This essay will discuss the hegemonic role that texts have come to play in the historiography of subcontinental mathematical traditions. It will argue that texts need to be studied as records of practices of people's working lives, grounded in social hierarchies. We will take particular mathematical texts to show how different occupational registers have come to shape practices that defy the binaries of concrete and abstract, high and low mathematics or the pure and applied conundrum. Measuring, counting and accounting practices (...) as part of the routine work of practitioners performing their caste occupations then provide us with a spectrum of the computational activities that controlled and regulated the lives of people in the past. In the process the act of computing itself gained certain political values such as cunning and manipulation, identified with professions of village accountant and merchant, for example. Drawn from my earlier work on these records, I discuss the occupational role of the accountant as a political functionary who assessed and authenticated the measurements of land and produce in the village, making values of the labor performed by others, and creating avenues for his own proficiency as a mathematical practitioner. (shrink)

The date of Ādi Śaṅkarācārya has been one of the unsolved problems of Indian Philosophy. He is generally accepted to have lived from 788 to 820 CE and is thus assigned from the end of the eighth century to the beginning of the ninth century. So far scholars who have worked on this problem have consulted his hagiographies and his works to determine his date. However, they have not studied the date of Ādi Śaṅkarācārya by placing him in the context (...) of the development of religion in South India. Nor have they consulted South Indian sources, especially Tamiḻ texts, to see if there are any references to his philosophy. In this paper, I study the problem of the date of Ādi Śaṅkarācārya by consulting Tamiḻ sources and the hitherto less consulted epic Śivarahasya. I also connect his date with the emergence of Śaivism as a popular religion in South India. Based on my study, I place Ādi Śaṅkarācārya in the fifth century BCE and as a result, I emphasize the importance of redating Hindu scriptures, especially the Vedas, as Ādi Śaṅkarācārya is the earliest commentator. (shrink)

Fair trade is a new form of commercial partnership whereby actors in the North engage with actors in the South on a number of conditions, including setting a minimum price, a development bonus, and so on. But above all, fair trade organizations in the South are implementing mechanisms that more or less facilitate the empowerment of their members. This article analyzes the empowerment effects of two fair trade organizations in South India. It shows that while positive (...) effects can be seen, the prevailing social norms in India are extremely influential for women at the moment, so that women are putting all their hopes on their daughters through their education. (shrink)

Drawing on fieldwork and interviews from South India, the author analyzes married women's experiences of stigma when they are childless and their everyday resistance practices. As stigma theory predicts, childless women deviate from the “ordinary and natural” life course and are deeply discredited, but contrary to Goffman's theory, South Indian women cannot “pass” or selectively disclose the “invisible” attribute, and they make serious attempts to destigmatize themselves. Social class and age mediate stigma and resistance processes: Poor village (...) women of childbearing age are devalued in ways affluent and professional women avoid; differently situated women challenge dominant definitions and ideologies of family in distinctive ways. South Indian women are creating spaces for childless marriages within the gendered margins of families and culturally prevalent definitions of womanhood. The findings contribute to rethinking Western assumptions in Goffman's theory and suggest new directions for research on power and everyday resistance. (shrink)

BackgroundA requisite for ethical human subjects research is that participation should be informed and voluntary. Participation during the informed consent process by way of asking questions is an indicator of the extent to which consent is informed.AimsThe aims of this study were to assess the extent to which parents providing consent for children's participation in an observational tuberculosis (TB) research study in India actively participated during the informed consent discussion, and to identify correlates of that participation.MethodsIn an observational cohort (...) study of tuberculosis in infants in South India, field supervisors who were responsible for obtaining informed consent noted down questions asked during the informed consent discussions for 4,382 infants who were enrolled in the study. These questions were post-coded by topic. Bivariate and multivariate analysis was conducted to examine factors associated with asking at least one question during the informed consent process.ResultsIn total, 590 out of 4,382 (13.4%) parents/guardians asked any question during the informed consent process. We found that the likelihood of parents asking questions during the informed consent process was significantly associated with education level of either parent both parents being present, and location.ConclusionsThe findings have implications for planning the informed consent process in a largely rural setting with low levels of literacy. Greater effort needs to be directed towards developing simple participatory communication materials for the informed consent process. Furthermore, including both parents in a discussion about a child's participation in a research study may increase the extent to which consent is truly informed. Finally, continuing efforts need to be made to improve the communication skills of research workers with regard to explaining research processes and putting potential research participants at ease. (shrink)

