Modi’s party will be relaxed about upcoming polls

Significance Each of these states except Punjab has a government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Punjab is one of just three states with a chief minister that belongs to India’s main opposition Congress party. Impacts A poor showing by Congress would further reduce its leverage with other opposition parties in talks over forming a broad anti-Modi alliance. Victory in UP would enhance Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s national profile. Election campaigning will likely lead to a spike in COVID-19 cases.

On the politics of fear

Muslims, India’s largest minority group, have often found themselves excluded from the country’s mainstream political power circles. The historically constructed clash between Muslims and Hindus has been used by the members of the far right – such as the Rāṣtriya Svayaṃsevak Saṇgh (RSS) or the Viśva Hindū Pariṣada (VHP) – to present the Muslim community as outsiders and ill-intentioned others with a view to subjugating the Hindu majority. There has been a notable rise in majoritarianism since the Bhāratiya Janata Party (BJP) rose to power in 2014. Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, many BJP and RSS members made overtly racist remarks and incited violence against the Muslim community. The COVID-19 pandemic appears to have exacerbated this religious polarisation that has been gradually intensifying since Narendra Modi (BJP) won a landslide re-election victory in May 2019. Fears surrounding the pandemic have rapidly fuelled societal divisions, as well as hyper-nationalism and religious extremism targeted at Indian Muslims. A tarnished social fabric would have obvious long-term ramifications, specifically relating to stigmatisation, stereotyping and violent attacks. In this paper, the author will attempt to examine the role of BJP politicians in stoking Islamophobia. The author will address the question of whether the COVID-19 pandemic has been politicised against the Muslim minority. Are politicians primarily responsible for stoking intercommunal fear and hatred? What roles have state actors played in fomenting sectarian discord during COVID-19? This article tackles these and other salient questions pertaining to the politicisation of the coronavirus outbreak and mounting hate speech authorised by the ruling party in India. The article concludes by suggesting that Hindutva-driven Islamophobia, supported by the BJP government, may have permeated the Hindu mainstream but cautions that this claim still needs empirical validation. This article informs readers of the specific process of Islamophobic violence during the COVID-19 pandemic which remains a largely understudied phenomenon in India. My interpretation is partially based on spending two months doing fieldwork, mainly in New Delhi, in February and March 2020 during the coronavirus outbreak.

“Love Jihad”, “Forced” Conversion Narratives, and Interfaith Marriage in the Sikh Diaspora

This paper sets out to critically examine the “forced” conversion narrative circulating across the Sikh diaspora. The “forced” conversion narrative tells the story of Muslim men allegedly deceiving and tricking “vulnerable” Sikh females into Islam. The paper explores the parallels between the “forced” conversion narrative and the discourse on “love jihad” propagated by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as well as drawing out its particularities within the Sikh community. The paper is informed by new empirical data generated by a series of qualitative interviews with Sikhs in the UK, US, and Canada, and captures the complexities and nuances of my respondents in their interpretations of, and challenges to, the “forced” conversions narrative. The paper adopts a decolonial Sikh studies theoretical framework to critically unpack the logics of the discourse. In doing so, it reveals a wider politics at play, centred upon the regulation of Sikh female bodies, fears of the preservation of community, and wider anxieties around interfaith marriage. These aspects come together to display Sikh Islamophobia, whereby the figure of the “predatory” Muslim male is represented as an existential threat to Sikh being.

Platform Politics: The Emergence of Alternative Social Media in India

Widespread dissemination of hate speech on corporate social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube has necessitated technological companies to moderate content on their platforms. At the receiving end of these content moderation efforts are supporters of right-wing populist parties, who have gained notoriety for harassing journalists, spreading disinformation, and vilifying liberal activists. In recent months, several prominent right-wing figures across the world were removed from social media - a phenomenon also known as ‘deplatforming’- for violating platform policies. Prominent among such right-wing groups are online supporters of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India, who have begun accusing corporate social media of pursuing a ‘liberal agenda’ and ‘curtailing free speech.’ In response to deplatforming, the BJP-led Government of India has aggressively promoted and embraced Koo, an indigenously developed social media platform. This commentary examines the implications of this alternative social platform for the online communicative environment in the Indian public sphere.

