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- Convenors:
-
Deepta Chopra
(Institute of Development Studies)
Samreen Mushtaq (Institute of Development Studies)
Lyla Mehta (Institute of Development Studies, UK)
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- Format:
- Paper panel
Short Abstract:
This panel invites papers that capture strategies of collective action from a range of actors in India (grassroot movements, bureaucrats, scientists etc) to counter the overlapping crisis of top-down authoritarian developmentalism, intensifying polarisation, inequalities & violent ethno-nationalism.
Long Abstract:
In the current global expansion of authoritarian rule, India forms a paradigmatic case and is considered to be “a major influence on the world’s autocratisation” (Tudor 2023), not least due to its positioning as a leader of emerging economies and its diasporic influences. While there has been significant research on the macro implications of the authoritarian slide, there is little work offering granular accounts of how these authoritarian practices are experienced from below, or the strategies that emerge to contest them. Despite increasing repression and authoritarian rule, grassroots mobilization and resistance across multiple domains remain crucial to contesting and subverting the multiple crisis of this authoritarian turn, as the recent election results make evident.
This panel seeks to explore the varied ways in which a range of actors (from civil society groups to grassroot movements and others) in India are strategising and working to confront the crisis and uncertainty of an exclusionary brand of authoritarian developmentalism that has intensified social polarisation and increased inequalities. The panel invites contributions to discuss ways of counter-resistance through tracking how top-down modes of development and authoritarianism are challenged from below. It especially seeks to centre the experiences and responses of marginal subjects, sitting at the intersection of class, caste, gender and religion, vis-a-vis the strategies for survival and resistance amid violent ethno-nationalism and clampdown on civic spaces and dissenting voices. This enquiry will bring to the fore alternative models of development, building on contested epistemologies and praxis evidenced through diverse forms of collective action.