Madhumita Sengupta
Biographic Data
| ID | 3587330 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Madhumita Sengupta |
| GIVEN NAMES | Madhumita |
| FAMILY NAME | Sengupta |
| SIGNATURE | SENGUPTA M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9095-5924 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 6 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 8 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Health, Religion, and Politics
Most studies of Christian missionaries in British Assam have focused on their role in promoting Christianity or education, not to mention their contributions to the development and standardization of local languages. There has been a singular lack of studies concerning the immense contributions made by the missionaries in setting up a healthcare infrastructure in the region. This absence has further distorted the debate on whether the missionarie…
The Afterlives of Khadi
Khadi, the fabric, and charkha, the instrument, were powerful symbols of the anti-colonial resistance movement in India and continued to be treated with regard by the post-colonial nation-state. However, in recent times, these artefacts have undergone substantial transformation. From being symbolic of rural resurgence and self-help in Gandhian nationalist rhetoric and of an inspired vision of ethical living based on alternate concepts of modernit…
Affirmative Action and its Impact
This paper evaluates the impact of the grant of the 'Scheduled Tribe' status to the Gujjars of Jammu and Kashmir. We interacted with community members in order to understand their views. The article is based on these responses, supplemented by inputs from published government reports and other secondary studies, and is an attempt to produce a nuanced understanding of the true import of reservation for the Gujjars. We seek to understand whether th…
Empire remembered
This essay examines the complex intertwining of colonial and postcolonial subjectivities in the making of memories about the colonial past. The essay uses literature and cinema as archive and intersubjectivity as the lens to argue that memories of the Empire are culled in the complex intersection of the subjective experiences of the individual and a community's collective perceptions of the past and the present. Accordingly, the essay calls for d…
The commercialisation of Bengali food
This article argues that the failure of early twentieth-century novelistic, autobiographical and periodical literature to acknowledge or celebrate the novelty and social significance of the commercialisation of Bengali food reflected the deeply rooted caste and class prejudices underlying the dietary choices and literary styles of the Bengali bhadralok (educated middle class). As late as the 1970s, eminent Bengali littérateurs lamented the non-av…
Caste census and the impact of colonial sociology in British Assam
This essay challenges the salience of the caste question for writing a social history of modern Assam. It argues that pre-colonial records contained enough indicators for arguing that caste in Assam was never a rigid and impermeable social grid. The variegated nature of Assam’s geo-political and cultural past meant that the progress of Brahmanical culture here was neither smooth nor unmitigated. The essay argues that the region’s social and cultu…
Becoming Hindu
The use of labels such as 'isolation' or 'assimilation' to characterise tribal communities dwelling in the plains region of British Assam had a discursive history that took no notice of the region's prolonged tradition of vibrant interfaith transmissions and cultural exchanges. This essay flags a disjuncture between early ethnographic literature on the 'tribes' of the plains region of Assam, and their later enumeration in census data from the mid…
War of Words
One of the crucial features of the tussle over Assamese in the nineteenth century was that it inspired multiple imaginings of the ‘Assamese’. This article has been conceived with the aim of following some of these different mappings of the ‘Assamese’ that became the focal point of a debate over the identity of the Assamese language in nineteenth-century Assam. The article contends that neither the official nor the missionary discourses on linguis…
Affirmative Action and its Impact
This paper evaluates the impact of the grant of the 'Scheduled Tribe' status to the Gujjars of Jammu and Kashmir. We interacted with community members in order to understand their views. The article is based on these responses, supplemented by inputs from published government reports and other secondary studies, and is an attempt to produce a nuanced understanding of the true import of reservation for the Gujjars. We seek to understand whether th…
Becoming Hindu
The use of labels such as 'isolation' or 'assimilation' to characterise tribal communities dwelling in the plains region of British Assam had a discursive history that took no notice of the region's prolonged tradition of vibrant interfaith transmissions and cultural exchanges. This essay flags a disjuncture between early ethnographic literature on the 'tribes' of the plains region of Assam, and their later enumeration in census data from the mid…
