Field Notes: Students Recount Summers of Learning

 
In the summer of 2011, twenty-two undergraduate and graduate students received grants from the South Asian Studies Council to support their pursuit of research, language study, or internships in South Asia. 

After returning to Yale in the Fall semester, students shared the outcomes and/or findings of their work with each other, and with members of the South Asian Studies Council.

Abhinav Nayar, Joanne Anthonypillai, and Ashish Mitter were among the recipients of the Rustgi Fellowship , made possible through a gift from Anil Rustgi (Yale ’80), Vinod Rustgi (Yale ’75) and his wife, Eileen Boyle Rustgi (Yale ’77), which aims to support increased understanding of the region among Yale students.

From May through July 2011, Abhinav Nayar, undertook an internshipwith the Accountability Initiative, Center for Policy Research, New Delhi.  As part of his internship, Abhinav played a primary role in organizing a BarCamp on “Technology, Transparency and Accountability”, and undertook independent research in Purnea, Bihar, to author a paper titled “Conditioning Cash Transfers: A Qualitative Field-Assessment of Bihar’s Mukhyamantri Cycle Yojana”. He writes that “by receiving the Rustgi Fellowship, I was able to acquaint myself with the public policy framework in India and be initiated into the scholarship of conditional cash transfers, welfare/developmental initiatives, and accountability systems in governance.”

Joanne Anthonypillai spent two months in Kancheepuram District, Tamil Nadu, where she volunteered with Rising Star, an organization that provides medical care, microfinance and education to the residents of the leprosy colonies.  In her work for Rising Star, Joanne taught in a school for children from leprosy colonies, participated in medical visits, and conducted research investigating the relationship between types of play and learning outcomes among kindergarten and first grade children.  While pursuing this work, Joanne lived with a house family in the students’ hostel, and writes that “my house family became my family away from home while I was in India. I would help the girls with math homework, correct their English sentences, explain some chemistry, sing songs, and even color! In addition, my fluency in Tamil facilitated my relationship with some of the housemothers. Before long, I felt like I had lived here my entire life. Planning my lessons for class, managing the students, memorizing new names, and helping out the Indian teachers with English all became a doable and regular schedule.”

Ashish Mitter spent his summer pursuing research for his senior essay, provisionally titled “Secularism and the Judiciary in the Indian Republic”.  In his words, his objective was to “come away from India not with definitive answers but with yet more questions”.  Ashish’s research involved  researching landmark cases pertaining to the secular nature of the Indian constitution, interning with three non-governmental organizations that resist communalism, corresponding with political leaders and intellectuals, and spending time in a village outside Saharanpur to explore communal relations and perceptions of state institutions.

The South Asian Studies Travel Research Grant for Undergraduate Students provides summer travel grants for Yale University undergraduate research on and study of South Asian history, society, languages, and culture in the United States and internationally.  Among those receiving awards in 2011 were Griffin Collier, Uriel Kejsefman, and Hannah Mogul-Adlin.

For five and a half weeksGriffin Colliertravelled through Northwestern India examining the question of spatial experience in Buddhist art and architecture. Visiting Buddhist sites in Ladakh and Zanskar, he stayed at the monasteries of Chemre, Lamayuru, Karsha, and Phuktal.  He writes that his “artistic research culminated in a hand-drawn visual essay informed by extensive study sketches, the insights of a culturally immersive experience, and an acquired knowledge of Buddhist practices and artistic traditions. The final product entitled The Architecture of Tantra comprises this visual essay (a composition of eleven 18” by 24” drawings), my study sketchbook, the collapsible drawing board that I invented and constructed for this experience, and a series of about 30 photographs.”

Uriel Kejsefman spent the summer of 2011 in Bhutan and India, pursuing a project on the Gross National Happiness (GNH) Index by examining its intellectual origins, implementation, and applications.  The index, Uriel observes, “represents the world’s foremost attempt to develop an alternative model of human flourishing and sustainable economic development.”  Much of Uriel’s project was carried out in in Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan, where he interned at the Center for Bhutanese Studies which is charged with developing and measuring GNH. In Dharamshala , Uriel spent time exploring the roots of Gross National Happiness in Buddhist thought and practice. 

Adolescent health was the focus of an internship taken up by Hannah Mogul-Adlin at Sangath, a Goan NGO which promotes child, adolescent, youth and mental health.  Hannah assisted with the development of adolescent health teaching modules for school health counselors on topics such as HIV/AIDS, alcohol and drug use, and stress management, and also analyzed nutrition data collected by Sangath from local schools.

SASC Research and Language Study Grantswere awarded to five graduate students. Lynna Dhanani and Hayley Johnson, both graduate students in the Religious Studies PhD program, pursued Sanskrit study at the South Asia Summer Language Institute at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.  Lynna notes that the close study of Sanskrit meter proved particularly beneficial for her research, while Hayley concludes that because of the intensive study of language in different Sanskrit literary traditions, “questions that would otherwise be unanswerable are beginning to be available to me and sooner than I had hoped.”  Gareth Nellis, a PhD student in Political Science, participated in the intermediate Hindi program at the American Institute of Indian Studies in Jaipur.  Through rigorous language training, and a meaningful homestay experience, Gareth writes that the development of advanced Hindi language skills is essential for his plans to pursue long-term dissertation fieldwork in India.

PhD Students in Anthropology, History, and the History of Art received grants to support pre-dissertation research.  Aniket Aga (Anthropology) conducted research toward the development of a project about Bt Brinjal and the relationship between science and politics in contemporary India.  Emma Natalya Stein (Art History) travelled through southern India and Sri Lanka, visiting ancient monuments and religious sites with the purpose of developing an area of specialization within the field of the history of art and architecture in South Asia.  Waleed Ziad (History) pursued Indo-Persian language, while also conducting research on early 19th century South Asian history in manuscript collections, archives and libraries.