Respecting patients’ rights is a fundamental aspect of providing quality healthcare. The present investigation attempts to explore the awareness among patients about their rights in a coastal township in India. A questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was carried out among 215 patients admitted to the wards of a tertiary care teaching hospital in Mangalore. Awareness among patients regarding their rights varied for various issues and ranged between 48.4 and 87.4 %. Awareness about patients’ rights was independent of gender, socio-economic and educational (...) status. Doctors were found to be the most common source of information for patient’s about their rights in the study. Doctors must conform to the relevant legislations and involve patients in all aspects of healthcare. There is a need to increase awareness among patients about their rights to ensure informed decisions and better health care services. (shrink)

Maternal morbidity and mortality are high in the Indian context, but the majority of maternal deaths could be avoided by prompt and effective access to intrapartum care (WHO, 1999). Understanding the care seeking responses to intrapartum morbidities is crucial if maternal health is to be effectively improved, and maternal mortality reduced. This paper presents the results of a prospective study of 388 women followed through delivery and traditional postpartum in rural Karnataka in southern India. In this setting, few women (...) use the existing health facilities and most deliveries occur at home. The analysis uses quantitative data, collected via questionnaires administered to women both during pregnancy and immediately after delivery. By virtue of its prospective design, the study gives a unique insight into intentions for intrapartum care during pregnancy as well as events following morbidities during labour. Routine care in the intrapartum period, both within institutions and at home, and impediments to appropriate care are also examined. The study was designed to collect information about health seeking decisions made by women and their families as pregnancies unfolded, rather than trying to capture women’s experience from a retrospective instrument. The data set is therefore a rich source of quantitative information, which incorporates details of event sequences and health service utilization not previously collected in a Safe Motherhood study. Additional qualitative information was also available from concurrent in-depth interviews with pregnant women, their families, health care providers and other key informants in the area. The level of unplanned institutional care seeking during the intrapartum period within the study area was very high, increasing from 11% planning deliveries at a facility to an eventual 35% actually delivering in hospitals. In addition there was a significant move away from planned deliveries with the auxiliary nurse midwive (ANM), to births with a lay attendant or dai. The proportion of women who planned for an ANM to assist was 49%, as compared with the actual occurrence, which was less than half of this proportion. Perceived quality of care was found to be an important factor in health seeking behaviour, as was wealth, caste, education and experience of previous problems in pregnancy. Actual care given by a range of practitioners was found to contain both beneficial and undesirable elements. As a response to serious morbidities experienced within the study period, many women were able to seek care although sometimes after a long delay. Those women who experienced inadequate progression of labour pains were most likely to proceed unexpectedly to a hospital delivery. (shrink)

Smallholder farmers are disproportionally vulnerable to climate change, and knowledge on cognitive factors and processes is required to successfully support their adaptation to climate change. Hence, we apply a qualitative interview approach to investigate smallholder farmers’ adaptation intentions and behavior. The theoretical Model of Private Proactive Adaptation to Climate Change has guided data collection and analysis. We conducted twenty semi-structured interviews with smallholder farmers living and working in Tiruchirappalli District in South India. We applied a qualitative content analysis (...) by combining a content-structuring with a type-building approach. The systematic analysis resulted in four types of smallholder farmers that differ in the formation of adaptation intentions. Three of these types intend to adapt and follow different adaptation plans: (i) innovative measures that are new to the farm or region and are considered effective to overcome the detriments experienced from past efforts, (ii) contractive measures such as selling land or livestock, and (iii) retaining past measures they consider effective while relying on their access to resources. Only one type does not intend to adapt, emphasizing that rain is absolutely necessary to continue farming. We conclude that public efforts could focus on education and training programs adjusted to the farmers’ needs, measures to maintain or increase the fertility of land and farmers’ livelihood, flexible water conservation technologies and regular checking of dams, fostering combined adaptation and mitigation measures, providing access to loans up to debt cancellation, and offering physical and mental health programs. (shrink)

