Amita Baviskar - K. Sivaramakrishnan Reflection

Amita Baviskar
Ashoka University

I first met Shivi in memorable circumstances. It was December 1995. I was a recent PhD, excited to have been invited to my first international conference, in Hawaii. However, just minutes before I reached the head of the visa application queue at the American embassy in Delhi, the US federal government shut down. The organizers, including David Lelyveld from the SSRC, told me to go ahead and travel on my expired student visa. It boggles the mind now, but I travelled half-way across the world on an Indian passport and entered the US on Christmas Day without a valid visa, and the immigration officer not only let me in but apologised for his government.

In their introduction to Nature in the Global South, Paul Greenough and Anna Tsing, editors of the conference volume mention other unexpected debacles, not all ending as happily as mine. One of the participants went into political exile and couldn’t attend. Another, who the hotel management said was resting in his room, turned out to be in a hospital in London. Someone else flew to the wrong island. Our conference venue, the Volcano National Park, was also shut down at the last minute.

Amita Baviskar Photo 1 SSRC Conference Hawaii — Submission by Amita Baviskar. Drenched to the skin from a sudden downpour on the petrified lava beds of Volcano National Park: Warwick Anderson, Roger Jeffery, Amita Baviskar, Ann Gold, an uncharacteristically ebullient Shivi, David Lelyveld, Paul Greenough. I don’t remember who was behind the camera. Photo courtesy Ann Grodzins Gold.

So I met Shivi in a generic hotel conference room and, I’m sorry to say, I did not immediately take to him. Unlike the friendly and voluble Ram Guha, his old friend and college classmate, who was also there at the conference, Shivi was quiet and unforthcoming. It was hard going to keep up a conversation with him. But his paper sparkled. A genealogy of scientific forestry in colonial Bengal, his essay was unusual in its attention to how state practices were constituted on the ground, a decisive break from the ‘vicious states vs virtuous peasants’ framework that then prevailed. The wealth of detail and the meticulous assembly of the argument left me in awe. Shivi seemed all the more formidable and forbidding.¹

Some of this aura emanated from what I was told of his past. Before doing a PhD, Shivi had been in the IAS (Indian Administrative Service). An air of reticent rectitude still clung to him, or so I imagined. Only later did I reflect on how odd it was that Shivi (and Bala) had walked away from the most prestigious positions in the country at that time. To be selected for the IAS was considered the ultimate in security and success. To leave it was madness. I could see no hint of eccentricity in Shivi, but I wondered.

It was only gradually that I began to discern much more behind the undemonstrative façade. Shivi invited to me Seattle and picked me up from the airport. He made sure that I met the most interesting among his colleagues at UW. Every detail of the visit was arranged with thoughtful care. Shivi has a genius for organisation but one could sense the warm concern that anchors it. Bit by bit, visit by visit, I began to see Shivi in a different light: as a passionate and generous scholar and friend who poured his feelings into practical acts of building, supporting, connecting.

Over the years, this dedication has taken many forms. Thanks to Shivi, South Asian studies at Yale not only nurtures research in the US but has also reached out to universities in India. Agrarian Studies has flourished across the world through Shivi’s involvement in the Journal of Peasant Studies editorial collective where he could always be relied upon to suggest the best person to review tricky manuscripts and special issues. And, whenever I meet a brilliant young scholar from Yale – usually through Shivi’s introduction – I am unsurprised when they speak glowingly about his mentorship. Whatever Shivi takes on, he gives it his focused best. In this age of crowded in-boxes, over-committed academic calendars, and relentless pressure, I marvel at his unfailing composure and clarity.

I last met Shivi in February 2025 and he spoke of his imminent retirement with characteristic calm, a man who in the fullness of years contemplates vanprastha, retreat to the forest, a stage in Hindu life that precedes sanyas, the final renunciation of worldly ties. A more recent email revealed that Shivi will continue to supervise students and edit book series for the U of Washington Press and Yale Agrarian Studies. Reading that, I smiled to myself. I don’t think we are ready yet to let Shivi retire into the sal groves that he studied. I am glad that he agrees.

I learned later that this essay was a small part of his two-volume – yes, two-volume – PhD dissertation.