Banaji, Shakuntala 
ORCID: 0000-0002-9233-247X
(2018)
Vigilante publics: orientalism, modernity and Hindutva fascism in India.
Javnost - the Public.
pp. 333-350.
ISSN 1318-3222
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Abstract
This paper explores the interconnections of Hindutva fascist repertoires in India and quasi-orientalist discourses. History and common sense are re-written through audiovisual communications to appeal to one section of a dangerously split Indian public and a neoliberal-touristic sensibility elsewhere. Enlightenment rhetorics of progress, democracy and technological development are apparently embodied by WhatsApp groups, electronic voting machines and laws to protect cows. Voting—as a marker of democratic citizenship—becomes a masquerade protecting a resurgent far right Hindutva (Hindu fascist) regime under the aegis of Narendra Modi and the BJP. Caste Hinduism’s association of cows with deities, and the proscription on meat-eating in certain versions of religious practice, are used as pretexts for unimaginable violence against Muslims, Christians, Dalits, and working class/lower caste Hindus. Violence against those who dissent is rationalised as patriotic. Hindutva’s banal and spectacular audiovisual discourse overwhelms public communication. Its consequences are a form of vigilante citizenship that is marked on the bodies of dead victims and of vigilante publics ready to be mobilised either in ethno-cultural violence or its defence and disavowal. Meanwhile, attracted to India as an enormous market, Western governments and corporations have colluded with the Hindutva regime’s self-promotion as a bastion of development.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Official URL: | https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjav20/current |
| Additional Information: | © 2018 The Author |
| Divisions: | Media and Communications |
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races J Political Science > JQ Political institutions Asia |
| Date Deposited: | 25 May 2018 15:35 |
| Last Modified: | 01 May 2024 05:36 |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/88079 |
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