THE LAKSHMI MITTAL SOUTH ASIA INSTITUTE, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Prasad Grant Report 2016-2017
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Front Image: Kusalagnana Derangala HDS ‘17, Wintersession Internship Grant Recipient 2017
Prasad Grants are given to Harvard students for hands-on, in-region experience working with non-profit organizations and conducting research in South Asia. This year, with the generous support of the Prasad family, the Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute (SAI) funded 8 students from various disciplines to contribute towards and learn from some of the most innovative and impactful initiatives in the region. We are grateful to Ms. Chandni and Dr. Mukesh Prasad AB ‘93 for making the Prasad Fellowship possible!
TABLE OF CONTENTS INTERNSHIPS
Upper Myanmar Manuscript Preservation Project | Wintersession Priya Rakkhit Sraman, Harvard Divinity School ‘17.........................................................................7 Upper Myanmar Manuscript Preservation Project | Wintersession Kusalagnana Derangala, Harvard Divinity School ‘17.....................................................................6 The Wildlife Conservation Trust in Mumbai, India | Wintersession Mei Yin Wu, Harvard College ‘17....................................................................................................9
RESEARCH
Identifying Root Causes Behind Achievement Gaps in State-Regulated Madrasas | Wintersession Zayan Faiyad, Harvard College ‘18...............................................................................................11 Assessing Educational Needs of Internally Displaced Pre-Primary Children | Wintersession Mary Pham, Harvard Graduate School of Education ‘17...............................................................13 Considering the Lay-Counselor Experience Through a Framework of Caregiving | Summer Angela Leocata, Harvard College ‘18............................................................................................14 Cyanide & Gold: Family, Caste, and the Post-Extractive Landscape at the Kolar Gold Fields | Summer Ranjani Srinivasan, Harvard Graduate School of Design ‘18........................................................15 Navigating Flux: A Cartographic Study of the Relationship of Indigenous People with Cloud Forests | Summer Rhea Shah, Harvard Graduate School of Design ‘18....................................................................18
Upper Myanmar Manuscript Preservation Project | Wintersession Internship in Sagaing, Myanmar Priyarakkhit Sraman | Harvard Divinity School ‘17 | Master of Divinity There was a contrast in the pace of life in and outside the temple boundaries. While the situation outside the temple is busy and active, the temple is quiet and still. The sounds of birds were echoing in the temple areas.
Priyarakkhit Sraman posing with palm leaf manucripts
This winter I went to Myanmar to take part in the Upper Myanmar Manuscript Preservation Project. It has been a really wonderful experience for me. The primary location for the project was in Sagaing, Mandalay. Sagaing probably has the greatest number of Theravada Buddhist monastics, both male and female, living together in one village. Buddhist monastics were seen on the streets of Sagaing all throughout the day. One would see monastics going for their regular alms-round in the morning, young novices going to their classes, elderly monks having a chat during their breakfast at tea-shops, and young monks simply enjoying a leisurely evening walk and admiring the view of the city from the top of Sagaing Hill. The Hill, which is one of the main tourist attractions in Sagaing, provides a wonderful view of the city filled with many golden stūpas. As a Buddhist monk myself, such experiences made me feel welcomed and relaxed. In Sagaing I stayed at a temple called Tilokaguru, named after one of the temple’s past abbots. Among the glories of that temple was an ancient cave filled with Buddhist mural paintings from a long time ago. Those paintings express themes from Buddhist tales, ancient Burmese history, and the life and culture of the ancient Burmese people. They draw many tourists to the temple. The abbot of Tilokaguru was very kind. Despite his deficiency in communicating in English and mine in Burmese, we exchanged some basic information about ourselves such as name, country, and monastic age. I had to relive this experience on several other occasions as I moved from one temple to another and met many Burmese monks. Our team for the project consisted of myself, another HDS student, Kusalagnana Derangala; our supervisor, Charles Carstens; and his two Burmese assistants, Mr. Su Nyunt and Mr. Ang Ko Ko. The first temple we went to was Anuruddha Kyaung, about twenty-five minutes away by car from Tilokaguru. We used a lorry for our commute. Seated in the back of the lorry, we saw the lifestyle in Sagaing as we moved through the streets. Prasad Grant Report 2017
The abbot of Anuruddha temple did not hesitate in giving us access to the manuscripts in the temple. As we unpacked and worked on the 150-200 year old palm leaf manuscripts, he kept watch with curious eyes. We cleaned many of the manuscripts and rearranged them in correct order. On our first day we also learned to identify the name and date of a text by referring to its colophone. The first page of every manuscript text is indented and it begins either with ‘namo tassa bhagavato’ or with ‘jayatu’. The last few pages are also indented and have the information about the text — name, date of composition, sponsor, etc. The pages of the manuscripts are numbered with the alphabets as follows ‘ka, kā, ki, kī, ku, kū, ke, keh, ko, koh, kam, kāh, kha, khā …’ — continuing till the text is completed. In arranging the pages in correct order we had to check the page numbers for each collection. Our second location was the Buddhist and Cultural Museum in Sagaing. The collection of manuscripts there was very big. It was kept in the store room at the back of the museum with many other items, such as Buddha statues, ancient door frames from temples, and animal horns. This time we were joined by two of the museum staff. As the collection was large we spent most of our time sorting out the different collections before rearranging them in the correct order. We sorted them based on their size and color. The size and color are two important factors to distinguish which manuscript belongs to which collection. We found two kinds of manuscripts: ones which had edges colored golden only, and others which had edges colored golden with red stripes. Some manuscripts had their edges damaged (probably sawed) by people who wanted the gold that was there. They went to a separate section. We then checked their page numbers to arrange them in the correct order. In order to identify and put together all the pages of one collection we had to pay attention to their texts and titles that are usually marked on the side of each page. All of this required tremendous amount of care and mindfulness, as well as physical strength. The third place we went to was very far from the city. It was a monastery located on the forest hills. The monks there were mostly old and very kind. They provided lunch to us. One old monk even offered me to rest in his bed if I needed to take a break. With the physical strain that results from hours of sitting or standing while arranging or cleaning the manuscripts, it was necessary to get some rest from time to time. This temple was too far secluded from the villages for people to offer daily meals to the monks. The food was prepared inside the temple. Most of the works were shared among the monks. It was admirable to see how happy the monks were to be in 6
