A Desi Woman with Soniya Gokhale

In this special multi-episode series with Renowned Historian, Author & Professor Mrinalini Sinha Ph.D., we discuss the fact that Gandhi and King were relative newcomers to the respective civil rights movements in India & the US. Yet, upon arriving on the scene, Gandhi arriving from South Africa & King in Montgomery, Alabama, they both assumed the respective leadership reigns in India and the United States. We ask the question of Dr. Sinha, did the 'newcomer status' of these Civil Rights icons help them or hinder them in their critical work in India and the United States? Dr. Sinha is the Alice Freeman Palmer professor in the department of history, and professor in the departments of English language and literature and of women's studies at the university of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Dr. Sinha has written on various aspects of the political history of colonial India, with the focus on anti-colonialism, gender, and transnational approaches. Her first book, Colonial Masculinity: The Manly Englishman and the Effeminate Bengali, sought to combine British and Indian history and brought gender analysis to bear on questions of high politics, to understand a critical moment in the relationship between colonialism and nationalism in India. Her subsequent book, Specters of Mother India: The Global Restructuring of an Empire, explores the post First World War changes in the British Empire, especially their implications in India. The book received the Albion Book Prize, awarded annually by the North American Conference on British Studies and the Joan Kelly Memorial prize (2007), awarded annually by the American Historical Association.Dr. Sinha's also published widely in journals and in edited collection. She has been a recipient of several fellowships, including from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Institute of Indian Studies, and the American Philosophical Society. Dr. Sinha has also served as a president of the Association of Asian Studies, a scholarly nonpolitical, nonprofit professional association representing all the regions and countries of Asia and all academic disciplines.