The author of this article is the first woman Bishop in the Church of South India. Her article outlines the development of women’s ministry in India, from the influence of European missionaries in the nineteenth century, and through the union of traditions which led to the formation of the CSI. Women have traditionally served in auxiliary ministries, as Bible Women or deaconesses. The story is set against the context of deeply traditional cultures. The second half of the (...) article relates the author’s own journey through vocation and call to her present role, in which she experienced firsthand the difficulties that faced women seeking to answer a vocation to ministry. (shrink)

This article presents material from my ethnographic study in Śringēri, south India, the site of a powerful 1200yearold Advaitic monastery that has been historically an interpreter of ancient Hindu moral treatises. A vibrant diverse local culture that provides plural sources of moral authority makes Sringeri a rich site for studying moral discourse. Through a study of two conversational narratives, this essay illustrates how the moral self is not an ossified product of written texts and codes, but is dynamic, (...) gen dered, and emergent, endowed with historical and political agency and an aesthetic capacity that mediates many normative sources to articulate "appropriate" conduct. In so doing, the essay shows the value of including oral narrative in ethical inquiry, especially in narrative ethics, which, for most part, has focused on written sources. (shrink)

This article seeks to pluralize current scholarly perceptions of what constitutes Advaita Vedānta in colonial India. It suggests, in particular, that the tendency to concentrate on the so-called “neo-Vedānta” of a handful of cosmopolitan reformers has obscured other kinds of innovative Vedānta-inspired discourses that have significantly shaped the formation of modern Hindu consciousness. These discourses are indebted, in ways that are only beginning to be understood, to religious traditions rooted in particular regions and vernacular languages. The article illustrates this (...) argument with reference to the Kōvilūr Ātīṉam, a Vedānta-affiliated monastic institution in Tamil-speaking South India founded by Mutturāmaliṅka Ñāṉatēcika Cuvāmikaḷ. Examining the significance of this figure’s life story for the wealthy Nāṭṭukkōṭṭai Ceṭṭiyār merchant community that comprises the Ātīṉam’s social base, the article explores how social aspirations, traditions of monastic authority, and vernacular Vedāntic literature contribute toward a colonial project of caste self-fashioning that I refer to as “Ceṭṭiyār Vedānta”. (shrink)

This article seeks to pluralize current scholarly perceptions of what constitutes Advaita Vedānta in colonial India. It suggests, in particular, that the tendency to concentrate on the so-called “neo-Vedānta” of a handful of cosmopolitan reformers has obscured other kinds of innovative Vedānta-inspired discourses that have significantly shaped the formation of modern Hindu consciousness. These discourses are indebted, in ways that are only beginning to be understood, to religious traditions rooted in particular regions and vernacular languages. The article illustrates this (...) argument with reference to the Kōvilūr Ātīṉam, a Vedānta-affiliated monastic institution in Tamil-speaking South India founded by Mutturāmaliṅka Ñāṉatēcika Cuvāmikaḷ. Examining the significance of this figure’s life story for the wealthy Nāṭṭukkōṭṭai Ceṭṭiyār merchant community that comprises the Ātīṉam’s social base, the article explores how social aspirations, traditions of monastic authority, and vernacular Vedāntic literature contribute toward a colonial project of caste self-fashioning that I refer to as “Ceṭṭiyār Vedānta”. (shrink)