that community. At the lunch table I noticed that the monks were attentive to each other — each of them served the other with at least one spoonful of rice and curry. After lunch they all sat to share tea and local desserts together. The sense of community, sharing, love and care were evident even more in how the monks cared for the animals. Each dog in the temple had their own separate eating bowl. There were even fireplaces built for the animals. In addition, I noticed two monks studying the ‘Paticcasamuppada’ (Dependent Origination) text in the afternoon as they were seated in the shadow of a stūpa on the hill overlooking the forest and the far away village. The collections in this temple were not so dusty. They were wrapped in clothes, but we still had to clean the pages with oil in order to make the writing more visible. After some hours of oil-cleaning the manuscripts were ready to be digitized. Mr. Su Nyunt and Mr. Ang Ko Ko skillfully arranged all the camera equipment and photographed one page after another with care and precision. Some old monks would come and stare at the whole process with keen eyes, speaking in Burmese among themselves. I assumed that they were pretty amazed at the equipment. We worked there the whole day, from morning till six in the evening. We had already digitized several collections by then. We worshipped the Buddha image, and bowed to the monks, thanking them for their kindness before leaving the temple. Apart from the project, I also had the chance to visit a few important Buddhist sites such as the Shwe Dagon Pagoda in Yangon, the thousand-year old temples in Bagan, and the Mahāmuni temple in Mandalay. All of these places attracted a huge number of local devotees and tourists. Locals prayed at each one of these sacred sites for their own purposes. The devotion and faith that I saw in the Burmese Buddhists at those locations was quite inspiring. I also joined them whenever I had a chance. Thanks to the Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute I had an eyeopening experience in Myanmar and learned so much about Buddhism through the murals, sculptures, manuscripts and peoples’ practices at the Burmese stūpas and temples.
THE LAKSHMI MITTAL SOUTH ASIA INSTITUTE, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
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Upper Myanmar Manuscript Preservation Project | Wintersession Internship in Sagaing, Myanmar Kusalagnana Derangala | Internship | Harvard Divinity School ‘17 | Master of Divinity We photographed, sorted the manuscripts, and took notes as we progressed on the work. This will help the scholars working on the Burmese manuscripts in the future. We were supervised by Harvard doctoral student Charles Carstens and his colleagues. After graduating with my Master of Divinity at Harvard, I will pursue my doctoral studies and further research on editing and translating Pāli manuscripts. For this valuable work, the ability to read and use manuscripts in Myanmar script is highly valuable. With that spirit and determination, I look forward to going back to Myanmar and continue working on the Upper Myanmar Manuscript Preservation Project. Thank you to the Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute for your farsighted vision that enabled international students such as me to strengthen new avenues of research and scholarship in a place like Myanmar. Kusalagnana Derangala and Priyarakkhit Sraman
I am so fortunate to be part of the Upper Myanmar Manuscript Preservation Project funded by the Harvard South Asia Institute. In January 2017, I travelled with my Bangladeshi colleague Ven. Priya Rakkhit from Harvard to Myanmar for the first time. When I went to Sagaing Hills in Upper Myanmar and I saw the abandoned palm leaf manuscripts, I was filled with joy and gratitude for being able to explore those palm leaf manuscripts that have not been touched for centuries. Before this trip, I worked on palm leaf manuscripts in Sinhalese script in Sri Lanka during my undergraduate and graduate studies. As a Buddhist monk, I believe that I have a huge responsibility to preserve the words of the Buddha for future generations. Although it was challenging to learn a new script such as Burmese, my Pāli language skills helped me to read without any issue. Since there is a huge exchange between Sri Lankan and Burmese Buddhist scholarship from the ancient times, I felt like I was walking on an ancient path that extends on the hidden treasures of Buddhism.
THE LAKSHMI MITTAL SOUTH ASIA INSTITUTE, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
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The Wildlife Conservation Trust | Wintersession Internship in Mumbai, India Mei Yin Wu | Harvard College ‘17 | Applied Mathematics
Mei Yin Wu and coworkers at Chhatrapati Aiport, Mumbai
This wintersession I interned with the Wildlife Conservation Trust as a fellow working in the economics division. Having travelled a fair bit, I was surprised to find Mumbai a beast of its own. During the first couple of days in the city, I was overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of people and traffic. Mumbai is one of the ten most densely populated cities in the world (8 of which are in the Indian subcontinent). Due to the enormous size of the population, there is a large demand for motor vehicles, which inevitably contributes to higher levels of particulate matter in the air. Issues such as air pollution and water sanitation safety, however, are by no means unique to India. Most developing countries face these problems and in fact, most developed countries have experienced these issues in the past. But generally with consistently high growth rates, like the ones India has recently enjoyed, comes increased expectations for quality of life. I believe that India will face increasing pressure to combat the environmental issues that seem inherent to the process of economic development. Despite the initial discomfort that came from adapting to new traffic patterns and air quality, I grew to appreciate the abundant diversity of Mumbai. Being a financial hub, Mumbai attracts people from all over India and as such, is home to many diverse cuisines and religious practices. I was able to sample Southern Indian street food at Matunga and “sizzlers,” Chinese Indian fusion dishes, in Nariman Point. According to my peer fellow, Pooja, people celebrate all religious holidays in Mumbai. In her circle of friends, her Muslim friends would invite her over for Eid, and she would return the favor when it came time for Diwali. Many people I spoke to seemed to disbelieve the claim of religious differences being the primary factor behind Indian-Pakistani conflict and instead viewed the conflict as a matter of politics. While the conversations I had were by no means necessarily indicative of popular opinion, it was interesting to hear local perspectives as a supplement to the views posited by Western professors. Prasad Grant Report 2017
I interned at the Wildlife Conservation Trust, which currently works in over 110 national parks and sanctuaries of India, covering tiger reserves and nature preserves. 