Rethinking About Wickedness: From Nigamasarma to the Palestinian West Bank

Speaker: Prof. David Shulman, Indologist who is regarded as one of the world’s foremost authorities on the languages of South India. His research embraces many fields, including the history of religion in South India, Indian poetics, Tamil Islam, Dravidian linguistics and Carnatic music

 

Moderator: Shuddhabrata Sengupta, artist and curator with the Raqs Media Collective, Delhi

 

The Lecture is presented in conjunction with The Ila Dalmia FICA Research Grant, a grant given in support of research in the field of modern and contemporary art with particular focus on Indian art. Both these platforms are supported by art historian Yashodhara Dalmia.

 

In the talk Prof Shulman will draw analogies between the literary Mahatmya texts about Pandharpur where we find the tale of Nigama?arma, a seemingly incorrigible rogue who turns out to be capable of becoming a human being. 

 

Beginning with this story, he will move on to his first-hand experiences of wickedness enacted by Israeli settlers, soldiers, and policemen in the occupied West Bank. Wickedness can involve acts of overt, sadistic cruelty, but more often it is a subtle movement in the self, one that involves what can only be called a choice. All of us face such decisions, seemingly minor but possibly heavy with consequence, every day. Unlike "evil," a term suggesting a somewhat abstract and impersonal force, wickedness comes from the whole person and bears the marks of her or his character

 

(Collaboration: The Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art)

 

Insiders and Outsiders: Issues of citizenship and belonging in Northeast India

 

Panelists: Sanjoy Hazarika, Director, Commonwealth Human Right’s Initiative; Suhas Chakma,,Director, Rights and Risks Analysis Group and  Subimal Bhattacharjee Director, Jookto;  a grassroots organisation from Barak Valley; Krishna Sarma, Managing Partner, Corporate Law Group and Rajat Sethi, Advisor to the Chief Minister of Manipur 

 

 

 

Moderator: Samrat Choudhury, author and columnist

 

 

 

Among the many issues that have bedeviled India's Northeast, a crucial one has long been the issue of who is an insider and who, an outsider. This issue had its reverse in the discrimination faced by people from the region in cities of mainland India. The desire to find and evict outsiders, typically depicted as illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, is once again at the centre of attention not only in the region but nationally, with the publication of the final draft of the National Register of Citizens in Assam. A panel of experts from the region will discuss the complicated issue in its historical context

 

 

 

(Collaboration:  Good World Foundation, Shillong)

 

 

Roundtable Forum on Ending Impunity for Kleptocrats and Accomplices: Do we need an International Anti-Corruption Court?

 

Chair: Shri Soli J. Sorabjee, Life Trustee, IIC and former Attorney-General of India

 

 

 

Welcome Remarks: Shri Sunil Dang, Member, Executive Committee, IIC

 

Opening Presentation: Dr. Emil Bolongaita, Distinguished Service Professor of Public Policy & Head, Carnegie Mellon University, Australian and Member of the Board – III

 

 

 

Guest of Honour: Dr. Narinder Singh, former Chairman, International Law Commission and Additional Secretary (Retd.), Legal and Treaties Division, Ministry of External Affairs

 

 

 

Closing Remarks: Dr. G. Venkatesh Rao, Advocate, Supreme Court of India

 

 

 

(Collaboration: Integrity Initiatives International; and Carnegie Mellon University, Australia)

 

 

September 2018

 

 

 

Saturday 1

 

 

Rethinking about Wickedness: From Nigamasarma to the Palestinian West Bank

 

Speaker: Prof. David Shulman, Indologist who is regarded as one of the world’s foremost authorities on the languages of South India. His research embraces many fields, including the history of religion in South India, Indian poetics, Tamil Islam, Dravidian linguistics and Carnatic music

 

 

 

Moderator: Shuddhabrata Sengupta, artist and curator with the Raqs Media Collective, Delhi

 

 

 

The Lecture is presented in conjunction with The Ila Dalmia FICA Research Grant, a grant given in support of research in the field of modern and contemporary art with particular focus on Indian art. Both these platforms are supported by art historian Yashodhara Dalmia.

