The Rise Of Hindu Authoritarianism

Author : Achin Vanaik
Publisher : Verso Books
Page : 432 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2017-05-16
Category : History
ISBN : 9781786630742

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The Rise of Hindu Authoritarianism by Achin Vanaik Pdf

The definitive analysis of Hindu nationalism in contemporary India and the challenges for the radical Left With the Hindu nationalist BJP now replacing the Congress as the only national political force, the communalization of the Indian polity has qualitatively advanced since the earlier edition of this book in 1997. This edition has been substantially reworked and updated with several new chapters added. Hindutva’s rise necessitates a more critical take on mainstream secular claims, ironically reinforced by liberal–left sections discovering special virtues in India’s ‘distinctive’ secularism. The careful evaluation of the ongoing debate on ‘Indian fascism’ has resonances for the broader debate about how best to assess the dangers of the far right’s rise in other liberal democracies. A study follows of how Hindutva forces are pursuing their project of establishing a Hindu Rashtra and how to thwart them through a wider transformative struggle targeting capitalism itself.

Author : Christophe Jaffrelot
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 656 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2023-04-11
Category : History
ISBN : 9780691247908

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Modi's India by Christophe Jaffrelot Pdf

A riveting account of how a popularly elected leader has steered the world's largest democracy toward authoritarianism and intolerance Over the past two decades, thanks to Narendra Modi, Hindu nationalism has been coupled with a form of national-populism that has ensured its success at the polls, first in Gujarat and then in India at large. Modi managed to seduce a substantial number of citizens by promising them development and polarizing the electorate along ethno-religious lines. Both facets of this national-populism found expression in a highly personalized political style as Modi related directly to the voters through all kinds of channels of communication in order to saturate the public space. Drawing on original interviews conducted across India, Christophe Jaffrelot shows how Modi's government has moved India toward a new form of democracy, an ethnic democracy that equates the majoritarian community with the nation and relegates Muslims and Christians to second-class citizens who are harassed by vigilante groups. He discusses how the promotion of Hindu nationalism has resulted in attacks against secularists, intellectuals, universities, and NGOs. Jaffrelot explains how the political system of India has acquired authoritarian features for other reasons, too. Eager to govern not only in New Delhi, but also in the states, the government has centralized power at the expense of federalism and undermined institutions that were part of the checks and balances, including India's Supreme Court. Modi's India is a sobering account of how a once-vibrant democracy can go wrong when a government backed by popular consent suppresses dissent while growing increasingly intolerant of ethnic and religious minorities.

Author : Siddhartha Deb
Publisher : Verso Books
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2024-01-16
Category : History
ISBN : 9781804292174

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Twilight Prisoners by Siddhartha Deb Pdf

An incisive, lyrically written, and deeply-reported account of India's descent into authoritarianism and religious fundamentalism Here is an absorbing and disturbing account of India's transformation into a religious fundamentalist, brutally unequal dystopia, from a novelist described by Pankaj Mishra as “one of the most distinctive writers to have emerged from South Asia in the last two decades.” Originally from a remote town in the northeastern hills of India, Siddhartha Deb crisscrosses the country to explain the rise of Hindu authoritarianism and the fall of Indian democracy. With a journalist's commitment to on-the-ground reportage and a literary writer's sensitivity, Deb describes how prime minister Narendra Modi and his party–a formation explicitly beholden to European fascists–has deftly exploited modern technologies, the media, and market forces to launch a relentless campaign on minorities, women, dissenters, and the poor. Deb narrates Modi's emergence from an obscure paramilitary volunteer to world leader, but he also includes portraits of resistance exemplified by figures like Arundhati Roy, the assassinated journalist Gauri Lankesh, and the group of political prisoners known as the BK 16. This important collection of essays is an unforgettable portrait of the country as it prepares for crucial national elections in 2024.

