Nandini Sundar

University of Delhi, Sociology, Faculty Member

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Nandini Sundar is Professor of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University (2005 onwards). She is currently writing a biography of the Adivasi leader Jaipal Singh, as well as papers on academic freedom and the Indian Constitution. Her research interests include constitutionalism, academic freedom, democracy, law, inequality, and agrarian ecologies.

Her publications include, The Burning Forest: India’s War against Maoists (Verso 2019, Juggernaut pb 2022), which has been translated into several Indian languages; Subalterns and Sovereigns: An Anthropological History of Bastar (2nd ed. 2007); and the co-authored Branching Out: Joint Forest Management in India (2001). She has also edited Legal Grounds: Natural Resources, Identity and the Law in Jharkhand (2009), The Scheduled Tribes and their India (OUP, 2016); and co-edited A New Moral Economy for India’s Forests (Sage, 1999), Anthropology in the East: The founders of Indian sociology and anthropology (2007), Civil Wars in South Asia: State, Sovereignty, Development (Sage 2014), Inequality and Social Mobility in Post-Reform India, Special Issue of Contemporary South Asia (2016), A Functioning Anarchy: Essays for Ramachandra Guha (2021), and Reading India: Selections from Economic and Political Weekly 1991-2017 (Orient Blackswan, 2019).

She is currently on the editorial advisory boards of several journals including Current Sociology, Sociology, Contributions to Indian Sociology, Dialectical Anthropology, HAU Journal of Ethnographic Theory, Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, Anthropological Theory, and INSEE (Ecology, Economy, Society).

She was awarded the M.N. Srinivas Memorial Prize, 2003, Infosys Prize for Social Sciences (Social Anthropology) in 2010, the Ester Boserup Prize for Development Research, 2016 and the Malcolm Adiseshiah Prize for Distinguished Contributions to Development Studies, 2017.

Her media articles are available at http://nandinisundar.blogspot.com

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Vigilantism, Culpability and Moral Dilemmas

Critique of Anthropology, Mar 1, 2010

The recent resurgence of vigilantism in India connects both to the neo-liberal project of outsour... more The recent resurgence of vigilantism in India connects both to the neo-liberal project of outsourcing security, as well as to a longer history of porous boundaries between states and powerful elements in society. When practiced by subaltern groups, it also reflects the failure of the judicial system. This article explores the moral plurality evoked by different forms of vigilantism and their relationship to the state, as well as the different types of culpability they imply. Keywords ■ India ■ Hindu Right ■ justice ■ Maoists ■ outsourcing ■ security ■ state Culpable: deserving censure; blameworthy, guilty, to be at fault Vigilante n. one of an organised group of citizens who take upon themselves the protection of their district, properties etc. Vigilantism n. the methods, conduct, attitudes etc. associated with vigilantes, esp. militancy, bigotry or suspiciousness.

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‘We Will Teach India Democracy’: Indigenous Voices in Constitution Making

The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Apr 27, 2023

The framing of the Indian Constitution (1946-50) was a pivotal moment in the history of indigenou... more The framing of the Indian Constitution (1946-50) was a pivotal moment in the history of indigenous communities (colloquially adivasis, officially scheduled tribes) and their relationship with the state. This essay makes three interventions. First, I contest the prevailing emphasis in Indian history and sociology on seeing indigenous politics as primarily in opposition to state institutions and laws. Instead, drawing on representations from indigenous organisations to the Constituent Assembly (CA), I highlight an earlier trajectory of engagement with law-making and state institutions. Second, I show how tribes saw the making of the constitution as an opportunity to be recognised as both equal citizens and distinct communities and offered real alternatives in constitutional design and ideas of democracy. What is particularly interesting is how, despite the different constitutional histories of countries with indigenous populations, there is common core to the demand for ‘constitutional recognition’ involving cultural, political and resource autonomy. Third, through a close reading of CA and committee deliberations, I show how personalities, processes and contingencies and not abstract rational deliberations alone shaped constitutional design. Here, I add to the literature locating the ‘force of law’ in the procedural movement of files.

Civil society and democratic change in Asia

... Among those who question the applicability of civil society outside Europe, Partha Chatterjee... more

The Trophies Of Operation Green Hunt - When rape is routine and there's a paucity of condemning voices – South Asia Citizens Web

If the security forces can treat dead women like hunting trophies, not only trussing their bodies... more

Non-state actors and the rule of law in Chhattisgarh – South Asia Citizens Web

(Published earlier in The Hindu) The path to peace in Chhattisgarh lies in implementing the court... more

India: The Congress Party Has a Chance to Redeem Itself in Chhattisgarh by trying a peaceful resolution of the Maoist insurgency – South Asia Citizens Web

K arve, I rawati (1905–70)

The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, Sep 4, 2018

<i>Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject</i>

Transforming Anthropology, Apr 1, 2007

This article analyzes two books that utilize the construct of "The Muslim Woman" as a symbol for ... more This article analyzes two books that utilize the construct of "The Muslim Woman" as a symbol for public consumption across a global and conceptual scale: Saba Mahmood's book, 'Politics of Piety', and Malala Yousafzai's and Christina Lamb's 'I am Malala'. The motivation behind the analysis is to situate the texts within debates on essentialism within accounts of Muslim women. While essentialism and the critique of it in such discussions are not a novelty, the books demonstrate a physical manifestation of essentialism and a reductionist reaction toward this brand of essentialism. Through analysis of the content, poetics, and response toward the books, I argue that scholarship surround Muslim women are still mired in essentialism albeit efforts to avoid it due to a lack in direction as to how to resolve the issue. I suggest using a combination of power convolution and intersectionality of identities to capture the representation of Muslim women.

