South Asia Editor
Netty Bonouvrié
Netty Bonouvrié worked as a chemical analyst in a medical laboratory until she decided to pursue her interest in cultural and linguistic studies. She took up Indology in Utrecht and specialized in the religions of India. She is currently rounding off her PhD and works as an academic documentalist at the Documentatiecentrum Zuid-Azië, at the University of Leiden. Since its inception Netty Bonouvrié has been South Asia Editor for the IIAS Newsletter.
What is the subject of your doctoral research?
My PhD is a literary study of the Bhakti tradition of northern India, in the turbulent period 1300 to 1550. During that time many religious movements were in contact with one another. Bhakti (literally: devotion) is a Hindu movement which spread from the south. We can distinguish two main types of North Indian Bhakti: one is Saguna, the branch that thinks of the gods personified in Krishna or Rama, the other is Nirguna, the type that advocates faith in an impersonal Being. A link between Nirguna Bhakti and Sufism has always been suspected, but no serious research had yet been conducted to establish this. I hope to present my results next year.
Can you describe your work at the Documentatiecentrum Zuid-Azië?
In my current job I keep track of the political, social, and economic developments in South Asia, more specifically India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, the Maldives, and Tibet. I co-ordinate the administration of journals. These, along with the books we acquire, are kept in the Kern Institute Library. Here, I maintain a collection of video tapes and grey literature. I am also setting up a database which will be made available on the Internet in the future.
The main task of the Documentatiecentrum is to answer questions posed by governmental departments, schools, lawyers, the Hindu Broadcasting Company, etc. To give one example: a Sikh, when applying for a job in the Netherlands, once insisted on working in his complete traditional costume, including his sword. We were asked by his worried future employer whether this was to be considered a sign of aggression. In this case I could inform him about the customs of the various groups of Sikhs. At other times, I refer to specialists in the field, for example, in case of questions about the Kashmir dispute.
You are a lecturer on top of that?
Though I hold no official post as a lecturer, I teach parts of courses on Hinduism and on Contemporary South Asia. In the latter, Jos Gommans and I focus on a new subject each time and we encourage our students to make use of newspapers, journals, and the Internet. This year's topic will be 'The Identity Crisis in South Asia: Nationalism and fundamentalism in India and Pakistan'.
Do you plan to continue these tasks in future?
As a matter of fact, I am getting more and more interested in Modern India and modern Hinduism myself. One option after finishing my PhD would be to conduct further research on contemporary issues. I also plan to continue teaching and working at the Documentatiecentrum, and to start travelling to South Asia again, after a four-and-a-half year break during which my son was born.
How do you perform your South Asia editorship for the IIAS Newsletter?
Through my work of course I receive a wealth of information. I keep track of conferences, and many articles are sent to the IIAS on people's personal initiative. I think we present a reasonably balanced overview of the state of affairs in South Asian Studies, there are often contributions ranging from anthropology to classical Indology. We could present more political and economic issues and we could certainly devote more attention to countries like Bhutan and Bangladesh. It would also be interesting to hear more from such fields as health care, environmental studies, wildlife protection, etc. * -(EvdH)
Netty Bonouvrié can be reached at bonouvrie@let.leidenuniv.nl