Author : Chetan Bhatt
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2020-05-15
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781000181043

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Hindu Nationalism by Chetan Bhatt Pdf

The rise of authoritarian Hindu mass movements and political formations in India since the early 1980s raises fundamental questions about the resurgence of chauvinistic ethnic, religious and nationalist movements in the late modern period. This book examines the history and ideologies of Hindu nationalism and Hindutva from the end of the last century to the present, and critically evaluates the social and political philosophies and writings of its main thinkers.Hindu nationalism is based on the claim that it is an indigenous product of the primordial and authentic ethnic and religious traditions of India. The book argues instead that these claims are based on relatively recent ideas, frequently related to western influences during the colonial period. These influences include eighteenth and nineteenth century European Romantic and Enlightenment rationalist ideas preoccupied with archaic primordialism, evolution, organicism, vitalism and race. As well as considering the ideological impact of National Socialism and Fascism on Hindu nationalism in the 1930s, the book also looks at how Aryanism continues to be promoted in unexpected forms in contemporary India. Using a wide range of historical and contemporary sources, the author considers the consequences of Hindu nationalist resurgence in the light of contemporary debates about minorities, secular citizenship, ethics and modernity.

Author : Angana P. Chatterji,Thomas Blom Hansen,Christophe Jaffrelot
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 551 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2019-08
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780190078171

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Majoritarian State by Angana P. Chatterji,Thomas Blom Hansen,Christophe Jaffrelot Pdf

Majoritarian State traces the ascendance of Hindu nationalism in contemporary India. Led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP administration has established an ethno-religious and populist style of rule since 2014. Its agenda is also pursued beyond the formal branches of government, as the new dispensation portrays conventional social hierarchies as intrinsic to Indian culture while condoning communal and caste- and gender-based violence. The contributors explore how Hindutva ideology has permeated the state apparatus and formal institutions, and how Hindutva activists exert control over civil society via vigilante groups, cultural policing and violence. Groups and regions portrayed as 'enemies' of the Indian state are the losers in a new order promoting the interests of the urban middle class and business elites. As this majoritarian ideology pervades the media and public discourse, it also affects the judiciary, universities and cultural institutions, increasingly captured by Hindu nationalists. Dissent and difference silenced and debate increasingly sidelined as the press is muzzled or intimidated in the courts. Internationally, the BJP government has emphasised hard power and a fast- expanding security state. This collection of essays offers rich empirical analysis and documentation to investigate the causes and consequences of the illiberal turn taken by the world's largest democracy.

Author : Kajri Jain
Publisher : Duke University Press
Page : 267 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2021-01-08
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781478012887

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Gods in the Time of Democracy by Kajri Jain Pdf

In 2018 India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, inaugurated the world's tallest statue: a 597-foot figure of nationalist leader Sardar Patel. Twice the height of the Statue of Liberty, it is but one of many massive statues built following India's economic reforms of the 1990s. In Gods in the Time of Democracy Kajri Jain examines how monumental icons emerged as a religious and political form in contemporary India, mobilizing the concept of emergence toward a radical treatment of art historical objects as dynamic assemblages. Drawing on a decade of fieldwork at giant statue sites in India and its diaspora and interviews with sculptors, patrons, and visitors, Jain masterfully describes how public icons materialize the intersections between new image technologies, neospiritual religious movements, Hindu nationalist politics, globalization, and Dalit-Bahujan verifications of equality and presence. Centering the ex-colony in rethinking key concepts of the image, Jain demonstrates how these new aesthetic forms entail a simultaneously religious and political retooling of the “infrastructures of the sensible.”

Author : David E. Ludden
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 380 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : History
ISBN : UOM:39015061447606

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Making India Hindu by David E. Ludden Pdf

This classic collection by eminent scholars takes a critical look at the mobilizations, genealogies, and interpretive conflicts that have attended efforts to make India Hindu since the rise to power of Hindu political parties from 1980. The second edition has been updated with a new preface in which Ludden provides an incisive analysis of the recently held elections and highlights how Hindutva operates inside India's political mainstream.

