Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

Image from AAUP I have written elsewhere about the communicative infrastructure of the Free Speech Union and the investment of this infrastructure in a particular form of free speech that reproduces the hegemony of the powerful while continuing to perpetuate the silencing of marginalized voices. In my analysis, I noted that the survey designed by the Union to assess academic freedom in Aotearoa New Zealand seemed to have a preconfigured ideological agenda. The items guiding the report put out by the Free Speech Union seem to have been designed to reach the preconfigured conclusion that there is a "woke culture" threat to academic freedom in Aotearoa New Zealand, some kind of conspiracy of social justice warriors to shut down academic freedom. Salient here is the framing of the issues tied to freedom of speech, “gender and sex issues” and “treaty issues.” I had written about how these two issues are the sites of targeted attacks by the far-right at the margins of society in

I have been so looking forward to reading Byron Clark's "Fear." Over the past three years, as I have read and watched Clark's analyses of the far-right ecosystem in Aotearoa New Zealand, I have come to respect his evidence-based analytic work that is at the same time activist , directly responding to the threats to marginalized communities posed by far-right extremism. His analytic work has been critical to the ongoing challenges to far-right extremism led by activists. Byron's knowledge of the hate ecosystem emerges directly from the empirically grounded challenge he has posed to this ecosystem by placing his body on the line . It is worth pointing out here, that like many other activists in this space, Byron mostly does this work as unpaid labor, and he sustains himself through his day job (I will return to this point toward the end of the article). So, when some of my activist interlocutors whose work challenges Islamophobic hate in Aotearoa sent me a review of

  The neoliberal university is replete with a large-scale overload of managers. These are non-academics, mostly without PhDs, that are hired to manage academics and the academic processes of the University. These managers have mostly never stepped into a doctoral programme, a research field, or the classroom. So mostly they have no clue about the academic mission of a university. This is a problem because if you don't know the service or the product you are managing, you would be clueless about how to manage that service or product. So, although these managers are hired to increase efficiency, they end up severely depleting efficiency, cause harm to university processes, destroy the academic culture of the university, and severely deplete its productivity. These managers infantilize academics and mostly have very little respect for the labour of academics. This results in the ongoing devaluing of academic labour, be in teaching, research, or public engagement, with academics bogged

(Singing and dancing at the Hare Krishna tent, from Stuff) Amidst the collection of vaccine deniers, Q-Anon-inspired conspiracy theorists, Alt-Right supporters, and misogynist white nationalists and white supremacists at the Parliament protests in Wellington in February 2022, a Hare Krishna tent, devotees, singing and dancing to rhythms of the tambourine, offered a curious spectacle. From offering yoga and meditation to serving vegetarian curries and samosas, the Hare Krishnas formed an important part of the protest architecture.  For observers, the spectacle disrupted the widely held perception in the West of Hare Krishnas as peace-loving people.  How did Hare Krishnas fall into the disinformation campaign propelled by white supremacists? What do Hare Krishnas, an apparent peace-loving community, have in common with an ideology driven by the Alt-Right the universe of white supremacy? The symbiotic relationship between Hare Krishnas and the Alt-Right however has a deep-seated history.

The month, December, in 1992  when hate destroyed a mosque.  Based on a planted narrative  in the name of my religion.  That day in 1992  when hate destroyed a mosque. December 6, 1992.  #DismantleHindutva December 6, 1992. December 6, 1992. Thirty years have passed. I had just entered college. The wintry month of December was National Service Scheme (NSS) camp. A small group of us students had gone on the camp truck to the local market to get vegetables for the camp. The cool December air wrapped our faces as we sat on the back of the truck, the warmth of the sun pleasantly interrupting the cold air. As the afternoon rolled in, the news spread that Babri masjid, a mosque in Ayodhya (the place; although the Hindu epic Ramayana refers to Ayodhya as the birthplace of the Hindu deity Ram, there is no empirical evidence archeologically or historically to suggest that the Ayodhya of Ramayana is the same as the place Ayodhya), had been attacked by Hindutva mobs (referred to as kar sevaks )

One of the important findings of our research team over the last two years has been the identification, mapping, and tracking of Hindutva groups in Aotearoa New Zealand. These groups have been present in Aotearoa New Zealand for over two decades, in the form of organizations aligned with the Hindutva ideology (see the presentation with Richa Sharma) and digital platforms circulating the Hindutva ideology. This interplay of digital platforms and brick-and-mortar organizations makes up the disinformation and hate ecosystem of Hindutva.  The interplay simultaneously enables multi-layered messaging and targeting strategies. For instance, the attacks carried out by Hindutva extremists digitally, targeting Dalits, gender-diverse communities, Muslims, and dissenting voices online offer the communicative infrastructure for targeted attacks by brick-and-mortar organizations. The brick-and-mortar organizations draw on the narrative structures crafted by digital Hindutva extremism. The anonymit

Planting and circulating disinformation is one of the key strategies of the far right.  Disinformation propels hate, often through the juxtaposition of information.  Juxtaposition in the context of disinformation places two pieces of information side-by-side, creating a frame that seeds doubt, manufactures ulterior motivations that seemingly drive the target of the hate, and places a label on the target.  In the attacks launched by Hindutva on me, my scholarship, and the work of CARE, I have witnessed closely the ways in which juxtaposition is deployed to create false frames, which are key ingredients in the mobilization of hate. Globally, we witness the deployment of juxtaposition by Hindutva trolls to target academics , activists , communities , and other dissenting voices .  The violence of Hindutva both online and offline, both in India and in the Indian diaspora, draws upon the strategic creation of frames that cast the targeted person as "anti-Hindu" " Hinduphobic