Interview with Nirmala Menon
Nirmala Menon is a professor of Literature and Digital Humanities at IIT Indore, and is visiting the CDS as a Fulbright Scholar this year.
Nirmala spoke with Julia Flanders, CDS Director, about her work establishing a DH center in India and her experience on the Fulbright. Their comments have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Julia: Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. I'm really looking forward to it! I thought we could start just by asking you to tell us about your role at your home institution and where you're coming from—what you do when you're not at Northeastern.
Nirmala: Thank you very much for doing this. As you know, I work as a professor at IIT Indore in India, and I'm a professor of digital humanities and post-colonial studies. I also run and chair the Center for Digital Humanities. It's called the JPN National Center for Excellence in the Humanities, a centre for Digital and Environmental humanities. I have a research group with about 15 students who are in various stages of their PhD and also postdocs who also work in the lab. The way it works in the IIT system in India is that every faculty has a lab and a research group, so we are known by that—if you ask my students, they'll tell you, oh, I work with Professor Menon's group. You can check it out at https://jpnnationalcentre.com.
Currently, we are very focused on various kinds of digital humanities projects. We have done a few over the years, trying to see how to link them together for some infrastructure outcomes. While I’ve been here at Northeastern, we've been awarded a grant from the funding agency in India (ANRF). I think this was good for me and we are beginning to work on that. And also, the DHI (Digital Humanities Intersections) first issue should be out very soon. That is the journal that we have started from the institute, it's the first journal for digital humanities in India and its first issue is just ready to come out. As the first formally established DH research lab in India when we started way back in 2013, oftentimes I feel a certain responsibility in terms of DH, in the national sense—that we should do certain things that we might be able to do from an IIT system that will facilitate other faculty and researchers across the country.
Yes, it sounds as if this has been a really significant year for you and also for the work that you're doing in India. I'm really interested in the conversation between post-colonial studies and digital humanities, particularly in India, and I wonder whether there are particular focal points for digital humanities in India, which might or might not be post-colonial studies oriented. And I wonder if you could say a little bit about the relationship between post-coloniality and Indian approaches to digital humanities, if those things are not just the same thing, if that makes sense.
Oh, yes. I think that's a wonderful question, because that is something that I have kind of grappled with ever since I started, the transition to DH from post-colonial studies. I think there are two or three things that you can point to as very particular to Indian DH. The biggest one is that almost all the projects that we have done in our lab, and also that I've seen in the labs across the country, are by definition multilingual. So they are in various different languages, right? And I think that DH has afforded a space for a theoretical vocabulary to emerge from those projects that I think in some ways postcolonial theory was not quite able to do. And this comes from one of my earliest critiques of postcolonial theoretical vocabulary as being very Anglo-centric. Which is not to say that it was not useful. It was just inadequate, right?
That was one part. The second part is also that scholars at the time, this is early mid 2000s, when you know, scholars from Africa or Latin America were very peeved about post-colonial studies being kind of colonized by Indian scholars. So there was always the sense that we say “post-colonial,” but it's really Indian literature in English and Indian scholars and those are huge. I felt that they felt that there was a huge domination of that. I think that has now become far more diverse and that's a good thing. But I was very aware of that criticism when we started doing DH and that is why, even when we did the DH organization in India and I was the founding president of that, I was very clear: let us call it the DH organization of India. Let's not claim the Global South or even South Asia -which is not to say we don't welcome them, but to say, let us understand that even people in the immediate neighborhood might have different approaches than we do, and our space itself is so big that let's first try to grapple with some of those diversities before we claim anything beyond that. I faced some pushback on that, I remember, because a lot of my colleagues always felt that that would be very nativist, right? And my argument has always been that there is a way of being particular without being nativist. My argument is in no way nativist, but I do believe that we have to see how these different [projects have different perspectives], like the Sindhi project that I showed you. Another project that we did was in Tamil. Ones that I have evaluated over the years come in Malayalam, in Kannada, in Hindi. So, you know, these are all very different kinds of projects.