Indian farmers will push government further

Significance Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced earlier in the month that the reforms would be revoked. The laws sparked a major protest movement among farmers, who maintained that the legislation favoured corporate players over them. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) probably feared that the agitation would hurt it in some of the state elections due early next year. Impacts Modi’s government may in the medium term try to revive aspects of the repealed legislation in a piecemeal way. The BJP will step up appeals to Hindu nationalism in the upcoming state polls, hoping to shore up support from its base. Any crackdown by security forces on ongoing farmer protests would work against Modi’s party in the elections.

La consolidación de la política de cambio climático en la agenda de la República de India

En el siglo XXI, la problemática del cambio climático se presenta como uno de los retos más desafiantes para la comunidad internacional. Por una parte, una de sus mayores causas es el gran incremento de la concentración de gases de efecto invernadero (GEIs) producto de emisiones generadas por los países másdesarrollados y las potencias emergentes. Por otro lado, sus principales manifestaciones se han observado en consecuencias devastadoras en el ambientedurante el último tiempo. En India, el abordaje de esta temática fue evolucionando de acuerdo a las condiciones del contexto político interno, el cual en los años posteriores a la independencia estuvo caracterizado por el tratamiento de cuestiones estructurales en lo que hicieron a la conformación de Estado-nación, no permitiendo una gran profundización del debate respecto de las cuestiones ambientales. No obstante, la llegada al gobierno de Manmohan Singh en el año 2004, marcó el inicio de un punto de inflexión en el tratamiento, proceso que fue retomado posteriormente con la asunción de Narendra Modi en 2014, líder del Bharatiya Janata Party. En este sentido, el presente artículo se propone abordar la consolidación de la política de cambio climático de la República de India contrastando las propuestas realizadas en la materia por el país asiático tanto a nivel interno como externo desde 2004 a 2018.

The Concoction of Panchsheel and Panchmrit: A New Perspective in India’s Foreign Policy

Post-1991 reforms obligation weighted on New Delhi to take a paradigm shift in their foreign policy for pragmatic approaches as India had liberalised its economy, which led to the opening of its frontier to the Global world. Now in the multi-polar Global world, the International Relations scholars question the idealistic notion of Panchsheel, advocates the need for more pragmatism in India’s Foreign Policy which coincides with the emergence of Panchamrit proposed by the National Executive of Bharatiya Janata Party in 2015, to replace Panchsheel. The study aims to understand the philosophical distinction between Panchsheel and Panchamrit, how they could be as a strategic resolve and restraint respectively in India’s Foreign Policy than ‘the debate of replacement’. In the context of concocting ‘the Panchsheel and Panchamrit’ in the external affairs relations, how could India steer with this concoction to become a stabilising power? This paper advocates for the middle path between the two and such concoction intends to bring ‘Liberal Realism’ of British School of International Relations into India’s Foreign Policy.

Hinduism, Hindutva and Hindu Populism in India: An Analysis of Party Manifestos of Indian Rightwing Parties

Since the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a lot has been written on Hindu nationalism. Prime Minister Modi’s ascendency has similarly resulted in a plethora of books and articles on Hindu populism. However, most of the literature does not distinguish between the two. Hindu nationalism and Hindu populism overlap, particularly in Modi’s India and Modi’s BJP, but they are not the same. In this article, after a discussion on Hinduism’s affinity to populism, an attempt has been made to distinguish between Hindu nationalism and Hindu populism based on an analysis of Hindutva parties’ election manifestos. Since independence, three Hindutva parties have made a name for themselves at the national level: Hindu Mahasabha, Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS) and BJP. Based on their importance and success at the national level, one manifesto of Hindu Mahasabha, two manifestos of BJS and four manifestos of the BJP were analyzed based on criteria chosen after literature review. The results show that while Hindu nationalism was strong and visible in early Hindutva parties (Hindu Mahasabha and BJS), Hindu populism was weak and sporadic. Interestingly, for the BJP, there is rise and then drop in Hindu nationalism while Hindu populism has consistently increased.