and Sexualities Studies, Scripps College, The Claremont Consortium
7. Swati Chattopadhyay, Professor, History of Art and Architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara
8. Christopher Chekuri, Associate Professor of History, San Francisco State University
9. Francis Cody, Associate Professor, Anthropology and Asian Institute, University of Toronto
10. Jigna Desai, Professor of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, University of Minnesota
11. Mayanthi Fernando, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz
12. Michele Friedner, Assistant Professor of Comparative Human Development, University of Chicago
13. Vinay Gidwani, Professor of Geography and Global Studies, University of Minnesota
14. Akhil Gupta, Director, Center for India and South Asia, UCLA
15. Matthew Hull, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan
16. Abhishek Kaicker, Assistant Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley
17. Lamia Karim, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Oregon
18. Aishwary Kumar, Assistant Professor of History, Stanford University
19. Ania Loomba, Catherine Bryson Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania
20. Ritty Lukose, Associate Professor, Anthropology, The Gallatin School, New York University
21. Sunaina Maira, Professor, Asian American Studies; Affiliated Faculty Member, Middle East/South Asia Studies; UC Davis
22. Karuna Mantena, Associate Professor, Political Science, Yale University
23. Rama Mantena, Associate Professor, History and Global Asian Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago
24. William Mazzarella, Professor of Anthropology, University of Chicago
25. Monika Mehta, Associate Professor, English and Comparative Literature, Binghamton University
26. Raza Mir, Professor of Management, William Paterson University, New Jersey
27. Megan Moodie, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz
28. Madhavi Murty, Assistant Professor, Feminist Studies, UC Santa Cruz
29. Tahir H. Naqvi, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Trinity University
30. Martha C. Nussbaum, Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics, The University of Chicago
31. Geeta Patel, Director UVA in India, Associate Professor, Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures
32. Kavita Philip, Associate Professor of History, University of California, Irvine
33. Gautam Premnath, Independent Scholar, English Literature
34. M. V. Ramana, Professor, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
35. Pallavi Rastogi, Associate Professor, Department of English, Louisiana State University
36. Gayatri Reddy, Associate Professor, Gender and Women's Studies and Anthropology, University of Illinois at Chicago
37. Parama Roy, Professor of English, University of California, Davis
38. Poulomi Saha, Assistant Professor, English, University of California, Berkeley
39. Priya Satia, Professor, Department of History, Stanford University
40. Martha Ann Selby, Ralph B. Thomas Regents Professor of Asian Studies and Chair, Department of Asian Studies, The University of Texas at Austin
41. Sudipta Sen, Professor of History, University of California, Davis
42. Vanita Seth, Associate Professor of Politics, University of California, Santa Cruz
43. Mytheli Sreenivas, Associate Professor of History and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, The Ohio State University
44. Nidhi Srinivas, Associate Professor Management, The New School, New York City
45. Smriti Srinivas, Professor of Anthropology and Director, Middle East/South Asia Studies Program, University of California, Davis
46. Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan, Assistant Professor of English, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
47. Rachel Sturman, Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies, Bowdoin College
48. Kaushik Sunder Rajan, Professor of Anthropology and Co-Director, Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory, University of Chicago
49. Abha Sur, Lecturer, Program in Women’s and Gender Studies, M.I.T.
50. Raja Swamy, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Tennessee
51. Clare Talwalker, Lecturer, International and Area Studies Program, UC Berkeley
52. Bharat Venkat, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Oregon
53. Catherine Becker, Associate Professor, Department of Art History, University of Illinois at Chicago

Academics who have some publications related to the topics discussed

1. Daud Ali, Associate Professor of South Asian Studies and History, Ancient and Medieval Indian History, University of Pennsylvania
2. Joseph S. Alter, Professor of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh
3. Paola Bacchetta, Professor, Gender and Women’s Studies, ISAS, University of California, Berkeley
4. Amrita Basu, Paino Professor of Political Science and Sexuality, Women's and Gender Studies, Amherst College
5. Indrani Chatterjee, Professor of History, University of Texas at Austin, Texas.
6. Rohit Chopra, Associate Professor, Department of Communication, Santa Clara University
7. Lawrence Cohen, Professor of Anthropology and of South and Southeast Asian Studies, and Co-Director, Medical Anthropology Program, University of California, Berkeley
8. Huma Dar, Independent Scholar, South Asian Studies, Gender & Women’s Studies, Film Studies, Ethnic Studies
9. Will Glover, Associate Professor of History, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
10. Inderpal Grewal, Program in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Yale University
11. Thomas Blom Hansen, Reliance-Dhirubhai Ambani Professor of Anthropology, Stanford University
12. John Stratton Hawley, Claire Tow Professor of Religion, Barnard College, Columbia University
13. Sunila Kale, Associate Professor, International Studies, University of Washington
14. Suvir Kaul, A. M. Rosenthal Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania
15. Ruby Lal, Professor of South Asian History, Emory University
16. Jean M Langford, Professor, Anthropology, University of Minnesota
17. Mark Liechty, Professor of Anthropology and History, University of Illinois at Chicago
18. Biju Mathew, Associate Professor of Business and American Studies, Rider University, New Jersey
19. Rachel Fell McDermott, Professor, Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures, Barnard College, Columbia University
20. Jisha Menon, Associate Professor, Theatre and Performance Studies, Stanford University
21. Kalyani Devaki Menon, Associate Professor, Religious Studies, DePaul University
22. Projit Bihari Mukharji, Associate Professor, History & Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania
23. Richa Nagar, Professor of the College, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
24. Vijaya Nagarajan, Associate Professor, Religious Studies, University of San Francisco
25. Gyan Pandey, Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor, Emory University
26. Sheldon Pollock, Professor of Sanskrit and South Asian Studies, Columbia University
27. Gyan Prakash, Dayton-Stockton Professor of History, Princeton University
28. Priti Ramamurthy, Professor, Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies & South Asian Studies, University of Washington, Seattle
29. Lucinda Ramberg, Anthropology and Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, Cornell University
30. Anupama Rao, TOW Associate Professor, History, Barnard College, Columbia University
31. Ramnarayan S. Rawat, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Delaware
32. Raka Ray, Professor, Sociology and South Asia Studies, University of California, Berkeley
33. Sharmila Rudrappa, Professor of Sociology, Director, Center for Asian American Studies, University of Texas at Austin
34. G.S. Sahota, Associate Professor of Literature, University of California, Santa Cruz
35. Juned Shaikh, Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of California Santa Cruz
36. S. Shankar, Professor, English, University of Hawai`i
37. Ajay Skaria, Professor of History and Global Studies, University of Minnesota
38. Ajantha Subramanian, Professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies, Harvard University
39. Sharika Thiranagama, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Stanford University
40. Archana Venkatesan, Associate Professor, Departments of Comparative Literature and Religious Studies, Chair, Department of Religious Studies, University of California, Davis
41. Michael Witzel, Wales Prof. of Sanskrit, Harvard University

Fraudulent Signatories

1. Shubhra Sharma, Ph.D., Independent Scholar and Entrepreneur