Chitra Sankaran

Religion and the South Asian diaspora

In the expansive manner in which ‘diaspora’ has come to be employed, the centrality of religion in the ‘classical’ understanding of the concept has been subsumed under categories such as ‘ethnicity’ and ‘culture’. Yet even as religious practices and beliefs undergo transformation in the diaspora, studies of South Asian emigrant groups show that religion remains a key marker of community identity – its pivotal role invigorated by the contemporary precipitation in global connections. By scrutinising the specific experiences, practices and contentions of a wide‐array of diasporic communities, the articles in this Special Issue reveal the renewed power of religion in the South Asian diaspora.

Transnational Tamil television and diasporic imaginings

The dynamics of globalization and digitization are not only shaping a new media order but also making significant impacts on the cultural dimensions of an older societal order in the case of the Tamil Diaspora. The emerging transnational phenomenon of Tamil television challenges constructed boundaries, contests traditionally homogenized spaces such as those of nation and homeland, questions the principle of territoriality and opens up the sphere both from without and within the national space. New media practices and flows are shaping media spaces with a built-in transnational connectivity, creating contemporary cultures pregnant with new meanings and experiences. This article aims to map the developments around transnational Tamil television. It scrutinizes the nature and impact of Tamil media emerging from Singapore and Malaysia on other parts of the diasporic Tamil world, and also alternatively, the nature and effect of Tamil media from India and elsewhere in Singapore and Malaysia. Issues of multiculturalism and the transnational media’s impact and culture will be interrogated to enable the analysis of the global remapping of media spaces and to address key issues related to situated transnational Tamil cultures.

WE WOMEN AREN'T FREE TO DIE Transacting Asian Sexualities in a Feminism Classroom in Singapore

Using feminist pedagogy and postcolonial theory, the authors of this article focus on the (re)presentation of Asian sexualities in an Asian classroom through a feminist reading of the short prose fiction “Bandong,” by Suchen Christine Lim. Constantly aware that representations of sexualities are closely linked to power, the authors question how academic knowledge can seek to (re)present Asian sexualities when that knowledge itself is deeply imbricated in power structures that empower global concepts of sexualities. The argument advanced in this article draws attention to essentialistic gender representations that continue to this day of Asian femininities and masculinities. For instance, the authors challenge the ways in which the trope of the subjugated Asian woman and man works in predictable ways to disempower Asian women and men far removed from such stereotypical locations. Critiquing dominant representations of Asian sexualities in the classroom involves teaching students to take ownership of their own reading and re-reading of texts. In addition, the article delves into how the authors attempt to make the academic package relevant to their students situated in the local Singaporean context.

Patterns of Story-telling in R. K. Narayan's The Guide:

The novel as a genre, especially in the twentieth century, has undergone a great deal of change. In The West, one can witness a movement away from the Victorian Novel form of the nineteenth century. This movement can, to an extent, be seen reflected in commonwealth countries too, where during the middle and latter half of the twentieth century, we observe a shift away from previously established western modes. In India for instance, the earlier fascination with Western form and theory, reflected in the works of Rabindranath Tagore and Sarojini Naidu, is replaced by the increasingly experimental works of the later writers. This change can be seen in the fiction of Raja Rao, as in the poetry of A. K. Ramanujam, the drama of Girish Karnad and many other writers. In the works of these writers, we notice a harking back to traditional native literatures. Thus poetry in Indo-Anglian writing very frequently incorporates the techniques of the Sanskrit kavyas, prose works adopt the ornate style of the Puranas,2 and dramas feature the poetics of Sanskrit natakas. 3 Very often these works, we find, deliberately draw attention to their experiments. This is certainly true of Raja Rao, whose works have all demonstrated a greater affinity to Sanskrit forms than to the English novel form. With Narayan’s works however, the deceptive simplicity of his fiction very often obscures his superb capacity to blend traditional Indian modes with the English novel form. Narayan’s instinctive assimilation of his native literature together with what appears to be a natural affinity to the English novel form has led to the creation of a class of fiction which appears simple only