3.5 million people live within tiger reserves and several hundred million inhabit the nature preserves. Due to the inseparability of humans and the natural environment, WCT has realized that one cannot take an isolationist approach towards conservation and as such, it seeks to promote conservation and community development in tandem. WCT’s initiatives have two goals: economic empowerment and minimization of environmental degradation. During my time in Mumbai, I became familiarized with the different levels of wildlife protection granted by the government, as well as about how WCT has evolved from an entity that grants donations to causes, to a standalone non-profit with formal programs. One such initiative employs and trains communities living on tiger reserves to be part of the forest guard force. Forest guards are necessary to mitigate human wildlife conflict, as well as to protect wildlife from poaching. Prior to my arrival, WCT had conducted surveys to collect general information from these communities. After initial data wrangling and exploring descriptive statistics from a dataset of 360 respondents in the Greater Tadoba Landscape, I gained insight into energy consumption and crop patterns. I determined that 90% of the sample population used firewood as their primary source of energy, with 93% of these firewood consumers collecting their own firewood. This initially seemed unsurprising given that firewood is freely available for extraction in the forest and has been traditionally the primary means of attaining energy. However, recently liquefied petroleum gas, or LPG, has been offered at no cost to these households through government subsidization, which causes one to wonder why residents still opt to devote time and energy to collecting firewood. This behavior is worth noting on the environmental front, because burning firewood for energy not only emits pollutants, but also exacerbates deforestation. Understanding this behavior can be useful for thinking of new methods to incentivize shifting towards alternative energy sources. Also interesting to note is the fact that 70% of respondents report damages to their crops due to animal interference, with only 7% receiving compensation from the government. All of those receiving compensation report an insufficient level of compensation. Additionally, 12% of respondents report cattle loss, of which 84% blame tiger activities. These are all issues to consider when further considering how to maintain a mutually sustainable environment for human and animal communities. I am still in the process of examining additional data collected regarding health metrics of forest guards. This is important because forest guards suffering from poor health may have difficulty meeting certain performance levels, such as failing to complete their daily surveillance route. We believe that finding the most efficacious ways of optimizing the health of the forest task force would lead to greater gains in conservation efforts. 9
This internship opportunity not only allowed me to learn a lot about the intersection of economic empowerment and conserving animal populations, but also about the context in which work is conducted in India. For example, while I was familiar with high bureaucratic hurdles such as permit applications, I was surprised to learn of extensive institutionalized corruption embedded in daily life. I also realized that India has a drastically different set of resources and priorities compared to the US. On my first day at the office, I overheard a conversation during which someone said a policy that does not impact at least a million people is a not policy worth talking about. Due to the size of the Indian population, problems are tackled from a different angle. The activation energy for implementation is much higher. Policies and initiatives, compared to those in the US, must affect a relatively higher population to merit pursuing. I am grateful for not only new perspectives into a very interesting interdisciplinary field, but also a new network of warm and helpful colleagues at WCT. I look forward to continue collaborating and learning with my WCT family in the future.
THE LAKSHMI MITTAL SOUTH ASIA INSTITUTE, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
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Identifying Roots Causes Behind Achievement Gaps in State-Regulated Madrasas | Wintersession Internship in Chandpur, Bangladesh Zayan Faiyad | Harvard College ‘18 | Economics MAIN INSIGHTS Government regulations both a boon and a burden: Contrary to my previous understanding, state regulated Madrasas were not entirely funded in the categories of expenses designated under the Madrasa Education Board. For example, although teachers at state regulated Madrasas are supposed to be on government payroll and registered in a government MPO registry, only a handful are actually MPO registered and receive state funding. The rest of the teachers are paid by the institutions’ fund, creating a huge disparity in the pay of teachers within an institution that leads to stratification within the teaching staff and lower morale for non-MPO teachers. Signboard of a Madrasa based in Chandpur, Bangladesh
13.8% of total primary school and over 20% of total secondary school enrollment in Bangladesh are in Islamic schools, popularly known as Madrasas. An overwhelming majority of Madrasas are in rural areas, comprised primarily of students coming from low income families and are known to have a persistent achievement gap. Over the wintersession, I conducted interviews in several state regulated schools (Aliya Madrasa) across 3 districts: Dhaka (2 schools), Mymensingh (3 schools) and Chandpur (7 schools). I conducted interviews with 2 officials from the Madrasa Education Board in Dhaka, Madrasa administrators (mostly school principal or next point of contact), teachers and students. Experience with interviews: Although we had received prior commitment from 13 Madrasas allowing us to visit and speak with stakeholders, one male-only Madrasa denied our request to enter. The only administration official present on the premises said that he was not informed about our arrival and the principal (our contact) was unreachable by phone. Other institutions were relatively welcoming. Some institutions had pre-designated which teachers we could speak to while others allowed us to interview any and all teachers. About half generously allowed me to sit in classes and follow the lessons. Administrator and teacher responses varied in openness: most answered our questions with sufficient details, some sounded more guarded in their response and a few asked us what we hope to do with their answers. In the first few schools, we held focus groups within the school premises with students selected by the teachers. We realized that we were not getting many responses: some students were shy and others did not want to identify any shortcomings due to trust issues, (i.e. if we were trustworthy or how responses might be perceived by their peers). Therefore, we changed our method and selected individuals or groups of friends to speak to us as they were leaving classes. That exhibited some improvement in the responses that we were getting. Prasad Grant Report 2017
If a Madrasa would like to be eligible for state funding, they have to teach the state designed curriculum and have to commit to following certain state recommendations. The government provides books free of cost for adopting the standardized curriculum, but the cost of stationaries, classroom furniture, and upkeep of premises are often paid for by the school. While coming under government regulation reduces some of the financial uncertainty faced by previously autonomous schools that were dependent on donations, they also impose certain extra administrative costs. For example, state regulations require that the maximum class size has to be 40 students. So, some institutions have to open another section if they exceed the limit by even 5 people while not having enough teachers to service both classes. Sometimes teachers have to cut down total instruction time to be able to teach both sections. The state provides funds allocated for miscellaneous administrative costs but often these schools do not receive them in practice. Some administrators complained that they can only pick up the checks from the local government offices if they provide a hefty bribe to the officials. Sometimes, there is no check to be picked up. Once a school becomes state regulated, donors automatically become less likely to donate to the school assuming they have adequate funds. Therefore, traditional methods of fundraising become less available for these schools and some have introduced tiered school fee systems to cope (no school fees charged previously). Same learning challenges, different cultural challenges: Many of these schools face the same challenges as most under-resourced schools: teacher absenteeism, low teacher morale, student absenteeism, etc. However, there are also some unique challenges. Strong religious sentiments are at odds with the more secular undercurrents of the state designed curriculum. Some administrators openly expressed sentiments that they feel their religious identity is under attack from anti-Islamic, pro-modern, pro-globalization forces. As such, some teachers may disagree with certain aspects of the curriculum and may not be willing to teach students those lessons. Other teachers feel stretched thin and expressed dissatisfaction with having to teach subjects that 11