Now, what links them is the need for a multilingual infrastructure! That is where we are trying to go now—how do we facilitate that? And at the same time, we need to see if the mega projects in India that are funded by the ministry of the government of India will be able to make space for humanities multilingual projects. I don't know, to be honest. It's very difficult to make them even understand, but I'm trying. So to go back to your original question, I do think that they are all in some ways postcolonial, but they are also coming from a generation like my students who were born in 2000. So they're not really thinking about India as post-colonial. You know, the colonial itself is more of a memory, right? Or something that they hear from parents or grandparents—they don't think of themselves like that. Most of the students who come to me, from across India, they think of themselves as global citizens. It's very, very clear to me that they are really grappling with their own things and they are critiquing the funding agencies in India for not really paying attention to things like that. I do believe that that discussion has moved now, and I think that's good because I think it enriches post-colonial studies too.
Thank you—that was wonderful. What brought you to the CDS or what drew you to Northeastern as a place to spend your Fulbright time?
You! Mostly because I felt that as a General Editor with DHQ I was learning a lot of things, just by listening and by just being part of that conversation. And when I was thinking about maybe taking one year or nine months for this fellowship, I wanted to be in a space where digital scholarship is the key. That was one thing. And at the time, in my mind was also this: I remember I told you when we met in Washington, DC, that I want to start a journal. And I still say this to many people in India, that, you know, when we met there, you told me that of course you should do it. So the way you said it, I felt a bit, you know, confident! I was like, okay, maybe I can do it, right? you know, because it's such a huge venture. And so I'm very thankful to you for doing that. It's only after I went back from DC that I actually started thinking about it and putting things in place. Plus, I know I like New England. I mean, I've been here before—I've not lived in Boston, but I have been in the New England area. And so Boston seemed like a wonderful place. I mean, the two blizzards were something to live through, but that was okay.
One takes one's New England winters as one finds them!
Yes!
I know that your center in IIT Indore is taking shape, and I wonder, from your perspective—having lived here for a year and working on the development of your centre at home—are there things that feel like interesting similarities, interesting differences? I would love to see the CDS through the lens of what you're building at your home institution.
I think it's in some ways it's very similar. You know, you have independent projects—the DAILP project is one of my favorites—and mentoring and presentations. That is something we also do. But the overall working of the center and the space, I think the space is beautiful. My space is nowhere as beautiful as this one. I'm always sending pictures. And I do believe that the kinds of independent ways in which everyone works, I really appreciate that. I think in our center, it's a bit more kind of interdependent, to be honest. Partly because many happen to be PhD students and I'm the only faculty. I do have postdoctoral scholars and all, and you must have seen me many times in the morning, having meetings with them. So I think that is a little different. I think what is also different is thatI have to do a lot of financial and administrative work for the center. But it is a constant kind of anxiety, right? I have to do a lot that I would much rather not. I also have to look for funding sources now. We have about 14 people in the center, not including my PhD students. My PhD students are covered by the institute funding, so that is not an issue. But other than that, there are about 14 people in the center. So I have to really think about how to get funding so that the center can go into its next five years.
What are the kinds of roles that those people play in the center as a research unit or a pedagogical unit?
We have two people who take care of administration. One is very recent, who I have designated as a center administrator. I'm trying to delegate a lot of that admin stuff to her. Then there's a very junior administration person. And the rest are all postdoctoral fellows and master's students. We have the MS (Research) graduate program and we also have an MA in literature and linguistics, which is a new program. The JPN Center funds a few of those students who are doing digital projects. So they are there in the center, and we pay them a small stipend. And the JPN Center has its own PhD program, which has five students; it started about a year and a half ago. So we have five PhD students. So we fund those also.
And are those students located also in an academic department or are they doing a PhD in digital humanities?
Yes, they are doing a PhD in digital humanities. This was one of the things that I consider as a win, because until now, all my students who have graduated have always done a good digital project along with their dissertations. But still, the dissertations were very literary because they were always going to be evaluated by literature experts, right? So you have to be very careful in how they write the dissertation. Two years ago, the JPN Center proposed to the Senate to have a PhD program in digital humanities and that was approved. So now these students will actually graduate with a PhD in digital humanities. That gives me a lot more flexibility in making sure they can flesh out a project and make it very
central to their work.