NEGOTIATING CRISIS IN A FEMINISM CLASSROOM

Alice stood at the front of the class: it was her turn to speak. She spoke confidently in support of the idea of lesbian relationships. Students in the audience began to whisper in twos and threes. Alice continued, asserting her stand that conventional heterosexual practices make victims of women. Perhaps it was the lateness of the hour, or perhaps it was the contentious nature of the topic under discussion, but the restlessness in the room was becoming palpable. Alice continued, undaunted, illustrating her talk with various pictures including shots of female genitalia and intimate poses involving men and women. She proposed that women’s sense of self and sexual freedom can only be fulfilled through intimate female relationships. Suddenly, one student*Sharina*stood up and left the room and did not return for the rest of the hour. Blithely, Alice pressed on with her message of female self-empowerment and her suggested female responses to male dominance. This was the beginning of the crisis in our feminism classroom. Why was a controversy in the feminist classroom*surely a space for voicing dissent*a crisis? To understand this one needs to comprehend the complexities that surround our location. We are spatially situated in multi-ethnic and multi-religious Singapore, an island state that has been governed by a dominant party, the People’s Action Party (PAP), since Singapore’s independence in 1965. The peculiar nature of governance in Singapore has led Singaporeans from all walks of life to treat gender and race relations, as indeed many other sensitive topics, in a manner that is quite distinctive to Singaporeans: with a profound and pervasive silence. Furthermore, we are temporally pegged at a post-9/11 mark where race relations*particularly those between Muslims and non-Muslims*are now consciously at the forefront of our minds. Importantly, too, Alice (from the dominant Chinese community) spoke in a voice that was at odds with Sharina’s (a member of the minority Muslim Arab community). At an individual level, perhaps, it was a battle between Alice and Sharina, two students who have little in common other than that they are both homogenised by the all-encompassing label ‘Singaporean’. This paper attempts to untangle the issues triggered by the crisis in our classroom. We will detail the complex nature of Singapore as a dynamic postcolonial site, with its own intricate play of multi-ethnic and multi-religious contentions. We also attempt to address the level of feminist and racial consciousness (or the lack thereof) in the microcosm of our feminism classroom that may be emblematic of larger macro-societal attitudes towards gender and race. We wish to explain why what may have been a non-event, or merely a minor crossing of swords in other contexts, became the basis for crisis in our classroom,

Forests and ecocultural disequilibrium in two postcolonial novels from Cameroon and Singapore

Forests have always had a very special resonance with humans, one which is evidenced in the ways they are depicted in literatures and art throughout human civilization. This study attempts to look at the ways in which two contemporary authors, one Cameroonian and the other Singaporean, depict the forest in their novels. In both Linus Asong’s Crown of Thorns and Meira Chand’s A Different Sky, the nature/culture binary is shown as primal. Both narratives underline the essential inhospitability of the forests for human habitation. However, Asong’s narrative insists on the importance of ritual in negotiating this uninhabitable terrain and how, were the conduct of this ceremonial ritual to fail, the nebulous harmony between humans and this terrain will be irrevocably broken. Chand’s text, set in Second World War Singapore, reveals how, when the cultural terrain is rendered inhospitable to man due to conquest and human brutality, the forest appears as a refuge. However, this is misleading, for the essential disequilibrium between nature and culture is too deep to be overridden or resolved.

Materiality, Devotion and Compromise: A Study of Goddess Films of South India

Abstract If religions can be considered as “devotional houses,” then engaging with their materiality becomes an important way of understanding how people inhabit these houses and live their lives inside them. This is particularly pertinent to Hinduism since the different material cultures that the Hindus have constructed over millennia have helped to keep their belief systems alive. One such contemporary mediation is through films that are seen as disseminating (often distorting) ancient beliefs to modern audiences. It is from this angle that I analyze the goddess films, a fairly popular sub-genre in India, under the category of mythological films. The goddess films are traditionally thought to present the glory and power of the Hindu goddess as divine mother, savior and protector. I will argue that the experience of watching the goddess on screen re-enacts Hindu notions of darśana and hence contributes to the Hindu practice of accessing the “intangible” through material means.

Women, rivers, and serpents: Reifying the primordial link in Gita Mehta’s A River Sutra

Gita Mehta’s A River Sutra has been variously regarded as a philosophical treatise on the nature of love; as a description of the various sub-cultures within India, or sometimes even as mere entertainment – a light read. Few reviews or studies have ventured to examine the distinctively gendered nature of the narrative. This article attempts to uncover the subtle but persistent “sutra” that affirms the feminine principle throughout. The tales, beaded together in the frame narrative, connect rivers, serpents, the cult of the goddess, and the feminine principle in interesting and significant ways. It is noteworthy that this is accomplished despite the all-male coterie of characters who stud the frame narrative. The link between contemporary landscape, mythic patterns, and the feminine principle that is evidenced in the text, A River Sutra, brings to light its feminist context, one that has hitherto been overlooked.

FROM PEDAGOGY TO ACTIVISM

Abstract Accepted as a pro-woman organisation, Singapores longest established womens association, the Association for Womens Action and Research (AWARE), has operated for 25 years under the watchful eye of the authorities in Singapore. Despite its systematic interventions on behalf of women, it never enjoyed a high national profile. In March 2009, however, all this changed. A right wing religious group staged a take-over and brought AWARE to the attention of the nation. This article details how a group of current and past students of our feminism module at the National University of Singapore moved from classroom learning to spontaneous active response when AWARE faced this challenge.

Gendered Spaces in the Taipucam Festival, Singapore

The Hindu festival of Taipucam celebrated in honour of the male god Murugan is one of the public festivals that Hindus in Singapore celebrate with a great deal of aplomb and ceremony. It takes on the hue of a carnival and is a major tourist attraction. At the centre of the festival is the male kavadi bearer. Beside him walks the docile woman carrying her pot of milk. In the Taipucam festival procession, there is clearly apparent an empowered male versus a subsidiary female space, which appears determinate and confined, marking a tentative emergence of a subversive ‘feminist’ space that attempts to grasp at a measure of empowerment for women.