This article seeks to pluralize current scholarly perceptions of what constitutes Advaita Vedānta in colonial India. It suggests, in particular, that the tendency to concentrate on the so-called “neo-Vedānta” of a handful of cosmopolitan reformers has obscured other kinds of innovative Vedānta-inspired discourses that have significantly shaped the formation of modern Hindu consciousness. These discourses are indebted, in ways that are only beginning to be understood, to religious traditions rooted in particular regions and vernacular languages. The article illustrates this (...) argument with reference to the Kōvilūr Ātīṉam, a Vedānta-affiliated monastic institution in Tamil-speaking South India founded by Mutturāmaliṅka Ñāṉatēcika Cuvāmikaḷ. Examining the significance of this figure’s life story for the wealthy Nāṭṭukkōṭṭai Ceṭṭiyār merchant community that comprises the Ātīṉam’s social base, the article explores how social aspirations, traditions of monastic authority, and vernacular Vedāntic literature contribute toward a colonial project of caste self-fashioning that I refer to as “Ceṭṭiyār Vedānta”. (shrink)

This article seeks to pluralize current scholarly perceptions of what constitutes Advaita Vedānta in colonial India. It suggests, in particular, that the tendency to concentrate on the so-called “neo-Vedānta” of a handful of cosmopolitan reformers has obscured other kinds of innovative Vedānta-inspired discourses that have significantly shaped the formation of modern Hindu consciousness. These discourses are indebted, in ways that are only beginning to be understood, to religious traditions rooted in particular regions and vernacular languages. The article illustrates this (...) argument with reference to the Kōvilūr Ātīṉam, a Vedānta-affiliated monastic institution in Tamil-speaking South India founded by Mutturāmaliṅka Ñāṉatēcika Cuvāmikaḷ. Examining the significance of this figure’s life story for the wealthy Nāṭṭukkōṭṭai Ceṭṭiyār merchant community that comprises the Ātīṉam’s social base, the article explores how social aspirations, traditions of monastic authority, and vernacular Vedāntic literature contribute toward a colonial project of caste self-fashioning that I refer to as “Ceṭṭiyār Vedānta”. (shrink)

"A rough spade for a rugged landscape" : on savage selves and more civil places -- "What remains of the harvest when the fence grazes the crop?" : on the proper violence of agrarian citizenship -- "The life of the thief leaves the belly always boiling" : on the nature and restraint of the criminal animal -- "Millets sown yield millets, evil sown yields evil" : on the moral returns of agrarian toil -- "Let the water for the paddy also (...) irrigate the grass" : on the sympathies of an aqueous self. (shrink)

Sankaran examines the cultural and social matrix in which Carnatic music was cultivated and consumed in mid-twentieth century India, including the ways that musicians negotiated caste politics and the double standard for male and female musicians. Sankaran's memoir is interwoven with passages from Daniel M. Neuman's work on music in North India, which inspired Sankaran's project, and interviews with Sankaran by Matthew Allen.

Research using Controlled Human Infection Models is yet to be attempted in India. This study was conducted to understand the perceptions of the lay public and key opinion makers prior to the possible introduction of such studies in the country. 110 respondents from urban and rural Bangalore district were interviewed using qualitative research methods of Focus Group Discussions and In-depth Interviews. The data was analyzed using grounded theory. Safety was a key concern of the lay public, expressed in terms (...) of fear of death. The notion of infecting a healthy volunteer, the possibility of continued effects beyond the study duration and the likelihood of vulnerable populations volunteering solely for monetary benefit, were ethical concerns. Public good outcomes such as effective treatments, targeted vaccines and prevention of diseases was necessary justification for such studies. However, the comprehension of this benefit was not clear among non-medical, non-technical respondents and suggestions to seek alternatives to CHIMs repeatedly arose. There was a great deal of deflection—with each constituency feeling that people other than themselves may be ideally suited as participants. Risk takers, those without dependents, the more health and research literate, financially sound and those with an altruistic bent of mind emerged as possible CHIM volunteers. While widespread awareness and advocacy about CHIM is essential, listening to plural voices is the first step in public engagement in ethically contentious areas. Continued engagement and inclusive deliberative processes are required to redeem the mistrust of the public in research and rebuild faith in regulatory systems. (shrink)