In the month of December we will host the political scientist Ranabir Sammadar from the Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group. We will discuss with him about India, the war in Ukraine and globalization.
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Ranabir Samaddar has worked extensively on issues of justice and rights in the context of conflicts in India and more generally in South Asia. His research interests include migration and refugee studies, the theory and practices of dialogue, nationalism and post-colonial statehood in South Asia, and new regimes of technological restructuring and labour control. He is the author of many books, including the two-volume work The Materiality of Politics (Anthem Press, 2007). Among his recent works: The Postcolonial Age of Migration (Routledge, 2020) and Imprints of the Populist Time (Orient Blackswan, 2022).
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13 December 2022
4.30 PM
Aula seminari del complesso di Santa Cristina, Piazzetta Morandi 2, Bologna
Popular Constitutionalism and Postcolonial Democracy in India
A talk by Ranabir Samaddar (Calcutta Research Group), introduced and moderated by Sandro Mezzadra
The Indian constitution as many other constitutions of decolonized countries was a meeting ground of popular expectations, struggles for rights, justice, and dignity – in short, the dreams linked to independence – and the imperative of the political classes to rule. These two never sat happily with each other. With the neoliberal turn in economy and governance, the tension between the two has increased. Phases of insurgent constitutionalism, marked with popular interventions in constitutional thinking, have been succeeded by intense authoritarian understanding of the basic text. The Indian constitution thus remains a site of acute contentions. Both trends or phenomena have drawn legitimacy from the text. In such a contentious scenario, a significant inquiry will be: What shapes people’s constitutional imagination? Whence does the constitution turn into commons? How do people intervene in the way in which a certain constitutional understanding will prevail in society? Elections and laws mixed with yearnings for care, protection, and justice play a great role in provoking popular thoughts on the constitution. People, popular, the populist – all these categories become active agents in politics. Indeed, has democracy been anything other than this? This inquiry will shed further light on the mysterious relationship between two categories – class and people – in politics over which thinkers have broken their heads.
