Talk:Yasmin Saikia

By Sachi Anjunkar

Yasmin Saikia is Professor, Hardt-Nickachos Chair in Peace Studies (Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict) and SHPRS History Faculty at Arizona State University. She is also an affiliated faculty, Center For Asian Research as of September. According to her university profile, her research focuses on the histories of memory and identity; women, war, and peace; histories of premodern and contemporary South Asia (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) and engaging the history of Islam and Islamic values of peace.

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, caste as of May 2023.

In 2021, she along with Hibatullah Akhundzada, the supreme leader of the Taliban, co-signed a letter supporting "Dismantling Global Hindutva" Conference, as an academic and scholar 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 endorsing a letter submitted by the South Asia Faculty Group where it addressed the State Board of Education, California Department of Education, dated May 17, 2016. In this letter they requested removing the word India from textbooks. In addition, they falsely stated:

1. "There is no established connection between Hinduism and the Indus Civilization."
2. "It is inappropriate to remove mention of the connection of caste to Hinduism."

Publications related to India

1. Saikia, Yasmin. Fragmented Memories: Struggling to Be Tai-Ahom in India. Duke University Press, 2004.
2. Saikia, Yasmin. Assam and India: Fragmented Memories, Cultural Identity and the Tai-Ahom Struggle. Permanent Black, 2005.
3. Saikia, Yasmin, and Amit Baishya, editors. Northeast India: A Place of Relations. Cambridge University Press, 2017.
4. Saikia, Yasmin. "Hijrat and Azadi in Indian Muslim Imagination and Practice: Connecting Nationalism, Internationalism, and Cosmopolitanism." Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, vol. 37, no. 2, 2017, pp. 201-212.
5. Saikia, Yasmin. "Uncolonizable: Freedom in the Muslim Mind in Colonial India." South Asian History and Culture, vol. 7, no. 2, 2016, pp. 117-134.
6. Saikia, Yasmin. "Assam, India and Southeast Asia: The Tai-Ahom Connection." Seminar, no. 550, June 2005, pp. 59-65.
7. Saikia, Yasmin. "The Landscape of Identity: Transacting the Labels Indian, Assamese, and Tai-Ahom in Contemporary Assam." Contemporary South Asia, vol. 10, no. 1, March 2001, pp. 73-93.
8. Saikia, Yasmin. "'Postcolonial Other'." The Routledge Companion to Northeast India, edited by Tanka Subba and Jelle J.P. Wouters, Routledge, forthcoming.
9. Saikia, Yasmin. "Sir Sayyid on History: The Indian Rebellion of 1857 and Rethinking the 'Rebellious' Muslim Question." Cambridge Companion to Sayyid Ahmad Khan, edited by Yasmin Saikia and Raisur Rahman, Cambridge University Press, 2019, pp. 17-37.
10. Saikia, Yasmin. "The Muslims of Assam: Present/Absent History." Northeast India: A Place of Relations, edited by Yasmin Saikia and Amit Baishya, Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 111-134.
11. Saikia, Yasmin. "'Introduction'." Northeast India: A Place of Relations, edited by Yasmin Saikia and Amit Baishya, Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 1-23.
12. Saikia, Yasmin. "Local Nationalism or Secessionism? History, Politics, and Identity Struggle of Tai-Ahom in Assam." Heterotopias: Nationalism and the Possibility of History in India, edited by Manu Bhagavan, Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 13-43.
13. Saikia, Yasmin, and Syed Tehseen Raza. 'Local Values of Peace: Women's Roles in Forging Peaceful Communities in Jammu and Kashmir and Northeast India.' Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration, A Government of India Initiative, submitted on November 14, 2019.
14. Saikia, Yasmin, and Madhumita Sengupta. 'Colonialism and Post-Colonialism: Comparative Readings in History.' Govt. of India's Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN), submitted on October 15, 2019.
15. Saikia, Yasmin. 'Muslims in Assam: Challenging Humanity.' Paper presented at the Dismantling Global Hindutva Conference, September 11, 2021.