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Paper short abstract

This paper seeks to examine the processes by which depoliticisation of violence become tools of complicity in authoritarian contexts. Further, conceptualise how strategies of depoliticisation inform complicit behaviours, and how it manifests and sustains itself in the everyday behaviours.

Paper long abstract

Based on ethnographic research conducted in the aftermath of the Nuh Riots in 2023, India, this paper seeks to examine the processes by which depoliticisation of violence become tools of complicity in authoritarian contexts. As observed through participant observation and interviews, families of the Hindu right-wing when confronted with allegations of complicity with their membership in the Hindu nationalist groups renegotiate the bounds of their relationship by depoliticising the intent of the relationship. Through this paper, I wish to further analyse how complicity evolves, transforms and eventually gets instilled within these individuals as members of the in-group when surrounded by state violence against the out-group. I am interested in conceptualising how strategies of depoliticisation inform complicit behaviours, and how it manifests and sustains itself in the everyday behaviours. Family members of Hindu nationalists during my fieldwork purposely chose to identify themselves through the ‘spiritual or devotional’ aspects of the nationalist organisations. They thus, held the opinion that by keeping distance from the politicisation of violence they were not complicit in the violence. By selectively cherry-picking aspects of their Hindu nationalist identity and ranking them in a hierarchical fashion, I wish to argue that depoliticising tools are central in studying complicity within the Indian authoritarian context. Through this paper, I will investigate how these formulations intersect in a fascist context? How are the concept and action of complicity sustained through the everyday depoliticisation of violence? Does this also exhibit itself in other aspects of the Hindu nationalist society?