Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

Figure 1: Example of a rape threat from Hindutva accounts online amidst the India-Pakistan tensions in 2025 Hindutva is an immoral ideology, constructing India as a Hindu nation modeled after Nazi Germany.  The production of the "Other" as a threat, as an immoral communicative act, threatens Hinduism at its heart. It perfects the art of communicative inversion, turning materiality on its head, that the ideology effectively seeds across the diverse registers of private, community, and public life. To the extent I am a victim, I can carry out the most immoral transgressions without being accountable. I have been wronged, the narrative goes, so I can legitimately discard the need for moral boundaries. References to the Hindu epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata, are drawn in to uphold this degeneracy. The ethical and reflexive journey of Hinduism as a faith tradition, critically interrogating its workings to build spaces for transformation, is framed as anti-Hindu, or Hinduphobic. Th...

Author: Mohan J. Dutta ( Mohan Dutta is Dean's Chair Professor at Massey University ) The far-right's targeting of academics has gained exponential momentum with the rise of authoritarian populism . From fascist Hindutva politics to white supremacy to far-right Zionism , the targeting of academics through disinformation-based hate campaigns drives both political markets and profits. These campaigns, building up and amplifying conspiracy theories , are largely funded by dark money , and mobilized through astroturfs , think tanks , and media influencers  (digital).  The power of the disinformation campaigns is held up by the networked structure , generating swarms , mobilizing   email campaigns and complaints targeting academics . Such swarm-based campaigns are accompanied by wild conspiracy theories , propaganda messages inciting violence, death threats and rape threats . Having experienced the targeted attacks of the far right across the three key drivers of disin...