The SASAA President’s Prize is a biennial prize that rewards outstanding scholarship in South Asian Studies, in any discipline, by scholars at any stage of their research careers.

The committee seeks original, scholarly monographs authored by SASAA members with a copyright date of 2024 and 2025 that make substantive contributions to South Asian Studies. Authors should submit a cover letter outlining (1) the substantive contribution made by their book to the field of South Asian studies globally and (2) early evidence of the quality of their book (reviews, early citations, early signs of impact on the field). Three copies of the book must be submitted. Please note that most publishers will be happy to provide examination copies for the purposes of entering book prize competitions.

Cover letters should be sent to the President of SASAA, Associate Professor Adam Bowles, at a.bowles1@uq.edu.au. Books can be sent by your publishers directly to the members of the judging panel. Please have your publisher contact the President for contact details of judges.

If you have any questions or queries, please kindly contact the Secretary of SASAA, Associate Professor Jagjit Plahe, at jagjit.plahe@monash.edu.

• 2022-2023: The SASAA biennial President’s Prize 2022-2023 for an outstanding book about South Asia was awarded to Yamini Narayanan for her book, Mother Cow, Mother India: A Multispecies Politics of Dairy in India. The judges, Greg Bailey (La Trobe University), Meera Asher (ANU), and Andrew Alter (Macquarie University), offered the following comments: “The centrality of cow politics in contemporary India almost makes this a book of the moment. Dense with detail, this is the first serious study into the dairy and slaughter industry and tells a startling story of the Hinduisation of dairy and Islamisation of slaughter industries. The heartbreaking tales of animal cruelty in India are a story that needs to be told. For that reason, the dairy industry is a critical space for broader political manoeuvring. A book that explores this industry in India and the immense cultural overlays that impact on how cows are treated, imagined, protected, and abused is undoubtedly making a major contribution to South Asian Studies. There are many angles to the stories and symbolism of cow politics in India. Amongst the more fascinating stories was the exclusion of foreign “Jersey” cows at the Simhachalam temple! More obvious, and of course more controversial, in highlighting the paradoxes of the industry were the stories of ‘grey’ or ‘black’ zones for animal slaughter, which juxtapose abattoir zones out of the gaze of vigilantism (Chapter 6)—a unique and troubling paradox for understanding action politics. It is largely dealing with contemporary India, whilst pointing to deep cultural issues in Hindu thought and caste that suggest a historical resonance. Ch. 5, for example, provides an excellent summary of the rise of the Hindutva groups and the distinction between dairy (Hindu) and beef (Muslim). The study is a disciplined geographical and anthropological study presented in a comprehensive manner.”

• 2020-2021: The joint winners of the 2020-2021 SASAA President’s Book Prize were awarded to Malini Sur for Jungle Passports: Fences, Mobility and Citizenship at the Northeast India-Bangladesh Border, and Nisha PR for Jumbos and Jumping Devils: A Social History of Indian Circus. The jury conferred that Jungle Passports highlights the global injustices of the twenty-first century “in which efforts to fortress territorial boundaries and ultranationalism are forcing people toward uncertain border crossings and violent encounters with increasingly hostile nation-states.” This tirelessly researched, engagingly written, and thoughtfully argued book merits widespread recognition. The jury also conferred that Jumbos and Jumping Devils is a path-breaking book that is a splendid tribute to the universe of the circus as it has functioned in India over the last two centuries. The jury noted that given the depth of the analysis and the quality of the presentation of the material the book is likely to have a long shelf life and become a major source for understanding of the itinerant peripatetic world of the circus. This wide-ranging book explores performing bodies and the constraints of performance, the inter-relationships between animals, the circus and the state, the complexities of circus tents and tenting, and the relationships between circus workers and trade unions. SASAA would like to thank the jury, comprising Emeritus Professor Robin Jeffrey, Honorary Reader Jim Masselos, Professor John Zubryzcki, and Professor Assa Doron, for their time and engagement with the nominated volumes.