they have no training in. It is important to note that many of these teachers are products of the previously non-regulated Madrasa system that focused excessively on religious education and many start their jobs with no prior teaching experience or training. The stratification among teachers is not the only form of discrimination prevalent in the system. Teachers seemed to have knowledge about the financial background of students and often discriminate based on that knowledge, providing less attention to students with high financial need. Madrasas almost always have a boarding option for students, unlike mainstream schools. There is also discrimination between day and boarding students, provided that most boarding students come from families which are unable to support their children and relegate the responsibility to these institutions. Discriminatory behavior from teachers and administrators seem to impact the attitudes of the students themselves; day school students start to bully boarding students, who seem to suffer from self-esteem issues that could be impacting their learning outcomes. To summarize, Aliya Madrasas face financial constraints that have not been mitigated by coming under state regulation, while learning outcomes have been kept low by a combination of resource constraint and socioeconomic disparity.
THE LAKSHMI MITTAL SOUTH ASIA INSTITUTE, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
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Assessing Educational Needs of Internally Displaced Pre-Primary Children | Wintersession Research in Kachin State, Myanmar Mary Pham | Harvard Graduate School of Education ‘17 | Master of Education I conducted a two-day training at Pinya Tigar with two IDP facilitator trainers that were identified and selected by Pinya Tigar. The two facilitator trainers are alumni of the school and had permission from their families to travel outside of Myitkyina to the IDP camps. During this training, we went over the Two Rabbits model, the content of the lessons for the pre-pilot, the way to use the SABER devices, and the ways to evaluate the pre-pilot. Fortunately, a local pre-school near our training site allowed us to practice using the SABER devices in their classrooms. It appeared to be positively received by the children in the preschool.
An IDP facilitator trainer conducting lessons with our model at an IDP camp near Laiza, Kachin State, Myanmar
Conflict in Myanmar is a politically sensitive issue, where the Burmese government and military authorities have refused to permit aid from United Nations (UN) agencies to reach displaced ethnic civilians. As a result, there is essentially no education infrastructure in the IDP camps, and essentially no education programming whatsoever at the pre-primary level. Since beginning my studies at Harvard Graduate School of Education, I became interested in exploring how social innovation can facilitate solutions taking local communities into account that international organizations, such as the UN, fail to address. Harvard Innovation Lab Project: Two Rabbits At Harvard, I have been collaborating with classmates who are also interested in education in conflict settings, which gave way to a new education venture opportunity to implement in Myanmar. My team’s project, Two Rabbits, is a social innovation venture that provides early childhood education to communities that have been marginalized by poverty, discrimination based on identity, and conflict by leveraging mp3 technology. In the Two Rabbits education model, early childhood curriculum is delivered through SABER mp3 players that require no electricity. We are targeting children in refugee and internally displaced people (IDP) camps who have experienced significant trauma and instability in their lives, and lack access to quality early childhood education. With the Harvard South Asia Institute Winter Research Grant this winter, I was able to test our model in conflict-affected areas in Myanmar. In January 2017, in collaboration with local partner Pinya Tagar, I performed a week-long pre-pilot of the Two Rabbits model in internally displaced people (IDP) camps of Kachin State. Pinya Tigar is a community-oriented school based in Myitkyina, Kachin State. They were responsible for translating and adapting a shorter, week-long version of our literacy and numeracy early childhood education curriculum into Jinghpaw Kachin language. Prasad Grant Report 2017
The main road that goes from Myitkyina to Laiza, where our pre-pilot was conducted, was closed due to the worsening situation of the conflict. As a result, I had to map out an alternative route for my two facilitator trainers to get to Laiza. They had to fly from Myitkyina to Bhamo, cross the China border, then come back from China to Myanmar into Laiza. This was quite a challenging process to coordinate with such little time in advance, but we were able to do it. Laiza is closed off to foreigners, and thus I could not travel with them from that point on. My two IDP facilitator trainers arrived to Laiza safely and stayed at the largest IDP camp on the non-government controlled area in Kachin State in Laiza, Jeyang Camp. My communication was unfortunately limited with them, and I was very concerned about whether they were okay on their own—fortunately, they were able to contact me through the social messaging app WeChat, and we were able to exchange text messages and voice messages throughout their time there. The five-day pre-pilot occurred in 3 different IDP camps surrounding Laiza, Je Yang, Woi Chyai, and Hpum Lum Yang. To illustrate the significance of these sites, during the same week we began our pre-pilot activities. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and her envoy were banned from travelling to the same region of our pre-pilot. This illustrates both the limitations of international actors to be involved in humanitarian efforts, and the importance of having local actors involved in such efforts. This also illustrates the limitations international organizations like the UN have in their operations because of their mandates with governments, and thus illustrate how alternative models can potentially increase access to education to populations that are hard to reach. The grant from SAI offered me the opportunity to run my pre-pilot program in the KIA-controlled IDP camps, which would have not occurred without such support. It provided a critical opportunity to provide evidence to potential interested donors and stakeholders that our model works successfully in conflict settings by measuring children’s competencies before and after the pre-pilot. I’m excited to see the results from the evaluation from the pre-pilot that will hopefully enable us to test the feasibility of our model in a longer pilot program. 13
Considering the Lay-Counselor Experience Through a Framework of Caregiving | Summer Research in Goa, India Angela Leocata | Harvard College ‘18 | Anthropology about them and their experience, I was often met with a pause or “Uhh…” before delving into topics they were seemingly not asked or had yet to deeply consider. I found that the counselors were deeply impacted by the program, and importantly, by their experiences of caregiving. For most of these women, this engagement was the first time they were asked about their experiences with pregnancy. Many of them had difficult pregnancies, with miscarriages, isolation, and family tension prevalent across the cohort, and thus this intervention has asked them to remember and share what were adverse events. For most this was a transformative exchange, as many counselors explained ‘feeling listened to’ for the first time.
