Talk:Anuradha Needham

By Sachi Anjunkar

Anuradha Needham is Donald R. Longman Professor of English, Cinema Studies, and Comparative Literature at Oberlin College, as of November 2022. According to her bio, her research interest includes postcolonial studies, globalization, and the intersections of culture, identity, and power.

She has published no books, papers, or research pertaining to Hindus, the rights of Hindus, the impact or relationship between Islam and Hinduism / Hindutva, India, the Indian Government in the context of BJP government, the Indus Civilization, the impact or relationship between caste system and Hinduism as of May 2023.

In 2021, she endorsed the "Dismantling Global Hindutva" conference and made the allegation

"the current government of India [in 2021] has instituted discriminatory policies including beef bans, restrictions on religious conversion and interfaith weddings, and the introduction of religious discrimination into India’s citizenship laws. The result has been a horrifying rise in religious and caste-based violence, including hate crimes, lynchings, and rapes directed against Muslims, non-conforming Dalits, Sikhs, Christians, adivasis and other dissident Hindus. Women of these communities are especially targeted. Meanwhile, the government has used every tool of harassment and intimidation to muzzle dissent. Dozens of student activists and human rights defenders are currently languishing in jail indefinitely without due process under repressive anti-terrorism laws."

In 2016, she signed a letter addressed to the State Board of Education, California Department of Education, dated May 17, 2016. The letter stated the following:

1. "There is no established connection between Hinduism and the Indus Civilization. The Rg Veda contains numerous mentions of horses and chariots but there is no conclusive material or fossil evidence for either at any Indus valley archeological site."
2. "It is inappropriate to remove mention of the connection of caste to Hinduism."
3. "The geographic location of the Indus Civilization lies in what is now contemporary India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The use of "South Asia" to describe this shared civilizational heritage is thus entirely appropriate in some places of the framework, even though South Asia is a modern term, and some source materials use the term ‘Ancient India.' "

Publications related to India

Book Publications

1. Ghosh, Suman. “New Indian Cinema in Post Independence India: The Cultural Work of Shyam Benegal’s Films, by Anuradha Dingwaney Needham, New York and London, Routledge, 2013, 219 Pp., (Hbk), ISBN 9780415693974.” South Asian History and Culture, vol. 8, no. 3, July 2017, pp. 382–84, https://doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2017.1350412.
2. Needham, Anuradha Dingwaney, and Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, editors. The Crisis of Secularism in India. Duke University Press, 2007. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11hpmw8.

Journal Publications

1. Needham, Anuradha Dingwaney. Fictions of Feminist Ethnography. Women as Subjects: South Asian Histories. Journal of Asian Studies 1 May 1995; 54 (2): 606–608. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/2058821
2. Needham, Anuradha Dingwaney. “Contesting the Nation: Religion, Community, and the Politics of Democracy in India. Edited by David Ludden. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996. Xii, 346 Pp.” The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 56, no. 4, 1997, pp. 1135–1137., doi:10.2307/2658355.

Book Review

1. Needham, Anuradha Dingwaney. Oxford Literary Review, Volume 16 Issue 1, Page 265-272, ISSN 0305-1498 Available Online Feb 2012. https://doi.org/10.3366/olr.1994.011