The rationale for proposing a panel on this topic is to contribute to discussions on challenging the Global North/South binary that is embedded within Postcolonial Studies in the English/Anglophone academia by presenting Global South (particularly South Asia) as agential in settler colonial politics (for instance, in case of India and India-Occupied Kashmir, or the case of Israel and its occupation of Palestine).

Contemporary theorists of settler-colonial studies like Saree Makdisi, Patrick Wolfe, and Ilan Pappe have conceptualized colonialism as being implemented in various forms but also targeted mainly towards one common goal– full authority over indigenous land. To gain full control of indigenous land, the elimination of indigenous people becomes important, however, not always through physical extermination. This is why modern forms of occupation like that of US capital (represented by global companies) over Third World economies, influencing their structures of governmentality, is seldom accepted widely as colonialism. Nor are Palestine or Kashmir thought of as ‘postcolonial’ because their occupation by Israel and India respectively are not seen as settler-colonial acts, especially because the settlers in question were formerly colonized or hold histories of violence under European powers. The absence of a mother country is also held as a reason to exempt some states as settlers. This can be seen, for instance, in the case of the continued colonization of indigenous land in the US and in Australia, because of the settler community’s quick distancing from their European origins. This panel aims to contribute to this discussion on an alternate form of conceptualizing colonialism by examining similar settler colonial structures implemented by South Asia within its territories. In addition, how does South Asian Anglophone literary and cultural texts represent these colonial structures?

We will begin with a brief introduction of 5 minutes to the panel. Each speaker will get 10 minutes to present their paper, with 15 minutes left in the end for Q/A and general discussions among participants.

Sarbani Banerjee's paper addresses the theme of settler-colonialism in South Asia by exploring the representation of Santal identity in Rejina Marandi's Becoming Me in the context of internal colonization of tribes in Assam by the Indian administration. Nazia Manzoor sheds light on the limitations of the hijab-centric framework in our understanding of women’s subjectivity in contemporary Bangladesh, challenging its colonizing nature on Bengali Muslim women's identity especially in post-9/11 discourses within Western academia and its imports. Sharmeen Mehri's paper focuses on the Parsi community in India and Pakistan and the literary representation of their struggles with citizenship, identity and language under the two nation-state's postcolonial administration. And finally, Feba Rasheed's paper highlights the sonic colonization of Muslim identity in acoustic spaces within India. These papers collectively inspire further dialogues within the study of settler-colonial politics in contemporary South Asia.