Angela and a councelor of the care giving program
This summer marked the completion of what has become nine months of fieldwork in Goa, India. While my area of focus has shifted as I have entered and re-entered the field, what remains the same is my concern for a less considered group and curiosity towards a seemingly unasked question: namely, the experience for community health workers and the impact of health interventions on their own health and being. In my intervention of focus, mothers are trained to deliver a counseling program to other mothers with maternal depression. The program asks the counselors to reflect, engage with, and share their own memories of pregnancy. Yet, the formal study does not ask how this program and process has impacted them. Returning to Goa with this focus in mind, I had the opportunity to sit down with women who have become my friends and ask them not about the program materials or intervention content, as they are routinely interviewed about, but instead ask them to consider their own experience. I have found integrating anthropological questions and ethnographic methods into a non-anthropological context to be a challenging task. From approval of this study, to justifying its purpose to the research team, to conducting my fieldwork, I was consistently challenged. Team members, study consultants, and staff interrogated whether all of my questions fit into a public health setting, how I could measure something like experience, and what evidence I would have at the end of my data collection. I found this public-health-oriented perspective to permeate into the thinking of my informants themselves. Opening my interviews with questions such as ‘Tell me about your background,’ or later in the discussion, ‘How has this impacted you,’ the counselors would initially respond consistently with how they have in study interviews, by telling me about their background as a counselor, or the impact they perceived this having on the mothers of the intervention. After clarifying that I wanted to learn THE LAKSHMI MITTAL SOUTH ASIA INSTITUTE, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
My fieldwork also raised questions concerning the impact of the intervention materials on experiences of caregiving. Some counselors spoke of the deep limitations of these materials. One in particular voiced how a pressing concern of most pregnant women she worked with was the sexual activity of their husbands, and how that might lead to sexually transmitted diseases. As sex education is not integrated into the intervention guide, however, she never communicated this concern with her supervisors. For her, the lack of sex education in the field guide pushed her to understand it as ‘irrelevant’ despite is presence across the mothers she counseled. For other counselors, the program materials and intervention language enabled them to articulate something they have engaged with but did not have the terms for. Counselors explained how they might have had depression during pregnancy but before this experience did not have that word to understand it. The program materials seemed to have served a similar purpose. The field guide, for example, while limiting in its scope, also allows for a dialogue that was not previously had - for both the mother and counselor. I am now considering the presence of program materials and questioning how these, as anthropologists posit, ‘technologies of care’ shape the experience of caregiving. Finally, the time of my fieldwork aligned with the end of the five-year study. Throughout my time in Goa, the counselors questioned the impact the intervention has had. While they feel they have engaged with personal impact, through the change of the mothers they worked with as well as themselves, many of them are deeply disturbed that the program is over and that it will be removed from their community. The counselors self-initiated a ‘dissemination’ movement to implement this program in the community. The PI of the study at-large said this was the first time he has seen counselors attempting to implement the program themselves. The environment of my fieldwork was one of deep uncertainty with conversations of what constitutes ‘evidence’ as well as deep concerns about what is perceived as something that has been lost for both mothers and counselors. While I returned to Goa to focus on caregiving, I realize now that I am looking more specifically at caregiving in the context of a randomized control trial. With this, I will continue to ask questions and think through the limitations and possibilities of a context that is deeply controlled, and interrogate how this affects caregiver experience. 14
Cyanide & Gold: Family, Caste, and the Post-Extractive Landscape at the Kolar Gold Fields | Summer Research in Karnataka, India Ranjani Srinivasan | Harvard Graduate School of Design ‘18 | Master in Design Studies that continue to separate the coloniser from the brahmin and the brahmin from the Dalit. The meanings associated with “Waste” - unwanted, excess, useless, worthless, refuse, debris, litter- can not only describe the perceptions of lives and associated labor which occupy it, but the progressive dissipation of the settlement once occupied by those formerly mentioned lives. The spatial and labor dimensions of caste have traditionally associated Avarna communities with both the handling of “waste” and the occupation of waste sites. In the case of KGF, it is noticeable that this is an ongoing theme, although ironically the aims in situ were those involved in the mining of gold- a commodity high in constructed value. Further the politics of gold consumption, bodily ornamentation and accumulation intermesh with high ritual caste status. For this reason, the production of gold and the consumption of it as commodity is reflective of stratifications of caste labor. My grandmother, Rukmini Paati, and my father walking down Kolar Road, 1960
Kolar Gold Fields (KGF) is illegible unless read through the machinations of extractive governance, first by the British and then by the democratic Indian State. This history is inextricably linked to KGF’s political and natural economy. Natural economy, due to the gold which is mined from the Champion Reef and Oorgaum shafts. It is this mining activity that has not only led to the making of KGF, but to the ecological degradation of the region and loss of local livelihoods of the Tamil migrants. Political economy, because the main actors running the mines were first the British and later the Bharat Gold Mines Limited (BGML). This essay traces the historical transformations of Kolar Gold Fields using the analogy of waste and value from its inception as a highly segregated mining township of British India to its current post-extractive condition. By comparatively studying the narratives of Savarna kinship to those of the Dalit miners, within the political, economic, and environmental settings that condition them, I attempt to ask larger questions about development, resource extraction, colonialism and caste labor with reference to Indian urbanization. Waste & Value The historical processes that have created KGF and transformed it into the present can be viewed through the analogy of “Waste” as the by-product of the capitalist production of “Value”. The designation “Waste” indicates the lives, sites and things forcibly separated from “Value” by social stratification and capitalist production (Gidwani and Reddy 2011), but this indexing is only superfluous, as sites such as KGF transition from “waste” to “value” and back again, dependent upon their positioning within the spatial networks of capital within a historical moment. From the formative operations in siting cyanide “waste” within KGF to the journeys taken by the gold bullion through the global networks of capital accumulation, both allude to racial and caste differences Prasad Grant Report 2017
