Sociologist MN Srinivas didn’t just theorise caste, but investigated it in the field. On his death anniversary, a look at the “approachable” scholar and his ground-up approach to academia.
When conflict with Iran ends, says the report, area’s key players are likely to reexamine longstanding assumptions & alliances as they determine how best to advance their interests.
Rating democracies is a tricky business. I am only using the simple metric of who in the Indian subcontinent has had the most peaceful, stable, normal political transitions and continuity.
While I’m proud of this byline, I have one regret…
I forgot to include a section about his RESILIENCE. It was all in my notes. Had I been a bit more organised, this would have been the cherry on top:
MN Srinivas was very “resilient”, Rukmini said.
In an anecdote from her memoir, “Out of Fire, Rebirth”, based on a speech she wrote for an American Anthropological Association conference on his 100th anniversary in 2016, titled, “Remembering Chammu: A Study in Resilience”, Rukmini talked about how despite being devastated after losing his mother who was ill, and decades worth of field notes to arson at the University of Chicago within a span of 48 hours—notes which he had made during his ethnographic study of a village named Rampura (Kodagahalli), Karnataka—Srinivas didn’t give up on his project. He wrote a book on his field from sheer memory, The Remembered Village.
“What hangs in Chammu’s library and study in our home in Bangalore is a memento, a framed drawing of a magnificent Phoenix rising from the fire”, said Rukmini in her speech.
Srinivas’s sense of humour was such that he acknowledged and thanked the arsonists, the ROTC protesters who found no other avenue but arson for their opposition to the Vietnam war in his book.
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It is ironic, and I feel so sad about not remembering to include this, but it’s a learning experience.
Great article. ThePrint should also put this in video format on their YouTube channel.
While I’m proud of this byline, I have one regret…
I forgot to include a section about his RESILIENCE. It was all in my notes. Had I been a bit more organised, this would have been the cherry on top:
MN Srinivas was very “resilient”, Rukmini said.
In an anecdote from her memoir, “Out of Fire, Rebirth”, based on a speech she wrote for an American Anthropological Association conference on his 100th anniversary in 2016, titled, “Remembering Chammu: A Study in Resilience”, Rukmini talked about how despite being devastated after losing his mother who was ill, and decades worth of field notes to arson at the University of Chicago within a span of 48 hours—notes which he had made during his ethnographic study of a village named Rampura (Kodagahalli), Karnataka—Srinivas didn’t give up on his project. He wrote a book on his field from sheer memory, The Remembered Village.
“What hangs in Chammu’s library and study in our home in Bangalore is a memento, a framed drawing of a magnificent Phoenix rising from the fire”, said Rukmini in her speech.
Srinivas’s sense of humour was such that he acknowledged and thanked the arsonists, the ROTC protesters who found no other avenue but arson for their opposition to the Vietnam war in his book.
—
It is ironic, and I feel so sad about not remembering to include this, but it’s a learning experience.