The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Catarina Kinnvall, svartvitt foto.

Catarina Kinnvall

Professor

Catarina Kinnvall, svartvitt foto.

Populism, ontological insecurity and Hindutva : Modi and the masculinization of Indian politics

Author

  • Catarina Kinnvall

Summary, in English

In an era increasingly defined by insecurity and populist politics, India has emerged as a forceful ontological security provider under the leadership of Marendra Modi. If ontological security is about finding a safe (imagined) haven, then ontological insecurity is about the lack of such a space in narrative terms. Drawing on Lacanian understandings of ‘the imaginary’ as something that can fill and naturalize this lack of space, the article is concerned with how memories, places and symbols of narrative identity constructions are used in populist discourse. More specifically, it attempts to understand the relationship between ontological insecurity and the imaginaries of populist politics in India. In so doing, it argues that the re-invention of ‘nationhood’, ‘religion’ and ‘Hindu masculinity’ along gendered lines has created a foundation for governing practices aimed at ‘healing’ a number of ontological insecurities manifest in Indian society. It specifically looks at how the Modi doctrine has formulated and expanded its foreign policy discourse into one that privileges populist narratives of nativism, nationalism and religion as forms of ontological security provision at home and abroad, but also how everyday practices can challenge such narratives, thus allowing different imaginaries of the Indian state.

Department/s

  • Department of Political Science

Publishing year

2019

Language

English

Pages

283-302

Publication/Series

Cambridge Review of International Affairs

Volume

32

Issue

3

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Topic

  • Cultural Studies
  • Gender Studies

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0955-7571