Suchergebnisse

"Violence of Democracy examines the rise of majoritarian politics in India through a close examination of a decades-long series of confrontations in the Kannur district of Kerala between members of the Communist Party of India and supporters of two right-wing parties, Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh and Bharatiya Janata Party. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in the region, Ruchi Chaturvedi investigates the unique political character of the violent conflict between the 'party left' and the 'Hindu right', which does not correspond neatly to divisions along ethnic, racial, religious, or linguistic lines. The book draws attention to how this partisan conflict is mediated and perpetuated by legitimate institutions of democratic rule, including local trial courts. Although situated in a close examination of the particular nuances of Kerala, Violence of Democracy provides broader insights into the phenomenon of political violence in majoritarian democracies throughout the postcolonial world"--

In Violence of Democracy Ruchi Chaturvedi tracks the rise of India's divisive politics through close examination of decades-long confrontations in Kerala between members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and supporters of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh and Bharatiya Janata Party. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and extensive archival research, Chaturvedi investigates the unique character of the conflict between the party left and Hindu right. This conflict, she shows, defies explanations centering religious, caste, or ideological differences. It offers instead new ways of understanding how "idian political competition can produce antagonistic majoritarian communities. Rival political parties mobilize practices of disbursing care and aggressive masculinity in their struggle for electoral and popular power, a process intensified by a criminal justice system that reproduces violence rather than mitigating it. Chaturvedi traces these dynamics from the late colonial period to the early 2000s, illuminating the broader relationships between democratic life, divisiveness, and majoritarianism

This article analyses communities that the blue-collar, backward caste, local-level workers of the party Left and the Hindu Right have forged amongst themselves in the Kannur district of Kerala. Its particular focus is on members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI (M)). For more than four decades, members of the CPI (M) and the Hindu Right have been involved in an intermittent but occasionally intense conflict. Their conflict highlights how modern practices of political mobilisation and competition condition the formation of close-knit antagonistic masculine unities regardless of the ideological affiliations in question; its violent context foregrounds affects and emotions that characterise life in such fraternal communities. While such unities have become central to the enactment of collective agency in many contexts, strong limits mark these communities. Not just those outside a community, but also those within it apprehend these limits. Violent experiences emerge as idealised modes of imagining communion with members of one's community, as well as forces that individuate them. Biographies and narratives of Left- and Right-wing workers who once sought close integration with their respective communities but now live apart from them, illuminate the already present limits of commonality and unity possible in modern political communities.

AbstractThis essay introduces the special section "Political Society and Popular Politics in Africa" and sets out some of the key debates and concepts that animate the contributions. It focuses in particular on the specific terrains of postcolonial governmentality and the diverse practices of political society on the continent today. The vivid ways in which various African states have combined and/or moved between liberal and authoritarian modalities of power, attended to biopolitical concerns while also exercising strong coercive force, and dealt with the question of citizenship presents the contributors to the section with important analytical opportunities. They examine the multiple lineages and formations of popular politics on the continent, outline how the concept of "political society" enables novel ways of charting and unraveling the political in African settings, and unpack the ways in which African contexts help clarify and elaborate the concept.

This book addresses urgent current debates on decolonisation by offering reimagined teaching and learning interventions for obtaining greater epistemic justice in the contemporary postcolonial university.