The commercialisation of Bengali food
This article argues that the failure of early twentieth-century novelistic, autobiographical and periodical literature to acknowledge or celebrate the novelty and social significance of the commercialisation of Bengali food reflected the deeply rooted caste and class prejudices underlying the dietary choices and literary styles of the Bengali bhadralok (educated middle class). As late as the 1970s, eminent Bengali littérateurs lamented the non-av…
Caste census and the impact of colonial sociology in British Assam
This essay challenges the salience of the caste question for writing a social history of modern Assam. It argues that pre-colonial records contained enough indicators for arguing that caste in Assam was never a rigid and impermeable social grid. The variegated nature of Assam’s geo-political and cultural past meant that the progress of Brahmanical culture here was neither smooth nor unmitigated. The essay argues that the region’s social and cultu…
War of Words
One of the crucial features of the tussle over Assamese in the nineteenth century was that it inspired multiple imaginings of the ‘Assamese’. This article has been conceived with the aim of following some of these different mappings of the ‘Assamese’ that became the focal point of a debate over the identity of the Assamese language in nineteenth-century Assam. The article contends that neither the official nor the missionary discourses on linguis…
Caste census and the impact of colonial sociology in British Assam
This essay challenges the salience of the caste question for writing a social history of modern Assam. It argues that pre-colonial records contained enough indicators for arguing that caste in Assam was never a rigid and impermeable social grid. The variegated nature of Assam’s geo-political and cultural past meant that the progress of Brahmanical culture here was neither smooth nor unmitigated. The essay argues that the region’s social and cultu…
Becoming Hindu
The use of labels such as 'isolation' or 'assimilation' to characterise tribal communities dwelling in the plains region of British Assam had a discursive history that took no notice of the region's prolonged tradition of vibrant interfaith transmissions and cultural exchanges. This essay flags a disjuncture between early ethnographic literature on the 'tribes' of the plains region of Assam, and their later enumeration in census data from the mid…
The commercialisation of Bengali food
This article argues that the failure of early twentieth-century novelistic, autobiographical and periodical literature to acknowledge or celebrate the novelty and social significance of the commercialisation of Bengali food reflected the deeply rooted caste and class prejudices underlying the dietary choices and literary styles of the Bengali bhadralok (educated middle class). As late as the 1970s, eminent Bengali littérateurs lamented the non-av…
Empire remembered
This essay examines the complex intertwining of colonial and postcolonial subjectivities in the making of memories about the colonial past. The essay uses literature and cinema as archive and intersubjectivity as the lens to argue that memories of the Empire are culled in the complex intersection of the subjective experiences of the individual and a community's collective perceptions of the past and the present. Accordingly, the essay calls for d…
Health, Religion, and Politics
Most studies of Christian missionaries in British Assam have focused on their role in promoting Christianity or education, not to mention their contributions to the development and standardization of local languages. There has been a singular lack of studies concerning the immense contributions made by the missionaries in setting up a healthcare infrastructure in the region. This absence has further distorted the debate on whether the missionarie…
The Afterlives of Khadi
Khadi, the fabric, and charkha, the instrument, were powerful symbols of the anti-colonial resistance movement in India and continued to be treated with regard by the post-colonial nation-state. However, in recent times, these artefacts have undergone substantial transformation. From being symbolic of rural resurgence and self-help in Gandhian nationalist rhetoric and of an inspired vision of ethical living based on alternate concepts of modernit…
Affirmative Action and its Impact
This paper evaluates the impact of the grant of the 'Scheduled Tribe' status to the Gujjars of Jammu and Kashmir. We interacted with community members in order to understand their views. The article is based on these responses, supplemented by inputs from published government reports and other secondary studies, and is an attempt to produce a nuanced understanding of the true import of reservation for the Gujjars. We seek to understand whether th…
Sociology (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · South Asian Studies and Conflicts (6 works) · Colonialism (5 works) · History (5 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Politics (4 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (3 works) · Gender Studies (3 works)