Oberseminar

Prof Dr Uday Chandra (Georgetown University, Qatar)

„Religious Nationalism, Populism, and Democracy in India”

Since the end of the Congress one-party regime in India, the post-Congress polity has been dominated by two tendencies: religious nationalism and caste-based activism. In theory, these tendencies are opposed to each other because the former is typically characterized as a centripetal force that seeks to unify the nation and its fragments whereas the latter is viewed as a centrifugal force that keeps the nation in fragments. Between 1989 and 2014, however, these tendencies and their underlying forces sometimes combined and sometimes fell apart. This is because Hindu nationalism remained an elitist tendency whereas caste-based activism tended to democratize the polity. In the 2014 national elections, Hindu nationalism and caste politics came together for the first time in a coherent manner. We may now speak justifiably of Hindu nationalist populism based on caste-based political mobilization even as we must acknowledge that anti-caste politics continually threatens to rend asunder the Hindu nation-in-the-making.

The Indian case has always intrigued students of democracy and democratization. It has often been regarded by comparativists as an exception or even anomaly in a club of richer liberal democracies. But we might ask today whether recent transformations in Indian democracy might shed light on processes at work in the North Atlantic world. What has made religious nationalism, populism, and democracy come together at this critical juncture in world history? Are we seeing a resurgence of fascism after a lengthy hiatus? How might alternative political formations emerge in future? Thinking comparatively, I would like to invite you to think through the Indian case in order to find answers to these big questions about global politics today.

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Prof Dr Chandan Gowda (Azim Premji University, India)

“The Ayodhya of the South”: The Trajectories of the Hindu Right in South India

The paper will identify the cultural and political lineages of Hindu right-wing activist work in South India, with a focus on the state of Karnataka where the BJP has secured a substantial electoral presence in recent years. It will then focus on a few major episodes of communal mobilization to understand the party’s strategies for widening its ideological and electoral support bases. The talk will also clarify the necessity of staying attentive to the historical and cultural specificities of sub-regions for mapping the rise of Hindu right-wing activism in Karnataka.

Wann?     Montag, 26.11.2018, 18 Uhr
Wo?         Institut für Ethnologie, Oettingenstraße 67, 80538 München
                Raum L155 (Obergeschoss) Lageplan

Für die Veranstaltungsreihe hat  Prof. Dr. Frank Heidemann in diesem Semester ein vielseitiges  Programm mit interessanten Themen und ReferentInnen zusammengestellt. Mehr Informationen über ehemalige Vorträge am Institut für Ethnologie finden Sie im „Veranstaltungsarchiv".