Opposing a series of Farm bills that will render them destitute and further enrich India’s billionaires, a farmer’s movement has converged on Delhi demanding that the legislation (passed in September) be repealed. I talk to historian Navyug Gill about the laws, the history, and the politics of the Farmer’s movement in India, a sustained opposition that has arisen to the seemingly unstoppable BJP-Modi juggernaut.
Category: India and Pakistan
Politics and wars in India and Pakistan
AEP 73: Pakistan’s Hybrid Civil-Military Regime, with Saadia Toor
I’m joined by the Anti-Empire Project’s special correspondent for Pakistan, Saadia Toor, professor at CSI CUNY and author of the State of Islam: Culture and Cold War Politics in Pakistan. Saadia gives us a quick sweep of Pakistan’s history including the key role of the left in the many twists and turns. We get caught up all the way to Imran Khan’s hybrid civil-military regime and the inspiring youth-led Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM).
Civilizations 20b: India 1857 pt 2 – the Revolution Defeated
The Delhi Liberated Zone under Bahadur Shah Zafar falls; Tatia Tope and others fight on for another two years; the British kill perhaps 10 million Indian people (7% of the population); the 1857 has some victories even in defeat. But what does it all mean? We conclude our discussion with the concept of a point-of-view in history. I identify six different points of view (RSS, Congress, British imperialist, 1857 line, Subaltern Studies, and Marxist) and show how you end up having to pick one, and why I went with the “1857 line” on the event – for which the key source is Amaresh Mishra’s 2000 page book, War of Civilisations.
At the end of the episode, Dave and I discuss a table that I made about the different points of view I was able to identify in historical scholarship of 1857. The table we are looking at is in the Civilizations Resources Page under episode 20b.
I take full responsibility for this table, which I made up. Here is what I’d say is a representative source for each point of view. You may disagree – and I’m declaring my point of view, after reading all these, is with Misra and the 1857 line.
BJP – Savarkar, The Indian War of Independence
1857 line – Amaresh Misra, War of Civilisations
Marxist – Marx, the Indian War of Independence
Subaltern Studies – Guha, Prose of Counterinsurgency
British Imperialist – Kim Wagner, The Great Fear
Congress- Surendranath Sen, 1857
Civilizations 20a: 1857 – India’s War of Independence, pt1
Are we really doing this? One podcaster with Indian roots and another with British roots, trying to do the history of 1857 India? This is the Civilizations podcast, so yes we are! I’m arguing that 1857 is up there with the other great revolutions of this time – 1848 or 1870 in Europe, or Bolivar’s campaigns in Latin America. Part 1 takes you from the antecedents and context through to the Delhi Liberated Zone under Bahadur Shah Zafar.
AEP 62: Kashmir and Xinjiang, with Carl Zha
Another one in the Kung Fu Yoga series, with Carl Zha.
This time we’re comparing the situations in Kashmir and Xinjiang, reporting what we’ve studied about state violence, censorship, economy, freedom of religion, popular agendas and state agendas of India and China in Kashmir and in Xinjiang.
AEP 61: Men’s self-help and propaganda from Jordan Peterson to Jocko Willink – with Amish Patel
Why do Indian boys love Jordan Peterson? If war is hell, as Jocko Willink says, why do they keep doing it? And is it unfair to consider Joe Rogan conservative?
To debate these questions, I’m joined by screenwriter and comedian Amish Patel, who analyzes fake gurus on the coffeezilla podcast. This episode is kind of a continuation of the episode 57 discussion with Dan about “super wealth through the right mindset”.
AEP 56: The India China Border Clash of June 2020, with Carl Zha
I talk to the incomparable Carl Zha of the Silk & Steel podcast about the border clashes between India and China in the Galwan Valley. We talked about the many changes in Indian politics with the rise of fascism over the past decade. In the second hour, we go into details of the McMahon line drawn by the British imperialists in 1914 and the 1962 war.
The Brief 009: Hindutva Crackdown
India jails students, writers, and rights activists as the media works in effective coordination with the government inflaming sectarian divides, suppressing dissent and lionizing Modi. We speak to Shalini Gera and Freny Manecksha about India’s Hindutva crackdown.
The Path of the Unarmed: A novella on Wattpad
The Anti-Empire Project Episode 37: Postcoloniality and the Racist Legacy of the British Empire
A wide-ranging and admittedly bookish discussion with William Patterson historian Navyug Gill and frequent guest and sometimes host of the show, Dan Freeman-Maloy. We talk about postcolonial studies, history, and the British Empire, and the ways that its racism lives on.