Author : Ian Scoones,Marc Edelman,Saturnino M. Borras Jr.,Lyda Fernanda Forero,Ruth Hall,Wendy Wolford,Ben White
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 474 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2021-06-29
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781000442069

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Authoritarian Populism and the Rural World by Ian Scoones,Marc Edelman,Saturnino M. Borras Jr.,Lyda Fernanda Forero,Ruth Hall,Wendy Wolford,Ben White Pdf

The rise of authoritarian, nationalist forms of populism and the implications for rural actors and settings is one of the most crucial foci for critical agrarian studies today, with many consequences for political action. Authoritarian Populism and the Rural World reflects on the rural origins and consequences of the emergence of authoritarian and populist leaders across the world, as well as on the rise of multi-class mobilisation and resistance, alongside wider counter-movements and alternative practices, which together confront authoritarianism and nationalist populism. The book includes 20 chapters written by contributors to the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI), a global network of academics and activists committed to both reflective analysis and political engagement. Debates about ‘populism’, ‘nationalism’, ‘authoritarianism’ and more have exploded recently, but relatively little of this has focused on the rural dimensions. Yet, wherever one looks, the rural aspects are key – not just in electoral calculus, but in understanding underlying drivers of authoritarianism and populism, and potential counter-movements to these. Whether because of land grabs, voracious extractivism, infrastructural neglect or lack of services, rural peoples’ disillusionment with the status quo has had deeply troubling consequences and occasionally hopeful ones, as the chapters in this book show. The chapters in this book were originally published in The Journal of Peasant Studies.

Author : Meera Nanda
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
Page : 334 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : History
ISBN : 0813533589

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Prophets Facing Backward by Meera Nanda Pdf

The leading voices in science studies have argued that modern science reflects dominant social interests of Western society. Following this logic, postmodern scholars have urged postcolonial societies to develop their own "alternative sciences" as a step towards "mental decolonization". These ideas have found a warm welcome among Hindu nationalists who came to power in India in the early 1990s. In this passionate and highly original study, Indian-born author Meera Nanda reveals how these well-meaning but ultimately misguided ideas are enabling Hindu ideologues to propagate religious myths in the guise of science and secularism. At the heart of Hindu supremacist ideology, Nanda argues, lies a postmodernist assumption: that each society has its own norms of reasonableness, logic, rules of evidence, and conception of truth, and that there is no non-arbitrary, culture-independent way to choose among these alternatives. What is being celebrated as "difference" by postmodernists, however, has more often than not been the source of mental bondage and authoritarianism in non-Western cultures. The "Vedic sciences" currently endorsed in Indian schools, colleges, and the mass media promotes the same elements of orthodox Hinduism that have for centuries deprived the vast majority of Indian people of their full humanity. By denouncing science and secularization, the left was unwittingly contributing to what Nanda calls "reactionary modernism." In contrast, Nanda points to the Dalit, or untouchable, movement as a true example of an "alternative science" that has embraced reason and modern science to challenge traditional notions of hierarchy.

Author : Vernon Hewitt
Publisher : Taylor & Francis US
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2009-04-21
Category : Authoritarianism
ISBN : 0415544793

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Political Mobilisation and Democracy in India by Vernon Hewitt Pdf

This book addresses the paradox of political mobilization and the failings of governance in India, with reference to the conflict between secularism and Hindu nationalism, authoritarianism and democracy. It demonstrates how the Internal Emergency of 1975 led to increased support of groups such as the BJS and the RSS, accounting for the rise of political movements advocating Hindu nationalism - Hindutva - as a response to rapid political mobilization triggered by the Emergency, and an attempt by political elites to control this to their advantage. Vernon Hewitt argues that the political disjuncture between democracy and mobilization in India is partly a function of the Indian state, the nature of a caste-class based society, but also - and significantly - the contingencies of individual leaders and the styles of rule. He shows how, in the wake of the Emergency, the BJP and the RSS gained popularity and power amid the on-going decline and fragmentation of the Congress, whilst, at the same time, Hindu nationalism appeared to be of such importance that Congress began aligning themselves with the Hindu right for electoral gains. The volume suggests that, in the light of these developments, the rise of the BJP should not be considered as remarkable - or as transformative - as was at first imagined.