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The rule of law and citizenship in central India: post-colonial dilemmas

Citizenship Studies, Jun 1, 2011

... 4. State of Bihar v. Kameshwar Singh 1952 SCR 889 at 928, cited in Ramanathan (2008, p. 209).... more

Toward an anthropology of culpability

American Ethnologist, May 1, 2004

ABSTRACTAnthropologists concerned with political violence and justice must engage in a comparativ... more ABSTRACTAnthropologists concerned with political violence and justice must engage in a comparative examination of culpability for past and ongoing crimes. When powerful states use reparations, truth commissions, or war crime tribunals to attribute culpability to others, including their past selves, they often, paradoxically, legitimize ongoing injustices. As against culturalist explanations for mass violence, which set up a hierarchy of cultures, we need to look at the institutional sites through which public morality is constructed. This approach is illustrated with reference to the killing of Muslims in Gujarat, India, in 2002 and to the invasion of Iraq by the United States in 2003.

In the Time of Trees and Sorrows: Nature, Power, and Memory in Rajasthan. By Ann Grodzins Gold and Bhoju Ram Gujar.Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2002. xxv, 403 pp. $69.95 (cloth); $23.95 (paper)

The Journal of Asian Studies, May 1, 2005

Contextualizing Civil Wars in South Asia

SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd eBooks, 2014

Sliding from majoritarianism toward fascism: Educating India under the Modi regime

International Sociology, Sep 17, 2020

While the Modi regime in India shares many exclusionary features in common with authoritarian pop... more While the Modi regime in India shares many exclusionary features in common with authoritarian populists elsewhere, one distinguishing feature is its umbilical relationship to the semi-fascist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), whose long-term goal has been the establishment of a Hindu rashtra (nation). One of the major instruments for achieving this has been education, with the RSS seeing cultural hegemony as more foundational than political control. This article examines the transformation of school and higher education under the Modi regime in an effort to bring India more in line with the Hindu nationalist vision of its parent body, and the degree to which being in government supports or creates contradictions with the RSS vision.

The Scheduled Tribes and Their India: Politics, Identities, Policies, and Work

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2016

A people in need of quick modernization and mainstreaming, or a powerful defense against the adva... more A people in need of quick modernization and mainstreaming, or a powerful defense against the advancing march of capitalist growth---these are the two most prominent and stereotypical images of Adivasis in contemporary India, and both do grave injustice to the ground realities. The category Scheduled Tribes, which is purely an administrative category, and does not reflect the immense diversity among the 500 different communities of tribals in India, comprising 8.6 per cent of Indias population, has acquired over a period of time, a distinct political and discursive salience. This collection of essays, divided in three parts, brings together a range of predominantly sociological and anthropological but broadly social science writing that reflects on and illuminates the jungle of dilemmas and conflicts that the scheduled tribes face as they navigate their way through everyday life. It highlights the enormity of social, cultural, linguistic, and politico-economic diversity among the so-called Scheduled Tribes in India, and aims to provide an intellectual platform for an engagement between the scheduled tribes and their India, as also to map the state of current sociological/anthropological writing and debate on the scheduled tribes.

India: An account of a visit to the police state of Chhattisgarh – South Asia Citizens Web

Ujjwal Kumar Singh, Professor of Political Science, Delhi University and I have just returned (Ja... more

From Delhi to Iran via America: Reflections of an Indian Anthropologist

American Anthropologist, Feb 19, 2018

Divining Evil: The State and Witchcraft in Bastar

Gender, Technology and Development, 2001

This article examines witchcraft accusations in Bastar, a predominantly adivasi or &amp;#x27;... more This article examines witchcraft accusations in Bastar, a predominantly adivasi or &amp;#x27;tribal&amp;#x27; area in central India. In the European witchcrazes of the 16th and 17th centuries, which set the tone for much work on witchcraft, witches were predominantly women. In other Indian adivasi ...

Debating dussehra and reinterpreting rebellion in bastar district, central india

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Mar 1, 2001

... Some evidence suggests that the rebels were keen to replace him with his cousin, Lal Kalandar... more

Special Columns > Student Campaigns against Sexual Violence > Mondragon's Third Way > Translating Global Dialogue into Romanian Indian Democracy at War with Itself The End of Lulism in Brazil Labor Politics in Neoliberal Argentina 4 issues a year in 16 languages Turkish Totalitarianism

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K arve, I rawati (1905–70)

The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, 2018

Nandini Sundar

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