By inverting the lens used to study “Waste” and “Value” sites in Urban Studies, the story of Kolar Gold Fields demonstrates the changing nature of these. The ebb and flow of history transformed KGF from an industrial center, fed by indentured labor from the agricultural periphery of North Arcot in the late 1800s and vital center to the growth of Madras and Bangalore to a forgotten post extractive hinterland it is today. Family: Remembering Kolar Gold Fields The journey that has led me back to KGF has been a circuitous one. I have always known of Kolar Gold Fields and yet not known anything about it at all. Hazily constructed through family stories and recollections, KGF was a landscape entirely constructed for me by my grandmother, Rukmini Paati. A matriarch, immaculately clad in a blue gadwal sari, her nose sparkled with a diamond mookutti. Sitting in her favorite chair in the living room surrounded by a pile of books and clutching a Sportstar in one hand, her persona is simultaneously that of inertia and alertness. A storytelling generally lasted till lunch, vivid in its descriptions of the colonial bungalows of Andersonpet adorned with exquisite stucco work, the Company Clubhouse and its badminton court, the family house in the Robertsonpet Agraharam, the prowess of Carnatic singers who frequented the Bangalore tiled music sabha and the serenity of this industrial township intermittently disturbed by the siren. My father would supplement this story with laments on the poor state of town planning today, the failings of democracy and lack of interest in restoring this nostalgic KGF landscape of his youth. In family stories, KGF is consistently painted as an idyllic location with beautiful British bungalows and gulmohar trees. My grandmother often recounted many afternoons of playing badminton at the KGF Club, which had ‘desegregated’ post-Independence. My father described his childhood in KGF to be “the best days of his life”. This nostalgic mood creates a resistance to challenge, 15
and there tends to be a “cultural lag” once major alterations have occurred in the social fabric of human affairs. It is difficult to transgress from these ‘Brahminical’ constructions of the KGF landscape. Although Rukmini Paati spent the greater part of her life breaching the normative gender expectations of a woman in her time, her position within the larger processes that created and sustained Brahmin identity through the centuries have engendered certain points of view.
in dismal conditions. The Dalit labor were settled at Marakuppam and eleven raised plinth thresholds lining the streets of an agraharam. Based on the racial zoning which undergirded the structuring of the settlement, mountains of cyanide mud were dumped in the areas bordering the Dalit settlements at Marikuppam. Cyanide dust storms were [and are] common, spreading the occurrence of silicosis to miner families.
Many of the family members I interviewed lauded advances in Dalit emancipation, such as entry into temples and affirmative action. Many of them have often directly challenged discriminatory treatment of Dalit domestic workers. It would be too simplistic to deem them as intentional oppressors, but it is necessary to deconstruct these nostalgic imaginations of a place which are inextricably linked to caste experience. It has also been equally difficult for me to dissect these landscapes and ask questions on the omitted, the invisible. The colonial settlement as well as the Agraharam, that I describe later, actively creates these segregated imaginations. Just as discursive writing dwells on locations only when they are linked to capitalist value production, the body which inhabits valued sites draws a socio-spatial boundary between itself and the outside. From Pariah to Dalit The events of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw a splintering of Indian agricultural society refracted through a lens of colonial capitalist production, with the dispossessed landless agricultural Dalit labor taking up the most dangerous and menial forms of industrial labor, such as mining or sewage treatment, while landed Brahmins began to occupy the second rung in British Indian administrative apparatus. Changes in the political economy of the agrarian villages of Tamil Nadu meant that the fortunes of the Paraiyans were now tied to boom-bust cycles of the industrial extractive complex of KGF. Their avarna status which associated them with impurity and waste meant they could only occupy the periphery of this site both spatially and metaphorically, just as they had done in the villages they had left behind. Gold and Cyanide Given the racial overtones in the structuring of labor relations, a cursory glance at the map of KGF is enough to recognize the highly segregated nature of the settlement, which was indeed typical of most colonial townships. The actual residential area of the town was divided into separate quarters for the British managers, the Italian engineers, the Anglo Indians, the native Brahmins, and the Dalit mineworkers. In stark contrast to the fineries of the European dwellings and the modest ones of the Brahmins, the actual mine workers lived THE LAKSHMI MITTAL SOUTH ASIA INSTITUTE, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
The Cyanide Hills from Marikkupam