Other than that, we actually have funded 40 projects across India. We've given small amounts, not big amounts, but I think a total of 38 or 40 projects. I don't think I have money anymore for the next two years to do that part, but a major chunk of the money in the last three years went for, you know, facilitating projects in different areas led by faculty and researchers at different institutions across the country. And one of the things that I have done here while at Northeastern, other than working on my book, is also to put together a proposal for DH. I call it “DHing methods and methodologies” —that is going to be a collection with essays from the PIs of the projects funded by the Centre. The collection is a set of essays about their learning experiences from ideating and then implementing them with the small funding that we were able to provide. It will specifically document what did NOT work and the gaps identified, intellectually and infrastructurally. We have just finished writing that proposal, so let's see.
That sounds really valuable.
I think we will also learn a lot, because some of these PIs are in very small institutions. So even though our amount was very little, for them it was still a good amount to at least start scoping out the potential for their particular projects. I'm sure that they have a lot of lessons from those experiments and I'm hoping that it will be a good collection for that.
I'd love to hear more about the role that students play in the center. I mean, I understand that if many of them are students, you know, doing their degrees within the center, they have individual lines of research that they're pursuing. But is there a way that the center constitutes an intellectual community for them? What kinds of activities are you providing that help reinforce those bonds?
I definitely think that the students are the center of the center, honestly, both intellectually and in practice. We've done numerous boot camps, workshops, seminars, and invited people to the center. The boot camps are usually centered around and kind of emerge from their requests—we did a boot camp on using different kinds of tools, as you know, when I went back in January. That's when we did that camp. One of the things I’ve learned is also that I tend to be very hands-on. And I think my not being there really made these students also far more…I mean, they really kind of took charge. I landed the day we were going to start the boot camp. So, while they were running things by me, they mostly figured out the logistics and figured out a lot of the things that we needed. And the students wanted to teach the classes and I let them and it was hugely successful! So they have learned it with us, in terms of using specific tools like TEI and other tools, and the students were the ones who were actually instructors for almost 100 participants who came from different parts of the country. So I think the students are really the neural center of the JPN Center.
I wonder if there are any things that you'll take back from your experience here that will shape how you're thinking about your own center. The answer might be no, but I'm just curious if there are any things that you've observed either here or at the various places that you've visited on your Fulbright.
Well, I think a few things actually. One is that, like I told you, I do believe that I need to kind of let my group be, and help them or facilitate their being far more independent in terms of doing their work, right? I think that will make the center grow a lot. Also, we have certain set dates for presentations—like, we have to do this because the academic office demands it—but I also think that some more discussion about people's projects and what they can learn from each other would be very useful.
I've seen students do that here all the time and I think that is really very interesting. Also the kinds of combined trips that you do with some of your staff members, like when we went to Boston University or when we went to the Connecticut DH conference—I think that's very useful. My tendency has always been, if I'm going for a presentation, I'm like, “okay, I'll do it.” Or sometimes it's just a question of money. And sometimes I'll tell my students, you go, because I'm not going, right? But I do think there's value in kind of doing it together—I enjoyed that, and I'm sure my students would also probably enjoy that?
Flipping the question over—are there things that you see emerging as good practice in your center, or things that have worked in your center, or things that you see happening in the Indian digital humanities sphere that you feel would be particularly useful for us to take on board, or that we could learn from?
So I think that oftentimes when I give talks, people get a bit taken aback, right? I think it is often because in the North American context the work that happens in DH across India is often not known as widely. What comes through is narratives of projects that travel more easily and fit into familiar theoretical frames such as “postcolonial”. DH in India is so much more than that. Sometimes I feel that in North America, you miss the granularity of it, right? We have to do these things with particular constraints. And while audiences here have been very appreciative, I've also sensed that feeling of “Oh, we didn't know this!” Right? So, I think when someone like you does a TEI workshop for a bunch of young students in Pune, I think that is great because you will interact with and know about their particular needs and challenges. And I was thinking that, you know, that's really useful because then you would be hearing about those kinds of projects that they are working on and why TEI does not work for them or works for them or like in what ways, right? But there is a lot of work that is happening. Some of who don't even identify themselves as DH, but that's okay. But I think that's very, very important.
