The Seen and the Unseen - hosted by Amit Varma Ep 276: The Incredible Curiosities of Mukulika Banerjee
Polling Booths Create Civic Equality And Dignity
- The polling booth is a unique civic space that produces equality and discipline; for many lower-caste or poor voters it confers dignity.
- That ritualized public equality explains high turnout among disadvantaged groups.
Humanize Stereotypes By Publishing Ordinary Portraits
- Humanize stereotype-affected groups by publishing grounded biographies and portraits to counter prejudice.
- Banerjee assembled Muslim Portraits after 2002 to show ordinary lives and break monolithic depictions of Muslims.
She Tracked Down Khudai Khidmatgar Veterans Despite Barriers
- Denied permission to do fieldwork in Pakistan, Banerjee raised funds, worked in India, then covertly traveled to find surviving Khudai Khidmatgars.
- She snowballed interviews village to village, building trust until elders said, now we can die in peace.
How did one of the greatest nonviolent movements in history emerge from within the supposedly violent Pathans of the wild frontier? Why do poor people in India vote even though there seems to be no point to it? Why does an ancient garment like the sari endure -- but democracy seem in peril? Mukulika Banerjee joins Amit Varma in episode 276 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss the questions that kept her up at night -- and the lessons they hold for us. Also check out:1. Mukulika Banerjee at LSE, Google Scholar, Amazon and Twitter. 2. The Pathan Unarmed -- Mukulika Banerjee. 3. Why India Votes -- Mukulika Banerjee. 4. Cultivating Democracy -- Mukulika Banerjee. 5. The Sari -- Mukulika Banerjee and Daniel Miller. 6. Muslim Portraits: Everyday Lives in India -- Edited by Mukulika Banerjee. 7. The Life and Times of Mrinal Pande -- Episode 263 of The Seen and the Unseen. 8. Thomas Hardy on Amazon. 9. Maxim Gorky, Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov on Amazon. 10. The Proposal -- Anton Chekhov. 11. Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew on Amazon. 12. The House of the Dead -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky. 13. An American Werewolf in London -- John Landis. 14. The Emergency: A Personal History -- Coomi Kapoor. 15. Where Have All The Leaders Gone? -- Amit Varma. 16. India's Greatest Civil Servant -- Episode 167 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Narayani Basu, on VP Menon). 17. The Complete Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett. 18. Abdul Ghaffar Khan: Faith Is A Battle -- DG Tendulkar. 19. Kabuliwala -- Rabindranath Tagore. 20. Kabuliwala (1961 film) -- Hemen Gupta. 21. 'That Killed Cat Lives With Me' -- Isaac Asimov's quote. 22. The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock -- TS Eliot. 23. The Life and Times of Nirupama Rao -- Episode 269 of The Seen and the Unseen. 24. The #MeToo Movement -- Episode 90 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Supriya Nair and Nikita Saxena). 25. Urban Governance in India -- Episode 31 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan). 26. 'Tell a Sanghi/Bhakt at a job interview...' -- SirKazamJeevi's tweet. 27. A Life in Indian Politics -- Episode 49 of The Seen and the Unseen (w JP Narayan). 28. Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India — Akshaya Mukul. 29. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism — Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul). 30. Memories and Things -- Episode 195 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aanchal Malhotra). 31. Aakar Patel Is Full of Hope -- Episode 270 of The Seen and the Unseen. 32. Modeling Covid-19 -- Episode 224 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gautam Menon). 33. Can the Subaltern Speak? -- Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. 34. Gangubai Kathiawadi -- Sanjay Leela Bhansali. 35. Nehru's Debates -- Episode 262 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh and Adeel Hussain). 36. Mahanagar -- Satyajit Ray. 37. Everybody Lies -- Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. 38. The Truth About Ourselves -- Amit Varma. 39. Electoral Politics in the Time of Change -- Yogendra Yadav 40. The Economics of Voting -- Amit Varma on Rational Ignorance. 41. The Baptist, the Bootlegger and the Dead Man Walking -- Amit Varma on Lal Bihari Mritak. 42. Well Done, Abba -- Shyam Benegal. 43. Rukmini Sees India's Multitudes -- Episode 261 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rukmini S). 44. The Ferment of Our Founders -- Episode 272 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Kapila). 45. Women in Rajniti and Lokniti -- Mukulika Banerjee (Go to page 19 to read). 46. Nick Hornby on Amazon. 47. The Business of Winning Elections -- Episode 247 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shivam Shankar Singh). 48. Collective Effervescence on Wikipedia. 49. The Manchester School of Anthropology. 50. Desert Island Discs on BBC. 51. Deshe Bideshe (Bengali) (English) -- Syed Mujtaba Ali. 52. Uday Bhawalkar performs Raag Bhairav. 53. Dhrupad by Ustad Mohiuddin Dagar. 54. Songs of the Earth -- Soumik Datta. 55. Messengers -- Soumik Datta. This episode is sponsored by Paradigm Shift, a new podcast by Microsoft India, produced by ATS Studios and hosted by Harsha Bhogle..Listen to it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music or any podcast app of your choice. Check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! Illustration by Khyati Pathak.