On December 4th, the Contemporary Asian Studies Student Union hosted a fascinating panel, moderated by Dr. Francis Cody of the Asian Institute and composed of Dr. Aparna Sundar and Dr. Bharat Punjabi. The panel, in the context of Modi’s landmark re-election in May 2019, sought to examine the socio-political position of Indian minorities under his government, specifically examining the claim that its successes are predicated on an active oppression of minorities.
Dr. Sundar is a lecturer in the Contemporary Asian Studies Program and is also a visiting faculty at the Azim Premji University in Bangalore. She is currently working on a project on authoritarian populisms, and another one on the topic of neoliberalization, precarity and contentious politics in BRICS countries. Dr. Punjabi is a lecturer at the Asian Institute, University of Toronto and a research fellow at the Global Cities Institute, and is currently working on a monograph on water policy and governance in mega regions in India. Their diverse areas of expertise, accompanied by Dr. Cody’s proficiency in language, politics and media in Southern India, set the stage for a highly engaging panel presentation.
Opening the panel, Dr. Sundar explored the factors that went behind the rise to power of the Modi government in 2014, describing the greatly propagated Gujarat model of development as exemplary of the neoliberal aspects of Modi’s policies. She drew attention to how the rhetoric of “putting minorities in their place” was never explicitly stated, but formed an underlying current throughout the campaign, and was ultimately extremely appealing to the voter bank. Moving towards the characteristics of Modi’s first term, Sundar examined how it was marked by the fermentation of extensive social unrest, including a surge in mob lynchings, a majority of which were targeted at Muslims, and generalized violence, often tinted with nationalist rhetoric, against rationalists, atheists and dissenters amongst academics, journalists and on university campuses. With demonetization allowing for massive amounts of unspecified funds making their way to the BJP’s coffers, the slight lag in the party’s momentum was offset by the spread of patriotic, anti-terrorism narratives that resulted in a sweeping resurgence of support and saw the immense victory of the 2019 elections.
Sundar argued that Modi 2.0 taking from its clear mandate for Hindutva, simply renewed the active targeting and exclusion of minorities within the country. Ranging from the removal of constitutional autonomy, widespread arrests and communications lockdown in Jammu and Kashmir to the National Register of Citizens in Assam, the undermining of minorities remained a persistent theme. She situated the BJP in its historic placement within the triumvirate of the RSS, a Hindu-nationalist organization formed in 1925 and the VHP, intended to bring diasporic communities into the fold of the Hindutva agenda, demonstrating that the party represented the promotion of a very specific form of upper-caste, brahmanicaland patriarchal version of Hindu nationalism, consequently marginalizing the diversity within the religion itself.
Importantly, however, she highlights that these ideas are not new additions to the Indian political rhetoric and that minorities have historically been underrepresented in nearly every sphere of socio-political life. Furthermore, political parties, including Congress, have frequently used the anti-minority rhetoric to pander to voters and accumulate power. Although unlike the BJP, their rhetoric was targeting other minority groups, not just the Muslims.Sundar states that what is new to the BJP is the inclusion of fascist elements and such an aggravated manifestation of intolerance towards minorities and social violence.
Following Sundar, Dr. Bharat Punjabi delved into the question of whether Hindutva truly represents a hegemony, and brought light to the limitations of the employment of the Hindutva rhetoric. First, he established that the BJP had unquestionable success with setting the terms for any debate and discourse around the question of nationalism, and in defining Indian national identity. In particular, the BJP’s definition has tied ideas of economic development and progress to an exclusionary upper-caste definition of Hindutva and, as Punjabi points out, has resulted in the party gaining ground in states where it had previously held a marginal presence, such as West Bengal and Kerala. He also pointed out that there is an absence of a counter-narrative to this definition of Indian national identity and, consequently, the Modi government has an unchallenged “dominance in the terrain of ideas.”
Punjabi then presented an opposing view in which the ideology of Hindutva is unlikely to achieve hegemonic status. Using James Manor’s work, he pointed out the wide range of possible identities accessible to the Indian population, including regional, sub-regional, caste-based, linguistic and gender-based identities. In order the exemplify this argument further, he explored the recent state elections in Maharashtra. Historically, the Shiv Sena and the BJP – both Hindutva parties – have shared an electoral understanding within the state. However, this time, as a result of the fractured mandate, the Shiv Sena chose to ally with the Congress party to form a government, breaking away from the BJP and their shared ideology of Hindu nationalism. Punjabi argued that this fragmentation represents the capacity of regionalism to challenge and blunt the hegemonic capacity of the Hindutva narrative and therefore indicates that the BJP’s continued rise on the basis of this narrative is not guaranteed. Additionally, he proposed that a number of factors such as lagging economic growth, conflict-ridden federalism, and the growing centralization of power and decision-making, will continue to pose significant challenges to the BJP’s stronghold, rise and potential hegemony.
Both speakers addressed a wide range of questions in the panel discussion and Q&A session that followed. They explored some of the specific mechanisms by which the Modi government may be affecting minority rights, such as the National Citizenship Register, influence on the judiciary and the free press, quotas and policing. The engaging conversation came to a conclusion with Punjabi highlighting the need for those in opposition and for those who represent an alternative political stance to be creative and resourceful in their discourse in order to pose a viable challenge to the Modi government’s exclusionary rhetoric and policies.
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