Right Wing Politics: Interdisciplinary Reflections on South Asia

Right Wing Politics: Interdisciplinary Reflections on South Asia

Since the past decade, democracies globally have turned towards right wing leaders, parties and movements that demonstrated traits of xenophobia, nationalistic traits, a tendency towards authoritarianism and aggressive leadership among others. While right wing ideology in Europe promoted xenophobia against asylum seekers, U.S. led by Donald Trump endorsed an anti-immigrant agenda. In South Asia, right wing populism have thrived on majoritarian politics that sponsored socio-cultural, religious and political prejudices and carnages against minority communities. The growing popularity of right wing ideology continues to have both social and economic implications on South Asian states, more so for India’s socially-regulated economy. Temporally, such shift is closely correlated to a growing consolidation of wealth in the hands of a few corporations creating a historically unique condition where ethno-nationalism promotes a peculiar brand of capitalism. 

Right wing politics have also seen translations within the South Asian public sphere in terms of various right wing movements that appropriate scientific discourse and uphold age-old religious and cultural theories and in doing so represent right wing ideology as the only rational alternative to survive within public and private spaces. 

The proposed book calls for thought-provoking analyses that seek to interrogate the political and economic shift to the Right and its implications within the Global South. Full chapters are invited that reflect on factors embedded in the liberal politics of South Asia that have created a foundation for occasional Rightist turns and prognosis for its retreat. Chapters may also consider circumstances in which right wing populism appears and the particulars of the political strategy that the right wing leaders and movements in South Asia employ. Are right wing political formations a product of perceived distress or are they a central part of the process of political transformation in the region? How do they relate to the perceived ‘democratization’? Contributors are invited to examine aspects of these complex linkages, seeking to understand and explain the rise of the political Right in the Global South especially the links between right wing politics, economic conditions and socio-cultural and religious formations. 

Papers of no more than 7000 words using Harvard-style referencing should be submitted by 31^st July to cfpsouthasia@gmail.com along with a short bio. The edited book will be published by a reputed international publisher. 

Chapters may include but are not limited to the following topics: 

History, myth and ideology

Gender, nation and citizenship

Capitalism and right wing culture

Right wing movements and minority rights

Biopolitics, necropolitics and right wing ideology

Caste, class and politics in South Asia

Culture, literature, film and the right wing in South Asia

Right wing politics of decolonization

Nostalgia and right wing politics

Pandemic and the politics of death

Diaspora, ideology and politics

Editors:

Bhabani Shankar Nayak
Professor, Business Management,  University for the Creative Arts, UK

Debadrita Chakraborty
Assistant Professor, School of Liberal Studies, UPES, India