In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji talk with scholar Angana Chatterji and journalist Siddhartha Deb. For decades, they have exposed the violence and fascism lying behind the mythology of India as the world’s largest democracy.  In the wake of India’s most recent elections, in which the far right Hindutva BJP was surprisingly reduced from its former majority to a ruling minority government.

Siddhartha and Angana join us to discuss the election results, the deep roots of fascism, the enduring structures of colonialism, and possible futures of resistance.

Angana P. Chatterji is Founding Chair, Initiative on Political Conflict, Gender and People’s Rights at the Center for Race and Gender, University of California, Berkeley. A cultural anthropologist and interdisciplinary scholar of South Asia, Dr. Chatterji’s work since 1989 has been rooted in local knowledge, witness to post/colonial, decolonial conditions of grief, dispossession, agency, and affective solidarity. Her investigations with colleagues in Indian-administered Kashmir includes inquiry into unknown, unmarked and mass graves. Chatterji’s recent scholarship focuses on political conflict and coloniality in Kashmir; prejudicial citizenship in India; and violence (as a category of analysis) as agentized by Hindu nationalism, addressing religion in the public sphere, Islamomisia, state power, gender, caste, and racialization, and accountability. Her research also engages questions of memory, belonging, and legacies of conflict across South Asia. Chatterji has served on human rights commissions and offered expert testimony at the United Nations, European Parliament, United Kingdom Parliament, and United States Congress, and has been variously awarded for her work. Her sole and co-authored publications include: Breaking Worlds: Religion, Law, and Nationalism in Majoritarian India; Majoritarian State: How Hindu Nationalism is Changing India; Conflicted Democracies and Gendered Violence: The Right to Heal; Contesting Nation: Gendered Violence in South Asia; Notes on the Postcolonial Present; Kashmir: The Case for Freedom; Violent Gods: Hindu Nationalism in India’s Present; Narratives from Orissa; and reports: Access to Justice for Women: India’s Response to Sexual Violence in Conflict and Social Upheaval; BURIED EVIDENCE: Unknown, Unmarked and Mass Graves in Kashmir.

Born in Shillong, north-eastern India, Siddhartha Deb lives in New York. His fiction and nonfiction have been longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, shortlisted for the Orwell Prize, and been awarded the Pen Open prize and the 2024 Anthony Veasna So Fiction prize. His journalism and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Republic, Dissent, The Baffler, N+1, and Caravan. His latest books include the novel, The Light at the End of the World (Soho Press 2023) and Twilight Prisoners: The Rise of the Hindu Right and the Fall of India (Haymarket Books, 2024).

ANGANA CHATTERJI

I think that the 2024 national elections in India signaled a slowdown in its slide into authoritarianism, but did not halt it. The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) and the ways in which it secured votes merit analysis. There's a distinction to be made between why people of dominant Hindu descent in India voted against the BJP. Did it vote against its Hindu right policies, or did it vote because the country is in deep economic disarray, damaging people's livelihood and capacity to live a meaningful life? Minority communities voting against the BJP stands to reason, given their experiences. This includes vulnerable communities, allies, and secular progressive communities of dominant dissent. This analysis is very important. In his June 4th victory speech, Narendra Modi's rallying cry was "Bharat Mata Ki Jai" (Hail to Mother India), a slogan promoted by Hindu nationalists. It objectifies and feminizes the state, linking control over women and control in general to nationalist assertion. "Bharat Mata" is also associated with "Akhand Bharat," or undivided India, the once and future homeland of Hindus. Modi did not show humility in his speech. Instead, he emphasized the exceptionalism of a third consecutive win, stating, "I believe that the country will write a new chapter of big decisions. This is the Modi guarantee." Nevertheless, he also talked about his government's efforts to weed out forms of corruption, which is ironic given the BJP's recent collusion in the electoral bond scandal.

No matching results, press enter to execute your custom prompt Fix it: I think first, like, there is a kind of emotional reaction, which is understandable. I have been here before. when the first BJP government in 98 collapsed and when the Congress came to power. Many of us were not supporters of the Congress and in fact what some of the policies that the Congress went on to introduce, including on Kashmir, including on Chhattisgarh, including neoliberalism, including the anti terror law. But I think There is sometimes just the feeling of being able to breathe. And so, maybe, right now, there was a kind of an initial emotional response of that. Maybe breathing a little bit that, oh, in spite of your total control, you still lost like 63 seats and you lost Ayodhya, which I think was very crucial.

Fix it: I think first, like, there is a kind of emotional reaction, which is understandable. I have been here before. when the first BJP government in 98 collapsed and when the Congress came to power. Many of us were not supporters of the Congress and in fact what some of the policies that the Congress went on to introduce, including on Kashmir, including on Chhattisgarh, including neoliberalism, including the anti terror law. But I think There is sometimes just the feeling of being able to breathe. And so, maybe, right now, there was a kind of an initial emotional response of that. Maybe breathing a little bit that, oh, in spite of your total control, you still lost like 63 seats and you lost Ayodhya, which I think was very crucial.

SIDDHARTHA DEB

I wasn't expecting them to do quite as badly as they did, given their complete dominance over, for instance, the media. The media is completely a foot soldier of the Hindu Right, very much. Given that they have all the channels, they have taken over education, they have taken over all public space, the bureaucracy, the courts, the police, and financing, campaign financing, that they have managed to really, they have reduced the opposition to very limited roles. And then there are these very conveniently malfunctioning voting machines. So, given such total dominance, I think that's what is really surprising, that this results, this happened at all. And perhaps, if it had been a truly fair and free election, it might be, we might actually see the losses might be far greater.

I think there is a kind of emotional reaction, which is understandable. I have been here before, when the first BJP government in '98 collapsed and when the Congress came to power. Many of us were not supporters of the Congress, and in fact, opposed some of the policies that the Congress went on to introduce, including on Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, neoliberalism, and the anti-terror law. Sometimes there is just the feeling of being able to breathe. Maybe right now, there was an initial emotional response to that. Maybe breathing a little bit, thinking, "In spite of your total control, you still lost like 63 seats and you lost Ayodhya.” Which I think was very crucial.

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Speaking Out of Place, which carries on the spirit of Palumbo-Liu’s book of the same title, argues against the notion that we are voiceless and powerless, and that we need politicians and pundits and experts to speak for us.

Judith Butler on Speaking Out of Place:

“In this work we see how every critical analysis of homelessness, displacement, internment, violence, and exploitation is countered by emergent and intensifying social movements that move beyond national borders to the ideal of a planetary alliance. As an activist and a scholar, Palumbo-Liu shows us what vigilance means in these times.  This book takes us through the wretched landscape of our world to the ideals of social transformation, calling for a place, the planet, where collective passions can bring about a true and radical democracy.”

David Palumbo-Liu is the Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University. He has written widely on issues of literary criticism and theory, culture and society, race, ethnicity and indigeneity, human rights, and environmental justice. His books include The Deliverance of Others: Reading Literature in a Global Age, and Speaking Out of Place: Getting Our Political Voices Back. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Nation, Al Jazeera, Jacobin, Truthout, and other venues.
Twitter/X @palumboliu
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