Over the course of the 2025-26 academic year, the Centre for India and South Asia Research (CISAR) hosted a wide range of events that reflected the diversity of South Asia, and the many ways the region is reflected in and through scholarship, art, dialogue, and community. From lectures and screenings, to exhibitions and cultural celebrations, this year’s events brought together students, faculty, and community members alike around timely and meaningful conversations. These events invited audiences to think through urgent political questions that the region is grappling with and created a space to reflect on language, identity, memory and belonging.
In February 2026, CISAR, in collaboration with UBC Himalaya Program and the Centre for Southeast Asia Research (CSEAR), organized a panel discussion on recent protests in South Asia: New Waves of Dissent: Understanding Gen Z Protest Movements in South Asia. The event featured Professor Naveeda Khan of Johns Hopkins University and two students from the Masters of Public Policy and Global Affairs program: Salina Dolmo Lama and Leandro Salud. The event drew close to 100 attendees and sparked an engaging discussion on youth-led protests, political voice, and social change across the region.
Several events this year also explored questions of justice and historical erasure in particularly powerful ways. The Overcaste Exhibition and Opening Reception brought attention to caste oppression in British Columbia and across the South Asian diaspora, centering the voices and experiences of Dalit and caste-oppressed communities. Similarly, Eelam Tamil Resistance, Futures and the Reclamation of Space featuring Ambihai Akhilan from PEARL, invited audiences to reflect on militarization, dispossession, and the political imagination of Tamil futures. CISAR’s screening of the documentary Sikkidre Shikari, Illadiddare Bhikari (Bird Trapper or Beggar), followed by a conversation with the director, used visual media to open up a discussion on displacement, criminalization, and survival in the lives of the Hakki Pikki community.
CISAR’s programming also demonstrated the value of interdisciplinary scholarship. Of Continuities, Ruptures and Déjà vu: The Regulation of Telecommunications from ‘Colonial India’ to ‘New India’ (1854-2024), featuring Professor Arun Thiruvengadam of the National Law School of India, Bangalore, examined law, governance, and the political economy of India through the history of telecommunications regulation.
Other events such as International Mother Language Day celebrated the importance of cultural expression and community gathering. CISAR also strengthened collaborations with other academic institutions in the area, for instance through an event on Palestine and Feminist Liberation at Simon Fraser University.
Taken together, the year’s programming showcased CISAR as a vibrant hub for critical South Asia conversations and a space that continues to build community.
