A thread. The #Hindutva turn: exactly one year after the #ShaheenBagh movement, the latest SAMAJ special issue gathers contributions from academics across disciplines and countries to help make sense of India’s new face. #RSS #Modi #PressRelease

All contributions to this special issue are written by outstanding and internationally recognized scholars. This is a rare collection of informed papers on Hindutvaism that help realize how serious the situation is. After reading this, you won’t be able to say you didn’t know.

The Table of Contents is available here https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/?lang=fr 
@AudreyTruschke @Jayati1609 @NiveditaMenon1 @Mahmudabad @LorainKennedy @dwai_banerjee @RJaede @NayanikaM are among the contributors to this special issue.

The introduction (J. Naudet & A. Mohammad-Arif) rings the alarm: “Academia, science and freedom of speech are under assault in India. It is not a metaphor: scholars and students are physically being attacked.”
https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/6982 

The introduction also discusses @jaffrelotc ’s concept of “ethnic democracy” and the inflation of comparisons between #fascism and #Modi ‘s regime.
https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/6982 

. @NayanikaM describes the CAA bill as a “paper monster”. Her conclusion is clear: “the alternative to not being entered into the local registers of Indian citizens is not just a social or a political death, but also quite possibly a literal one.”
https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/6917 

For @Mahmudabad, “the anti-CAA protests represented both a moment of desperation as well as of hope because there was a realization that the #BJP wanted to transform citizenship from a right into a privilege.” https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/6701 

Niraja Gopal Jayal ( #JNU) underlines how the assaults on academic freedom are unprecedented: publishers are compelled to withdraw books; lectures, seminars, films and plays are cancelled, etc. https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/6842 

The paper by @dwai_banerjee ( @MITPSTS) & J. Copeman ( @AnthroEdinburgh) argues that #Hindutva’s knotting together of geography and blood reveals itself in the logic of the #CAA. https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/6657 

In her contribution, @NiveditaMenon1 untangles the complex threads of the controversy surrounding the suicide of Sushant Singh Rajput #SSR. The #BJP’s exploitation of the #JusticeForSushantSinghRajput movement reveals a will to purge #Bollywood. https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/6846 

In her essay, @Jayati1609 ’s argues that Hindutva economics severely disrupt economic growth. The Modi government prefers to alter the perception of its policies rather than to actually alleviate poverty. https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/6882 

Véronique Bouillier’s ( @ceias_fr) portrait of @myogiadityanath delves into the theological sources of his power and she shows how he drew his legitimacy from his control over the #Nath Yogi sect and the #Goraknath monastery. https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/6778 

In her essay, @AudreyTruschke argues that Hindutva ideology relies upon a series of wrong assertions, to varying degrees of unbelievability, about the past. https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/6636 

Corinne Lefèvre’s article explores how this revisionist approach to history is embedded in the heritage policies of the #BJP. These policies involve a memoricide consisting in the destruction of Indo-Muslim built architecture https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/6728 

Anne-Julie Etter explores the #BJP politics of archeology and shows how it enables them to materialize their narratives and give credence to their mythical reconstruction of the past. #Ayodhya #AyodhyaRamMandir https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/6728 

In his paper, @RJaede offers a detailed ethnography of the anti-CAA mobilizations of the Park Circus Maidan in #Kolkata. He analyzes how this grassroots movement came to be taken over by the Trinamool Congress party ( @AITCofficial). https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/6916 

In her article, @LorainKennedy analyzes how a dozen states and Union Territories as well as hundreds of village councils announced their refusal to comply to the #CAA law. This was a major setback for the central government. https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/6896 

This special issue closes on a poetic note with a ghazal by Karthika Naïr and her interview by Laetitia Zecchini. “Once again #poetry stands tall!” https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/6651