The South Asia Summer Reading Group (SARG) is an informal organization of individuals with an interest in the politics of South Asia. Over the course of this summer, we will be reading new books on South Asian politics. Each week, one member of the group will review a book, with the review to be posted on the Center for Contemporary India website.
We encourage you to read along with us, and to post your comments on the books on Twitter with SARG Twitter handle (@readsouthasia ) and with the hashtag #SARG22.
We have twelve books and the reviews/discussions will run from the week of June 26 through September 11. The schedule is posted below. Reviews will be posted directly underneath the respective book’s title. Clicking on the book title will direct you to Amazon or another resource where you can find the book.
We look forward to another summer of great reading on the politics of South Asia!
- Ijlal Naqvi | Access to Power: Electricity and the Infrastructural State in Pakistan
REVIEWER: Rajesh Veeraraghavan
DISCUSSANT: Chetana Sabnis
REVIEW PUBLISHED: June 26, 2022
ONLINE DISCUSSION: June 29, 2022 - Debasish Roy Chowdhury and John Keane | To Kill A Democracy: India's Passage to Despotism
REVIEWER: Adam Ziegfeld
DISCUSSANT: Feyaad Allie
REVIEW PUBLISHED: July 3, 2022
ONLINE DISCUSSION: July 6, 2022 - Scott Carney and Jason Miklian | The Vortex: A True Story of History's Deadliest Storm, an Unspeakable War, and Liberation
REVIEWER: Emmanuel Teitelbaum
DISCUSSANT: Akshay Dixit
REVIEW PUBLISHED: July 10, 2022
ONLINE DISCUSSION: July 13, 2022 - Shenila Khoja-Moolji | Sovereign Attachments: Masculinity, Muslimness, and Affective Politics in Pakistan
REVIEWER: Sohaib Khan
DISCUSSANT: Fahd Humayun
REVIEW PUBLISHED: July 17, 2022
ONLINE DISCUSSION: July 20, 2022 - Adnan Naseemullah | Patchwork States: The Historical Roots of Subnational Conflict and Competition in South Asia
REVIEWER: Rumela Sen
DISCUSSANT: Apurva Bamezai
REVIEW PUBLISHED: July 24, 2022
ONLINE DISCUSSION: July 27, 2022 - Vinay Sitapati | India Before Modi: How the BJP Came to Power
REVIEWER: Emmerich Davies
DISCUSSANT: Ritika Goel
REVIEW PUBLISHED: July 31, 2022
ONLINE DISCUSSION: August 3, 2022 - Kalaiyarasan A. & M. Vijayabaskar | The Dravidian Model: Interpreting the Political Economy of Tamil Nadu
REVIEWER: Poulomi Chakrabarti
DISCUSSANT: Deepika Padmanabhan
REVIEW PUBLISHED: August 7, 2022
ONLINE DISCUSSION: August 10, 2022 - Paul Staniland | Ordering Violence: Explaining Armed Group-State Relations from Conflict to Cooperation
REVIEWER: Shivaji Mukherjee
DISCUSSANT: Aidan Milliff
REVIEW PUBLISHED: August 14, 2022
ONLINE DISCUSSION: August 17, 2022 - Adeel Hussain | Revenge, Politics and Blasphemy in Pakistan
REVIEWER: Alexander Lee
DISCUSSANT: Yasser Kureshi
REVIEW PUBLISHED: August 21, 2022
ONLINE DISCUSSION: August 24, 2022 - Karthick Ram Manoharan | Periyar: A Study in Political Atheism
REVIEWER: Brahma Prakash
DISCUSSANT: Vignesh Karthik KR
REVIEW PUBLISHED: August 28, 2022
ONLINE DISCUSSION: August 31, 2022 - Rajesh Veeraraghavan | Patching Development: Information Politics & Social Change in India
REVIEWER: Rachel Brule
DISCUSSANT: Syeda ShahBano Ijaz
REVIEW PUBLISHED: September 4, 2022
ONLINE DISCUSSION: September 7, 2022 - Shivaji Mukherjee | Colonial Institutions and Civil War: Indirect Rule and Maoist insurgency in India
REVIEWER: Yelena Biberman
DISCUSSANT: Sarah Thompson
REVIEW PUBLISHED: September 11, 2022
ONLINE DISCUSSION: September 14, 2022