{"title":"Yogi Adityanath’s Background and Rise to Power","authors":"V. Bouillier","doi":"10.4000/samaj.6778","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/samaj.6778","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36326,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42621001","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hindu nationalists are heavily invested in rewriting Indian history to advance their modern and unrepentantly hateful political agenda. Hindu nationalism or Hindutva is a political ideology that advocates Hindu supremacy, specifically over Muslims who comprise around fourteen percent of modern India’s population. The similarity in name notwithstanding, Hindutva is distinct from Hinduism, a broad-based religious tradition, although Hindutva ideologues seek to constrict and flatten Hindu traditions. In this article, I describe some of the contours of the Hindutva investment in remaking the past as a means of advancing a modern political project. I also offer some thoughts on why Hindu nationalists care so much about history and explore some of the implications of Hindutva’s growing political influence for the field of South Asian history and academics who work therein.
{"title":"Hindutva’s Dangerous Rewriting of History","authors":"A. Truschke","doi":"10.4000/samaj.6636","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/samaj.6636","url":null,"abstract":"Hindu nationalists are heavily invested in rewriting Indian history to advance their modern and unrepentantly hateful political agenda. Hindu nationalism or Hindutva is a political ideology that advocates Hindu supremacy, specifically over Muslims who comprise around fourteen percent of modern India’s population. The similarity in name notwithstanding, Hindutva is distinct from Hinduism, a broad-based religious tradition, although Hindutva ideologues seek to constrict and flatten Hindu traditions. In this article, I describe some of the contours of the Hindutva investment in remaking the past as a means of advancing a modern political project. I also offer some thoughts on why Hindu nationalists care so much about history and explore some of the implications of Hindutva’s growing political influence for the field of South Asian history and academics who work therein.","PeriodicalId":36326,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46365998","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Heritage Politics and Policies in Hindu Rashtra","authors":"Corinne Lefèvre","doi":"10.4000/samaj.6728","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/samaj.6728","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36326,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49442855","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Federalism as a Moderating Force? State-level Responses to India’s New Citizenship Law","authors":"Loraine Kennedy","doi":"10.4000/samaj.6896","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/samaj.6896","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36326,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47339198","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“NRC se Azadi”: Process, Chronology, and a Paper Monster","authors":"N. Mathur","doi":"10.4000/samaj.6917","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/samaj.6917","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36326,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48593953","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article offers an ethnography of the citizenship protest movement in West Bengal from mid-2018 to mid-2020. In particular, it retraces the ways in which a comparatively marginal alliance of non-parliamentary left groups and Muslim organizations managed to impose its agenda on the state of West Bengal even though the movement was hijacked by the state government. It chronicles the year-long agitation before the passing of the CAA that altered the political landscape in the state. A multilayered analysis of the dynamics, composition, and symbolism of the Park Circus protest from January 2020, which were Kolkata’s response to Delhi’s sit-in at Shaheen Bagh, offers insights into the ways in which the state government under Trinamool Congress seized leadership over this movement. This in turn rendered the government subject to the movement’s agenda, which continued to be defined by the non-partisan alliance. The article concludes with the effects of the COVID lockdown on the movement and the possible transformation of dissident politics in its wake.
{"title":"The Agonistic Struggle between Trinamool Congress and a Non-partisan Protest Alliance: West Bengal and Its Anti-CAA/NRC Movement","authors":"Riccardo Jaede","doi":"10.4000/samaj.6916","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/samaj.6916","url":null,"abstract":"This article offers an ethnography of the citizenship protest movement in West Bengal from mid-2018 to mid-2020. In particular, it retraces the ways in which a comparatively marginal alliance of non-parliamentary left groups and Muslim organizations managed to impose its agenda on the state of West Bengal even though the movement was hijacked by the state government. It chronicles the year-long agitation before the passing of the CAA that altered the political landscape in the state. A multilayered analysis of the dynamics, composition, and symbolism of the Park Circus protest from January 2020, which were Kolkata’s response to Delhi’s sit-in at Shaheen Bagh, offers insights into the ways in which the state government under Trinamool Congress seized leadership over this movement. This in turn rendered the government subject to the movement’s agenda, which continued to be defined by the non-partisan alliance. The article concludes with the effects of the COVID lockdown on the movement and the possible transformation of dissident politics in its wake.","PeriodicalId":36326,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49387613","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay argues that attempts at implementing the Hindutva agenda adversely affect economic activity. At first sight, Modi’s unabashedly neoliberal and pro-big capital claims could seem contradictory to his politics of hatred that severely disrupt economic growth. However, the ability of the government to persuade the public that the economy is doing well or that adverse outcomes are not the result of its own policies, actually serves the neoliberal agenda by taming the resentment of the poor and enabling further concentration of wealth. The Modi government is focused on the management of perception rather than on actually developing and implementing economic policies that would benefit the people. In this regard, manipulation and/or destruction of the statistical system are decisive, which is why an aggressive attitude to economic statistics has become one of the defining features of the government.
{"title":"Hindutva, Economic Neoliberalism and the Abuse of Economic Statistics in India","authors":"Jayati Ghosh","doi":"10.4000/samaj.6882","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/samaj.6882","url":null,"abstract":"This essay argues that attempts at implementing the Hindutva agenda adversely affect economic activity. At first sight, Modi’s unabashedly neoliberal and pro-big capital claims could seem contradictory to his politics of hatred that severely disrupt economic growth. However, the ability of the government to persuade the public that the economy is doing well or that adverse outcomes are not the result of its own policies, actually serves the neoliberal agenda by taming the resentment of the poor and enabling further concentration of wealth. The Modi government is focused on the management of perception rather than on actually developing and implementing economic policies that would benefit the people. In this regard, manipulation and/or destruction of the statistical system are decisive, which is why an aggressive attitude to economic statistics has become one of the defining features of the government.","PeriodicalId":36326,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45890237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper examines the weaponization by Hindu right-wing politics of the suicide of a young Hindi film actor in September 2020. It argues that his death was invoked in particular ways to sharpen the attack on the Bombay film industry as part of the larger concerted move by the RSS to control and purge spaces seen as either controlled by “left liberals,” or as syncretic and unamenable to Hindu-Muslim polarization. In the course of this attack, some differences within the Hindutva camp have become evident, a phenomenon this paper examines closely.
{"title":"Hindu Rashtra and Bollywood: A New Front in the Battle for Cultural Hegemony","authors":"Nivedita Menon","doi":"10.4000/samaj.6846","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/samaj.6846","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the weaponization by Hindu right-wing politics of the suicide of a young Hindi film actor in September 2020. It argues that his death was invoked in particular ways to sharpen the attack on the Bombay film industry as part of the larger concerted move by the RSS to control and purge spaces seen as either controlled by “left liberals,” or as syncretic and unamenable to Hindu-Muslim polarization. In the course of this attack, some differences within the Hindutva camp have become evident, a phenomenon this paper examines closely.","PeriodicalId":36326,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41605214","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"24/25 | 2020The Hindutva Turn: Authoritarianism and Resistance in India","authors":"Aminah Mohammad-Arif, J. Naudet, Nicolas Jaoul","doi":"10.4000/samaj.6632","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4000/samaj.6632","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36326,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46682663","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}