Representing Labor Despite these dire living and labor conditions, the move from mirasi agricultural labor to industrial wage labor was perceived to be emancipatory by Dalits. On 1st January 1929, the Government of Mysore passed the Workmen’s Compensation Act which superseded older forms of compensation instituted at KGF. The implications of this act led to the miners’ leading a strike in 1930, an important moment for labor mobilization even though it became an invisible footnote in the national struggle for independence. The history of Dalit emancipation runs counter-narrative to the popular national conception of the Indian Independence movement and prevailing attitudes towards British colonialism. The colonial capitalist industrial society was far from ideal, but it was perceived to be less oppressive than the agrarian village by many Dalits. Bharat Gold Mines Limited KGF started to experience a decline, and the nationalization of the mines did not herald any improvement in labor benefits for the miners. Meanwhile, more than two hundred years of mining activity had caused steady building up of environmental hazards within the site of KGF. The extraction of minerals from earth in the form of underground mining causes less damage to the environment compared to surficial mining, but the main concern is mining waste disposal. Mine wastes slowly accumulated in these areas since 1880, containing sodium cyanide, which is used (0.1% to 0.2%) along with lime to extract gold. In some low-lying areas, froth started surfacing from acidification of the tailing materials of sulphide dust and its interaction with water. The pollution of land and water made agricultural production in the areas surrounding KGF impossible. 16
My father and his cousin in the Ropertsonpet Agraharam
“There is nothing there” In 2001, the mines closed. The official narrative blamed depleted gold reserves and the heavy losses incurred by the BGML. Presently, KGF wears a haunted, deserted look, with much of its population commuting daily to Bangalore for work. The location of KGF as a town at the periphery of Bangalore, occupied primarily by a linguistic minority of Dalits from Tamil Nadu and a place that has passed its prime as a center of capitalist production, renders it a forgotten hinterland of little value. Planning attempts by the State to locate desalination plants at KGF and use the deep mine shafts to dispose of nuclear waste have been met by fierce local opposition. Speculations were rife at the possibility of KGF turning into Bangalore’s next landfill. Conclusion Post-extractive sites like KGF stand as a testament to the impermanence of capitalist success, where the act of remembering is inherently political. The production of value such as gold depends on the invisibility of the parallel production of waste. KGF’s history defies the normative discourse on environmentalism and development. It also stands at odds with nationalist understandings of colonialism and emancipation. The transition of the Dalit community from the agrarian village to migratory labor speaks to reproduction rather than remaking of social motifs. Although KGF plays an important role in transitioning the Pariah to the Dalit, the new environmental activism of Dalit organizations in KGF seeks to imagine a moment quite different from the whole history of their community, when Dalit labor can occupy a space of value.
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Navigating Flux: A Cartographic Study of the Relationship of Indigenous People with Cloud Forests | Summer Research in Tamil Nadu, India Rhea Shah | Harvard Graduate School of Design ‘18 | Master in Landscape Architecture knowledge about forest conservation and wildlife sustenance through interviews, conversations and observations made while living with them. The Solega do not draw maps or mark territories; they live in fluidity and traditionally practice shifting agriculture within the 400 odd acres of the BR Hills. The Solega inhabit time, not space. They map changes, fluctuations, movements, tracks and signs. Theirs is a world in flux – the only permanence is the “podu” – the forest home, the home forest.
Traditional Khasi musicians in a village home
Over the course of the summer, I explored two sites employing two different methodologies - the Western Ghats and Khasi Hills. In the Western Ghats, I focused on a particular site, the Bilirigiriranga Hills Tiger Reserve (BR Hills). I worked with the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), independent researchers from Nalanda University and the Indian Institute of Science and the Solega tribe of BR Hills in the core area of the Tiger Reserve. The Solega have inhabited or rather been an integral part of the BR Hills ecosystems through the entire duration of their existence. Their lives, diets, rituals and festivities are integrally woven into the temporal and geological cycles of the forest. Through time, their practices of agriculture, foraging and hunting have contributed to the fragile ecosystem of the forest. Over interviews, I learned that the Solega tongue contains an expansive knowledge of the types of ecosystems and ecological processes. The Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, and subsequently the establishment of BR Hills as a Tiger Reserve in 2011, has led to dramatic changes in the Solega lifestyle and their relationship with the forest. The spread of the invasive species Lantana Camara, for instance, has left a deep impact on the forest ecology. Traditional Solega medicinal and nutritional plants, building materials and honey are becoming scarce. The impenetrable Lantana thicket covers vast expanses, restricting local grasses, wild animals and the Solega’s movements through the forest, increasing human-animal conflicts. The Forest Department’s aggressive prevention of forest fires, which would have otherwise burned through the lantana growth has also fueled their spread. Through a series of interviews and conversations with the locals, I tried to understand the Solega perspective of the ecology and terrain and their attachment to it. I sought to excavate traditional THE LAKSHMI MITTAL SOUTH ASIA INSTITUTE, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
I also spent a large amount of time in Aranya Bhavan, in Bangalore, home of the Karnataka State Forest Department, interviewing officers - from the Range Officers to the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests understanding the methodology and heritage of the Department, tracing the roots back to the drawings and elaborate forestry plans of British Colonial India, through the department’s archives. I intend to continue to work on the research through this semester by creating a language that visualizes the Solega’s relationship with the forest and traditional forest management practices and yet relates to the syntax that dictates the working of the Forest Department. At the Khasi Hills, rather than focusing on one site, I visited several villages and forests. The landscape is consistently moist; water is both atmospheric and very physical. The landscape is woven with lush thick rainforests and green misty moors where the soils do not run deep. The Khasi are traditional nature worshippers, praying to living organisms and forces. Scattered across the Khasi hills are around forty seven sacred groves. These groves have traditionally been the homes of the living Khasi deities and have been protected by rich cultural and religious laws. Nothing is hunted, killed, maimed, foraged or even taken out of the sacred grove. The forest is left to function as a living organism, and the fertility of the groves in turn spreads out through the lands, allowing for rich cultivation and agriculture. While a cursory glance may show a Khasi relationship with the forest that is quite like that of a modern day environmentalist’s, a deeper look reveals that the hesitation in altering certain areas of nature arises from starkly different premises. While the modern environmentalist looks to humanity to protect Nature from itself, the Khasi revere and fear the living deities and dare not disturb their forest forms. Dire consequences befall any person that chooses to defy the laws of the sacred grove. The forest deities have to be appeased with sacrifices to reduce their wrath if a crime is committed. Ryngkew Basa, or the forest deity, resides in the forest and the sacred grove is his home. The Khasi relationship with the Basa is essential to the protection of these groves. Welsh missionaries arrived in the Khasi Hills in the 1800’s. The first Presbyterian 18