This year, when I was here, that was the sense that I got. That's why I thought that this collection that we are thinking about would be a useful addition, right? Because I think that infrastructure also means having these kind of pedagogical and research publications that documents these disparate and divergent but important experiences.
I know you're working on a book that is very much about infrastructure and it sounds as though it's informed by a lot of themes and challenges that you're grappling with in the broader space of digital humanities in India. Could you say a little bit about how you see your book intervening in those conversations?
I think my confusion with the book title is kind of symbolic of the way I keep grappling with the content. I keep calling it “digital infrastructures,” then I call it “knowledge infrastructures,” then I call it “digital knowledge infrastructure.” I mean, it's all over the place, right? I haven’t pinned down what exactly I am going to call it. I think that's how I'm shaping my book—to look at the history of knowledge infrastructures in India. What are some of those gaps? Language is one big one that I do focus on as a case study. And I also then look at how we can think about building knowledge infrastructures for the next generation, and how do we harness technology in a way that is useful and works for the next generation?
A big part of my study is about language. There has been a disparity in the education system in India in terms of secondary and tertiary education. Secondary education in India is done in 22 languages at the very minimum. So the annual AISHE report about education in India that I remember reading, mentions that the number of students in high school going to English medium schools (there are lots of English medium schools in India) is at an all-time high of 13%. In absolute numbers, you know, everything is big in India. We are 1.4 billion. But that tells you that 87% of students are not going to English [secondary] schools, right? However, our higher education, especially in the elite research institutions, has often been very English centered. So I think we have to kind of make that transition and we have to make the transition in a way that is not just about being nativist, right? It's about harnessing the language skills of many of these students, being able to articulate that intelligence in languages other than English and then being able to translate it into English too. I do think that digital technologies can play a role, especially today.
And I would like to see how that can happen by harnessing some of the mega projects that are there in India. Because a lot of the mega projects, you know, focus on semiconductors or data warehouses and, you know, all of those things. And of course, large language models. But what about small language models? What about creating language models individually? If I need a language model for my project, how do I generate that? How can the mega projects help me to do that? I've been in touch with one or two of them who are part of these big projects, or PIs of those big projects, to see how they can do that for the humanities.
So how do we make that leap, that change? I use the analogy of the cell phone—India was one of those countries which had very little penetration of land phones because they were very difficult to get. It was under a very socialist Raj and so getting a phone was like, you know, you are very privileged! It was very difficult to get one. And then we know, boom! With cell phone technology, you leapfrog the [landline] technology and cables were laid and today it's almost 80 or 90% of people who have cell phones, right? And so it's possible—I don't know how good an analogy that is, but it shows me that it can be done, at least in terms of the technology part. So I feel like we can do something similar when it comes to publishing, especially scholarly publishing. And as I've told you before, that gap between scholarly publishing and creative publishing in terms of multilinguality, is just huge. How will we bridge that gap? We have a role model in terms of creative publishing, where we were able to connect the literature, because creative publishing and literature are just amazing in India. Maybe we were able to connect the literature, the translation industry, and the publishing industry.
In the first 50 years, a lot of that burden of translating between [Indian] languages, as well as translating from [an Indian] language to English or other foreign languages, was mostly taken by Sahitya Academy. It's a government kind of organization, and it did its job—I would say they deserve a lot of credit for doing it in that period. But that process really scaled up when big publishers, say a Penguin or a Harper Collins, realize that there's a readership. And so suddenly you saw that scaling. I think that needs to happen in scholarly publishing. Can we do this with respect to scholarly publishing in India and how can we make it multilingual? China has done it. They do a very good job and so does Japan. Both of those countries, of course, they don't have to deal with 22 languages. They have to deal with only one or two.
That's quite a vision. Wonderful. On that note–I think we can wrap it up here. Thank you very, very much for sharing your thoughts with us, and for spending your fellowship year with the CDS!
Thank you.