Namit Arora and Romila Thapar on how identities in early and medieval India were formed, contested, and why a shared sense of “Indianness” may be a colonial-era development
From Panchayat-era moralism to donor-driven publishing, and today a rising crop of local initiatives, the shifts in Nepal’s children’s literature reflect the difficult history of the country itself
Four new books spotlight mobility in post-liberalisation cities across India and Pakistan, showing how everyday movement, inequality and aspiration shape urban citizenship beyond “world-class” infrastructure
‘Mother Mary Comes To Me’, Arundhati Roy’s memoir of love, loyalty and the larger-than-life Mrs Roy, puts into perspective a whole career of writing about the problem of belonging
Four new books open up debate on why same-sex marriage has come to anchor queer politics in India, and how the notions and politics of Southasian queer life shift across local, diasporic and transnational scales of identity and belonging
Two new books look at how Johnson & Johnson for decades put profits ahead of patients – including with contaminated baby power and faulty hip implants – and expose the failures of pharmaceutical regulation in India and the United States
On the precipice of generalisations, ‘The Gujaratis’ exposes a shameful underside of Gujarati pride, Gujarat’s conflicted cultural landscape, and the community’s broader moral and political failings
A fellow Tamil-descent immigrant writer reflects on the Sri Lankan-British poet Vidyan Ravinthiran’s memoir ‘Asian/Other’, exploring the porousness of identity in the Southasian diaspora and the challenges of writing beyond Western expectations
The sanctioned former Sri Lankan navy chief’s memoir contains potential admissions relevant to alleged crimes committed during the country’s civil war, and raises serious questions of publisher accountability
The ambitious Shabdakalpa project, launching in 2028, aims to map the history of every Bengali word in digital form, preserving cultural memory and inspiring future Southasian language initiatives
