Events

Past Event

Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy

November 16, 2021
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
America/New_York
Buell Hall, 515 W. 116 St., New York, NY 10027

EVENT STATUS: POSTPONED

In his recently published book, Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy, Professor Christophe Jaffrelot offers 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. 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.

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.

Christophe Jaffrelot will be discussing India’s descent into authoritarianism under the Modi regime and prospects for the future with Katherine Ewing, Professor of Religion; Director of the South Asia Institute; Manan Ahmed, Associate Professor, History Department, and Karuna Mantena, Professor of Political Science, Columbia University

This event is jointly presented by the Alliance Program and the South Asia Institute


Christophe Jaffrelot is a senior research fellow at the Center for International Studies and Research (CERI) at Sciences Po in Paris and a nonresident scholar in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His core research focuses on theories of nationalism and democracy, mobilization of the lower castes and Dalits (ex-untouchables) in India, the Hindu nationalist movement, and ethnic conflicts in Pakistan.

He teaches at Sciences Po and part-time in the United States (Columbia, Princeton, John Hopkins, and Yale). He is also professor of Indian politics and sociology at the King’s India Institute and King’s College, London.

Previously, Jaffrelot served as director (2000–2008) and deputy director (1997–2000) of CERI. He is also former editor in chief (1998-2003) and director (2003–2008) of the quarterly journal Critique Internationale. Jaffrelot joined the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in 1991 and was awarded the CNRS bronze medal in 1993. He became a CNRS senior research fellow of second class in 2002 and senior research fellow of first class in 2008. He was awarded the 2014 Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism in commentary/interpretive writing.

Jaffrelot is the author of six books including, Religion, Caste and Politics in India (Columbia University Press, 2011), and has edited seventeen volumes, including Pakistan: Nationalism Without a Nation? (Manohar and Zed Books, 2002).

Event Status: POSTPONED

In his recently published book, Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy, Professor Christophe Jaffrelot offers 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. 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.

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.

Christophe Jaffrelot will be discussing India’s descent into authoritarianism under the Modi regime and prospects for the future with Katherine Ewing, Professor of Religion; Director of the South Asia Institute; Manan Ahmed, Associate Professor, History Department, and Karuna Mantena, Professor of Political Science, Columbia University

This event is jointly presented by the Alliance Program and the South Asia Institute


 

Christophe Jaffrelot

Christophe Jaffrelot is a senior research fellow at the Center for International Studies and Research (CERI) at Sciences Po in Paris and a nonresident scholar in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His core research focuses on theories of nationalism and democracy, mobilization of the lower castes and Dalits (ex-untouchables) in India, the Hindu nationalist movement, and ethnic conflicts in Pakistan.

He teaches at Sciences Po and part-time in the United States (Columbia, Princeton, John Hopkins, and Yale). He is also professor of Indian politics and sociology at the King’s India Institute and King’s College, London.

Previously, Jaffrelot served as director (2000–2008) and deputy director (1997–2000) of CERI. He is also former editor in chief (1998-2003) and director (2003–2008) of the quarterly journal Critique Internationale. Jaffrelot joined the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in 1991 and was awarded the CNRS bronze medal in 1993. He became a CNRS senior research fellow of second class in 2002 and senior research fellow of first class in 2008. He was awarded the 2014 Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism in commentary/interpretive writing.

Jaffrelot is the author of six books including, Religion, Caste and Politics in India (Columbia University Press, 2011), and has edited seventeen volumes, including Pakistan: Nationalism Without a Nation? (Manohar and Zed Books, 2002).

Katherine Pratt Ewing

Katherine Pratt Ewing, Professor of Religion, is also Coordinator of the Master of Arts Program in the South Asia Institute. Until 2010, she was Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Religion at Duke University, where she served as the Executive Director of the North Carolina Consortium for South Asian Studies. In 2010-2011 she was Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin – Madison before moving to Columbia’s Religion Department in 2011. Her research ranges from debates among Muslims about the proper practice of Islam in the modern world to sexualities, gender, and the body in South Asia. She has done ethnographic fieldwork in Pakistan, Turkey and India, and among Muslims in Germany, The Netherlands, and the United States.

Manan Ahmed

Manan Ahmed, Associate Professor, is a historian of South Asia and the littoral western Indian Ocean world from 1000-1800 CE. His areas of specialization include intellectual history in South and Southeast Asia; critical philosophy of history, colonial and anti-colonial thought. He is interested in how modern and pre-modern historical narratives create understandings of places, communities, and intellectual genealogies for their readers.

He is a member of Columbia's Committee on Global Thought; an Executive Editor for Journal of the History of Ideas; an Associate Editor at Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle Easta member of the South Asia Council at Association for Asian Studies, and on the Editorial Board for Philological Encounters.

Karuna Mantena

Karuna Mantena specializes in political theory with research interests in the theory and history of empire, South Asian intellectual history, and postcolonial democracy.  Karuna holds a B.Sc.(Economics) in International Relations from the London School of Economics (1995), an M.A. in Ideology and Discourse Analysis from the University of Essex (1996), and a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University (2004). Her first book, Alibis of Empire: Henry Maine and the Ends of Liberal Imperialism (2010), analyzed the transformation of nineteenth-century British imperial ideology. She is currently finishing on a book on M. K. Gandhi and the politics of nonviolence, tentatively titled Gandhi’s Realism: Means and Ends in Politics. She is also co-director of the International Conference for the Study of Political Thought. 

Contact Information

Alliance Program
929-309-7009