 

 

 

In the talk Prof Shulman will draw analogies between the literary Mahatmya texts about Pandharpur where we find the tale of Nigamaśarma, a seemingly incorrigible rogue who turns out to be capable of becoming a human being.

 

 

Beginning with this story, he will move on to his first-hand experiences of wickedness enacted by Israeli settlers, soldiers, and policemen in the occupied West Bank. Wickedness can involve acts of overt, sadistic cruelty, but more often it is a subtle movement in the self, one that involves what can only be called a choice. All of us face such decisions, seemingly minor but possibly heavy with consequence, every day. Unlike "evil," a term suggesting a somewhat abstract and impersonal force, wickedness comes from the whole person and bears the marks of her or his character

 

 

 

(Collaboration: The Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art)

Adhyatma

With Sikkil Gurucharan (Carnatic vocal) and Aranyani Bhargava (Bharatanatyam)

Accompanists: Sumesh Narayanan (percussion); and Juned Khan (sarangi)

 

Concept and dance choreography – Aranyani Bhargava

Musical composition – Sikkil Gurucharan

 

Adhyatma or the metaphysical is one the major themes that poets in India have engaged with. Annamayya, is a 15th century Saint who composed thousands of poems describing God through the eyes of the devotee. Adhyatma is branch of his philosophical work which deals with addressing the mind and realising the harsh realities of the world while surrendering and sometimes hesitating to surrender at the feet of the Divine. The poems have been taken from Prof. David Shulman and Velcheru Narayana Rao’s book God on the Hill which served as a reference point 

 

(Collaboration: Seher)

Pochhammer Memorial Lecture 2018

 

Rabindranath Tagore’s Love for God and the World – and German Romanticism

Speaker: Dr. Martin Kämpchen, Tagore scholar, translator and author

 

Rabindranath Tagore attempted a unique feat in his poetry; he praised and enjoyed the good things of the world like the beauty of nature, the love between man and woman, the love among family members and in society at large. At the same time, he nourished a deep love of Divinity calling It by different names. He combined these two and made it a life-long project not to renounce one for the other, but to celebrate God and the World together. The German reception of Tagore reflects the German Romantic Tradition in literature and the arts which had a similar agenda

 

Followed by 

Rabindra Sangeet

Presented by Debashish and Rohini Raychaudhuri, the only “Father-Daughter Duo of Bengali Music”

 

(Collaboration: Federation of Indo-German Societies in India; and Hanns-Seidel Stiftung)

BOOK DISCUSSION GROUP

 

All Doors Opened: An Autobiography

By Inder Sharma (New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 2018)

 

Discussants: Shri Ashwani Lohani, Chairman, Indian Railway Board; Shri Vinod Zutshi, IAS, former Secretary, Ministry of Tourism; and Prof. (Dr.) Manohar Sajnani, Director Tourism Management, Amity Institute of Travel & Tourism

 

Chair: Shri Vinod Kumar Duggal, IAS, former Home Secretary

The Second Prof M.G. K. Menon Memorial Lecture 2018

 

Vedanta Today
 

Speaker: Dr. Karan Singh

Chair: Shri Shyam Saran

 

 

(Collaboration: Mapin Publishing; and The Alkazi Foundation)

The Practice of Nikah Halala, Polygamy and Female Genital Mutilation Amongst Muslims

Panelists: Dr. Sona Khan, Advocate, Supreme Court of India; Prof.  I.S. Marwah, social scientist and a former Professor at Delhi University; Shri Kamal Farooqui, former Chairman, Minorities Commission; and Ms Seema Mustafa, Editor, The Citizen

 

Chair: Ambassador K.P. Fabian

 

The discussion will look at issues that concern and deal with the exploitation of Muslim women in the name of marriage and saving the family