Author : Berch Berberoglu
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2020-09-22
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781000171068

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The Global Rise of Authoritarianism in the 21st Century by Berch Berberoglu Pdf

Neoliberal globalization is in deep crisis. This crisis is manifested on a global scale and embodies a number of fundamental contradictions, a central one of which is the global rise of authoritarianism and fascism. This emergent form of authoritarianism is a right-wing reaction to the problems generated by globalization supported and funded by some of the largest and most powerful corporations in their assault against social movements on the left to prevent the emergence of socialism against global capitalism. As the crisis of neoliberal global capitalism unfolds, and as we move to the brink of another economic crisis and the threat of war, global capitalism is once again resorting to authoritarianism and fascism to maintain its power. This book addresses this vital question in comparative-historical perspective and provides a series of case studies around the world that serve as a warning against the impending rise of fascism in the 21st century.

Author : Achin Vanaik
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2020
Category : Authoritarianism
ISBN : 9350026554

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Nationalist Dangers, Secular Failings by Achin Vanaik Pdf

Author : Ahmet T. Kuru
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 323 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2019-08
Category : History
ISBN : 9781108419093

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Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment by Ahmet T. Kuru Pdf

Analyzes Muslim countries' contemporary problems, particularly violence, authoritarianism, and underdevelopment, comparing their historical levels of development with Western Europe.

Author : Sanjay Ruparelia,Sanjay Reddy,John Harriss,Stuart Corbridge
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2011-03-09
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781136816482

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Understanding India's New Political Economy by Sanjay Ruparelia,Sanjay Reddy,John Harriss,Stuart Corbridge Pdf

A number of large-scale transformations have shaped the economy, polity and society of India over the past quarter century. This book provides a detailed account of three that are of particular importance: the advent of liberal economic reform, the ascendance of Hindu cultural nationalism, and the empowerment of historically subordinate classes through popular democratic mobilizations. Filling a gap in existing literature, the book goes beyond looking at the transformations in isolation, managing to: • Explain the empirical linkages between these three phenomena • Provide an account that integrates the insights of separate disciplinary perspectives • Explain their distinct but possibly related causes and the likely consequences of these central transformations taken together By seeking to explain the causal relationships between these central transformations through a coordinated conversation across different disciplines, the dynamics of India’s new political economy are captured. Chapters focus on the political, economic and social aspects of India in their current and historical context. The contributors use new empirical research to discuss how India’s multidimensional story of economic growth, social welfare and democratic deepening is likely to develop. This is an essential text for students and researchers of India's political economy and the growth economies of Asia.

Author : Akshaya Mukul
Publisher : HarperCollins
Page : 552 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2017-08-16
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9789352772957

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Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India by Akshaya Mukul Pdf

In the early 1920s, Jaydayal Goyandka and Hanuman Prasad Poddar, two Marwari businessmen-turned-spiritualists, set up the Gita Press and Kalyan magazine. As of early 2014, Gita Press had sold close to 72 million copies of the Gita, 70 million copies of Tulsidas's works and 19 million copies of scriptures like the Puranas and Upanishads. And while most other journals of the period, whether religious, literary or political, survive only in press archives, Kalyan now has a circulation of over 200,000, and its English counterpart, Kalyana-Kalpataru, of over 100,000. Gita Press created an empire that spoke in a militant Hindu nationalist voice and imagined a quantifiable, reward-based piety. Almost every notable leader and prominent voice, including Mahatma Gandhi, was roped in to speak for the cause. Cow slaughter, Hindi as national language and the rejection of Hindustani, the Hindu Code Bill, the creation of Pakistan, India's secular Constitution: Kalyan and Kalyana-Kalpataru were the spokespersons of the Hindu position on these and other matters. Featuring an extraordinary cast of characters - buccaneering entrepreneurs and hustling editors, nationalist ideologues and religious fanatics - this is essential (and exciting) reading for our times.