In this Sussex Development Lecture, cultural activist Ganesh Devy, best known for the People’s Linguistic Survey of India, will discuss three democratic popular movements in India, which have impacted Anthropology, Sociolinguistics and History over the last three decades.
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Common to all three movements, joined by academics, writers, public intellectuals and community members, was the principle of collective action as a means of knowledge production.
The first movement was mobilised for rights and justice for a large number of nomadic communities, branded as ‘criminal tribes’ in India (known as Denotified and Nomadic Tribes -DNTs).
The second movement relates to bringing back over 1,500 ‘Mother Tongues’ that are not ‘dead’ – but have been wiped from the Government’s statistical records. Finally, the third movement was one that emerged out of concerns for a partisan and biased representation of India’s past for the last 12,000 years.
Devy will present his analysis of these three movements, as well as his observations on the links between knowledge production and social action, and insights from his new book The Indians: Histories of a civilization.
Speaker
Ganesh Devy, Obaid Siddiqi Chair Professor, National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore, and Professor of Eminence at the Somaiya University, Bombay.
Chair
Saurabh Arora, Senior Lecturer in Technology and Innovation for Development, Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), University of Sussex.
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This lecture is held in the IDS Convening Space which is on the 1st floor of the IDS Building. You can access this by the IDS lift and press floor 1A. If you have any accessibility needs then please email: [email protected]
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