Editorial Note

I am pleased to announce that the Department of History, Kirori Mal College, Delhi University, has released the first issue of its Annual Journal 'KMC History of South Asian Studies'.

The journal aims to give graduate students, and research scholars a research platform, and provide them with first hand exposure to engage with the primary and secondary sources and contribute to the ongoing debates of historical research. We also welcome research papers from scholars and college professors with the objective of widening the scope of our journal.

South Asia has been an important geographical location for historians to work on different aspects of historiographical approaches. South Asia, the home to the world’s earliest civilizations has a rich history of culture, ethnicity, politics, and literature. It is indeed important to note that the South Asian countries with varied geographical features share certain chief customs, practices, and beliefs and therefore are beautifully connected since the beginning of time. We encourage young researchers to observe South Asia from different angles of the prism. We look forward to the interdisciplinary approach taken up, to understand various topics. The journal not only focuses on South Asian History but also aims to cover the subjects of social sciences.

We had encouraged the authors to take up any topic of relevance and share with us their perspectives. All the papers submitted went through the process of peer review, where our team of academics and scholars evaluated and reviewed the papers. This journal has been one of its kind as it encouraged the young researchers to express themselves freely. It has also offered them an ample amount of guidance regardless of the topic they decide to write on as we advocate the idea of inclusivity and believe that history has no boundaries.

I am honored to announce that we have amongst us an esteemed international advisory board consisting of Dr. Arun Kumar, Dr. B. Mangalam, Dr. Ayesha Jalal, Prof. Badri Narayan, Prof. Priyankar Upadhyay, Prof. Ravikant, Prof. Vipul Singh and Prof. Jaya S. Tyagi and many more to guide the students and scholars. The board will help the students frame their research question and will provide them with valuable guidance to help deal with the sources and their interpretation and reinterpretation.

Along with the board, our editorial team of professors and students have been dedicatedly working to edit research work as per the Chicago Style Script as per the set format of the journal.

In order to make our journal more accessible and bring in entries from students nationally, we are launching our website https://journalkmc.wixsite.com/my-site/home . Here, all the updates relating with the journal will be regularly put up here.

This first issue of KMC Journal of South Asian Studies will take you on an educational ride through the narratives of the Timurid Princess Khanzada Begum, the historic Channar Revolt, the culinary practices in modern India amongst other relevant topics. The authors of these papers have explored issues with a multidisciplinary approach and have taken a keen interest in exploring the hidden aspects of history.

We are greatly indebted to our patron Prof. Dinesh Khattar, Principal, Kirori Mal College, Delhi University, for supporting us and constantly inspiring us to work with devotion in this venture.

This journal is a product of so much hard work put in by a team of dedicated students ably led by Durrain Desnavi. This is indeed a proud moment for me and our entire History Department. We look forward to releasing more such journals and for you to be a part of it as readers and writers!

Dr. Amit K. Suman

Editor-in-Chief

KMC Journal of South Asian Studies

Manufacturing manufactureAborigines, jungle-terry, hill people and the many many...

ABSTRACT:

Fig. 1 Open Shoes, Van Gogh, 1886.

Fig. 2 Santhal Family, Ramkinkar Baij, 1938.

In the age of technicity, how does one approach a pair of open, borrowed, worn out shoes? Is there a transvaluation of esthetics, with nature (technologically dominated) becoming/as the site and means of production? One interesting manner, to look at these shoes, is by trying to place them in the feet of Baij‘s Santhal Family – a subject of unbelonging, dislocation and perhaps (colonial) spectacle. As Frank Perlin reminds us, there are limitations in a Descartian interpretation of things empirical. Thus then, rather than getting involved in a ‘description’ of these two juxtaposed figures – I simply leave them as an abstract. Using the same abstract- as a window perhaps - this paper tries to approach the tribal question.

Author: Tushar Srivastava

Full Paper: Manufacturing manufactureAborigines, jungle-terry, hill people and the many many...

Hakkas in the Heavenly Kingdom:Tracing the Hakka Identity and its expression in the Taiping Movement

ABSTRACT:

In the middle of the nineteenth century, one of the bloodiest civil wars in the history of China

known as the Taiping Movement came to the fore. It saw large-scale participation challenging

the Manchu state, particularly from the members of Hakka group. The Hakkas were the

ethnically dominant figures in the Taiping Movement, actively working towards the Taiping

vision. This paper is an attempt to explore the role of Hakka identity and its influence on the

Taiping movement. It will aim at a reconstruction of the Taiping movement and the expression

of Hakka ethnicity within it. Patterns which unified the Hakkas and Taiping followers together

are explored in the paper. Research is mostly centred around the Hakkas of Guangxi province, where the movement is said to have begun. The paper will focus on how the perception of Hakka ethnicity evolved during the Taiping. It will aim at understanding the root causes for the mass participation of the Hakkas in the Taiping Movement, and if they were a direct consequence of their ethnicity. The significance of Hakkas will be traced in particular to the religious sphere and the perception of sexes in the Taiping. To lend weight to the research, a number of contemporary sources have been referred to.

Author: Karnika Vats

Full Paper: Hakkas in the Heavenly Kingdom: Tracing the Hakka Identity and its expression in the Taiping Movement