Dalits and the nation: Gandhi, Ambedkar, and Hindu nationalism in contemporary India.

Dalits and the nation: Gandhi, Ambedkar, and Hindu nationalism in contemporary India.

Dr. Biju Mathew

Rider University

The last 3 years – since the ascendence of the BJP government led by Narendra Modi — has seen the emergence of a continuous and distributed form of violence across much of India. With a focus on three specific groups that have been the target of much of the violence — left vernacular public intellectuals, Dalits and the Muslim minority – this lecture brings together narratives on caste, communalism, large scale shifts in demographics and most importantly political economy to explicate the texture and specificity of contemporary neo-fascism in India. Through a brief engagement with both Gandhi and Ambedkar, the lecture asks whether the liberation for oppressed caste groups and minorities must necessarily lie in a post-national re-invention of society.