Welsh Church was built in 1841. Nearly 85% of Meghalaya’s population today is Christian. At the sacred groves I visited, I learned that the last ceremonies in the grove took place about eighty to a hundred years ago. Many of the interviewed Khasi said that since they worship God in the church now, the grove is no longer sacred. This change in religious belief has had disastrous effects on the sacred groves. Many have been cut and the trees sold for wood. Several others are shrinking, as the cultural influence of the rules protecting them grows weaker. It is interesting to note here that the sacred groves of Meghalaya are not Reserved State Forests. They are owned and protected through the village dorbar (council). While most Khasi people still believe in protecting the sacred groves for their children and future generations, the death of a cultural and religious imperative that created a sense of belonging with the forests has been detrimental to their preservation. The sacred groves have great ecological importance. They contain many endangered species of plants and trees, they provide a habitat for wildlife and they act as preserves for microbial cultures. They absorb rainwater and protect the soil, which is crucial in a land of powerful rain and rivers like Meghalaya. With rising pressures for land and increasing tourism in the Khasi hills, it is essential that sacred groves are better protected. A deeper understanding of Khasi traditions and of the nature of the relationship between culture and conservation is required to continue to preserve the sacred groves. It would be powerful to contemplate changes to the legal status of the sacred groves and consider ways to recreate or reinvent a culture around the sacred groves. Culture can have powerful impacts on the environment. Changes to Khasi culture have led to marked changes in the forests around them. Can culture be redesigned to cherish and protect the environment? Can we invent mythology that functions to protect nature?
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LAKSHMI MITTAL SOUTH ASIA INSTITUTE, HARVARD UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION Cambridge: Tarun Khanna, Director Meena Hewett, Executive Director Abanish Rizal, Assistant Director Jee Soo Kang, Programs Coordinator Amy Johnson, Communications Coordinator Hasit Shah, Communications Affiliate
STEERING COMMITTEE
ADVISORY COUNCIL
Ali Asani, Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, FAS; Director, Alwaleed Islamic Studies Program, FAS
Syed Babar Ali (AMP ’73) KP Balaraj (MBA ’97) Sumir Chadha (MBA ’97) Purandar and Kuntala Das (PA; New York) Mark Fuller (AB ’75, MBA ’78, JD ’79) and Jo Froman (Cambridge, MA) Meera Gandhi (New York) Vikram Gandhi (MBA ’89, ExEd ’00) Mala Haarmann (AB ’91, MBA ’96) Anuradha and Anand Mahindra (AB ’77, MBA ’81) Karen (AB ’82) and Sanjeev Mehra (AB ’82, MBA ’86) Victor Menezes (PA, New York) Arif Naqvi (Dubai) Chandrika and Dalip Pathak (NH; London) Chandni and Mukesh Prasad, (AB ’93; New York) Sribala Subramanian and Arvind Raghunathan (NH; New York) Rajiv and Anupa Sahney (Mumbai) Parul (Kolkata) and Gaurav Swarup (MBA ’80) Tom Varkey (MBA ’97; New York) Arshad Zakaria (AB ’85, MBA ’87)
Homi Bhabha, Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities, Department of English, FAS; Director, Mahindra Humanities Center, FAS
In Region: Sanjay Kumar, India Country Director, Delhi Office Garima Aggarwal, Grants Manager Farhana Siddiqui, Staff Assistant, Delhi Office
Jacqueline Bhabha, Director of Research, FXB Center for Health & Human Rights; Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights, HSPH; Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Lecturer in Law, HLS; Adjunct Lecturer, HKS
Mariam Chughtai, Director, Pakistan Programs Pukar Malla, Program Consultant, Kathmandu
David Bloom, Chair, Department of Global Health and Population, HSPH; Clarence James Gamble Professor of Economics and Demography, HSPH Nicholas Burns, Sultan of Oman Professor of the Practice of International Relations, HKS; Director, Future of Diplomacy Project, HKS Martha Chen, Lecturer in Public Policy, HKS; Affiliated Professor, GSD; International Coordinator, WIEGO Network Diana Eck, Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies and Fredric Wertham Professor of Law and Psychiatry in Society, FAS; Member of the Faculty of Divinity, HDS Tarun Khanna, Director, Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute; Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor, HBS Jinah Kim, Gardner Cowles Associate Professor of History of Art & Architecture, FAS Asim Khwaja, Sumitomo-Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development Professor of International Finance and Development, HKS Jennifer Leaning, François-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights, HSPH; Director, FXB Center for Health and Human Rights Rahul Mehrotra, Professor of Urban Planning and Design, GSD Venkatesh Murthy, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, FAS Parimal G. Patil, Professor of Religion and Indian Philosophy, Committee on the Study of Religion, FAS; Chair, DSAS Jukka-Pekka Onnela, Assistant Professor of Biostatistics, HSPH Fernando Reimers, Ford Foundation Professor of International Education, HGSE; Director, International Education Policy Program, HGSE Kristen Stilt, Professor of Law, HLS; Director, Islamic Legal Studies Program, HLS
ARTS COUNCIL Faculty Director: Jinah Kim, Gardner Cowles Associate Professor of History of Art & Architecture, FAS Chair: Dipti Mathur (USA) Poonam Bhagat (Mumbai, India) Anurag Bhargava (New York and Delhi, India) Radhika Chopra (New Delhi, India) Aparajita and Gaurav Jain (Delhi, India) Chandrika Pathak (London, UK) Sanjay and Pinky Reddy (India) Omar Saeed (Pakistan) Sana Rezwan Sait (New York) Nadia and Rajeeb Samdani (Dhaka, Bangladesh) Osman Khalid Waheed (Karachi, Pakistan)
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