Nandini Sundar - K. Sivaramakrishnan Reflection

Nandini Sundar
University of Delhi

When I think of Shivi – K. Sivaramakrishnan – the first words that come to mind are insightful, solid, painstaking – but then as I began to trawl emails and remember specific incidents, the one term that predominates is kind, deeply kind. Its’ not just his graduate students who have benefitted from his thoughtful and generous care, but several of us who have known him in different professional and collegial capacities. 

I first heard of Shivi from Ram Guha as his brilliant administrator-environmentalist friend. His book Modern Forests, Statemaking and Environmental Change, was something all of us who were working on forest management had to engage with. I remember an argument I once had with him where he said I saw the state everywhere while I felt that he did not recognise how it shaped everything. That question is one that has stayed with me ever since.  

In 2008-9, I spent one of the best and most productive years of my life at the Agrarian Studies program which Jim and Shivi were running. All of us agrarian fellows felt that the space and time they created was precious, and it was not just the institution – but their personal warmth that underpinned the experience. I remember Shivi and Bala hunting all over New Haven when my father-in-law was visiting because he needed some particular item.  

We would correspond occasionally – over something he had written or I had sent him, or when he wanted me to encourage some graduate student to choose Yale over another university. I don’t think any of them needed any encouragement – the opportunity to work with Shivi is not something that anyone would pass over. But the most precious email was after he read The Burning Forest, where he ended: ‘Just wanted to salute you, express my gratitude, and tell you that I pray for your health and well-being every day. Take care, Shivi’. That he read it and took the trouble to write and was so largehearted in his praise is something I will always treasure.  

In his last email when I asked him why he was retiring, among the reasons he listed such as looking after aging parents, he also expressed how happy he was at the thought of making space for younger colleagues. This is typically Shivi – institutionally minded, generous and methodical. We all know he is far from intellectual retirement – and trust that being relieved of teaching and administrative duties will mean he gets more time to do his own research. And for me personally, I hope it means that he visits Delhi and I get to see him more often.  

Nandini Sundar, Professor of Sociology, University of Delhi