Talk:Nilanjana Bhattacharjya

By Rutvi Dattani

Nilanjana Bhattacharjya is Barrett Honors Faculty and Affiliated Faculty, Center For Asian Research at Arizona State University, as of November 2022. According to her university profile, her research focuses on popular music, film, and visual culture from South Asia and its diasporic communities.

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

1. Bhattacharjya, Nilanjana."Gangubai Kathiawadi — an Unconventional Bombay Biopic with a Sex Worker as Hero," co-authored with Monika Mehta. Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media 61 (2022): https://www.ejumpcut.org/currentissue/Bhattacharjya%E2%80%94Mehta/index…
2. Bhattacharjya, Nilanjana. "British Asian Culture and Its Margins in East London." In Scattered Musics, 218-36: University of Mississippi Press, 2021.
3. Bhattacharjya, Nilanjana. "Mixing industrial elements, generating sexual agency in Aiyyaa," co-authored with Monika Mehta. In Industrial Networks and Cinemas of India: Shooting Stars, Shifting Geographies and Multiplying Media. Eds. Monika Mehta and Madhuja Mukherjee (Delhi: Routledge India, 2020).
4. Bhattacharjya, Nilanjana. "How sound helps tell a story: Sound, music, and narrative in Vishal Bhardwaj's Omkara. In Writing About Screen Media.(New York: Routledge, 2019), pp.149-153.
5. Bhattacharjya, Nilanjana. "Streaming, Women's Desire, and the Display of Pleasure," in Lust Stories: A Dossier. In Quorum, Film Quarterly, 2019.
6. Bhattacharjya, Nilanjana. "Doubling Offscreen and Onscreen: Queering the Star and the Fan in Fan." Framework Volume 58, nos. 1 and 2 (2017): 161-172. Co-editor (with Peter Kvetko), South Asian Popular Culture, “The Music Issue,” Volume 10, no. 3 (2012).
7. Bhattacharjya, Nilanjana. “Editorial – The Music Issue,” with Peter Kvetko, South Asian Popular Culture, Volume 10, no. 3 (2012): 219-221.
8. Bhattacharjya, Nilanjana. (Reprint) “A Productive Distance from the Nation: Uday Shankar and the Defining of Indian Modern Dance,” In South Asian Transnationalisms: Cultural Exchange in the 20th Century, Ed. Babli Sinha (New Delhi: Routledge, 2012), pp. 41-70.
9. Bhattacharjya, Nilanjana. “A Productive Distance from the Nation: Uday Shankar and the Defining of Indian Modern Dance,” South Asian History and Culture Volume 2, no. 4 (2011): 482-501.
10. Bhattacharjya, Nilanjana. "Popular Hindi Film Song Sequences Set in the Indian Diaspora and the Negotiating of Indian Identity," Asian Music Volume 40, no. 1 (2009): 53-82.
11. Bhattacharjya, Nilanjana. “From Bombay to Bollywood: Tracking Musical and Cinematic Tours,” co-written with Monika Mehta. In Planet Bollywood: The Transnational Travels of Hindi Song-and-Dance Sequences, Eds. Sangita Gopal and Sujata Moorti (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008), pp.105-131.