Talk:Balmurli Natrajan

By Renuka Joshi

Balmurli Natrajan is Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Community Development and Social Justice at William Paterson Universityof New Jersey, USA as of 2022. According to his university profile, research focuses on on group formation, Identity & Inequalities (caste, race, community, culture, diversity, cognition, variation, and transmission); Globalization and International development (sanitation, domestic work, indebtedness, livelihoods); India and South Asia.

In 2021, he endorsed the "Dismantling Global Hindutva" conference and made the allegation

"the current government of India [in 2021] has instituted discriminatory policies including beef bans, restrictions on religious conversion and interfaith weddings, and the introduction of religious discrimination into India’s citizenship laws. The result has been a horrifying rise in religious and caste-based violence, including hate crimes, lynchings, and rapes directed against Muslims, non-conforming Dalits, Sikhs, Christians, adivasis and other dissident Hindus. Women of these communities are especially targeted. Meanwhile, the government has used every tool of harassment and intimidation to muzzle dissent. Dozens of student activists and human rights defenders are currently languishing in jail indefinitely without due process under repressive anti-terrorism laws."

In 2016, he signed a letter addressed to the State Board of Education, California Department of Education, dated May 17, 2016. The letter stated the following:

1. "There is no established connection between Hinduism and the Indus Civilization. The Rg Veda contains numerous mentions of horses and chariots but there is no conclusive material or fossil evidence for either at any Indus valley archeological site."
2. "It is inappropriate to remove mention of the connection of caste to Hinduism."
3. "The geographic location of the Indus Civilization lies in what is now contemporary India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The use of "South Asia" to describe this shared civilizational heritage is thus entirely appropriate in some places of the framework, even though South Asia is a modern term, and some source materials use the term ‘Ancient India.' "

Publications related to India

1. Natrajan, Balmurli. The culturalization of caste in India: Identity and inequality in a multicultural age; Routledge; 2011 https://www.routledge.com/The-Culturalization-of-Caste-in-India-Identity-and-Inequality-in-a-Multicultural/Natrajan/p/book/9780415857864
2. Natrajan, Balmurli. Co-edited volume "Against Stigma: Studies in Caste, Race and Justice Since Durban" (2009)
3. Natrajan, Balmurli. Racialization and ethnicization: Hindutva hegemony and caste; Ethnic and Racial Studies; Volume 44, 2021 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870.2021.1951318

   Balmurli Natrajan claims that the elected government of India doesn't represent the entire population of India but rather, “Hindutva,” which he defines as “a Hindu supremacist movement that has been in formation in India since late nineteenth century”. According to the author, Hindutva organizations are reconverting people to Hinduism, creating riots to target Muslims and labelling Muslims them as terrorists but fails to substantiate any of these claims.

   Balmurli claims the government wants citizens to provide proof of citizenship. He believes the Indian government shouldn't enforce existing laws around citizenship.

   The author makes the following unsubstantiated claims:

   all the riots that target Muslims are caused by Hindutva violence, and names like “gau rakshak” and “gulabi kranti” are used by Hindutva votaries to secure cultural domination.

   ““love jihadi” which refers to Muslim men who have Hindu women partners, a term that legitimizes the actions of Sangh vigilantes who forcibly “rescue” Hindu women by claiming they have been “kidnapped” by Muslim men; “ghar vapsi” (or “homecoming”) for the forced ritual “reconversion” by Hindutva organizations of non-Hindu religious minority persons, based on the dubious claim that all people in India were originally “Hindu”; “presstitutes” which is a pejorative that legitimizes attacks on independent media persons who dissent or oppose governmental decrees; “sickular” and “libtards” which are pejoratives that legitimize attacks on secular individuals; and “urban-Naxal” which brands secular, Left or anti-Hindutva intellectuals and social activists as “anti-national” and legitimizes the application of draconian anti-terror laws to incarcerate them or even assassinate them”

   “Hindutva’s propensity for violence as part of its “formative response” to a systemic “crisis” in economy, politics and ideology”

   “Hindutva is arguably not as interested in nation-building as much as in (re)defining who is the “nation”, who belongs (and hence who needs to be excised) and forcing its own citizens to produce proofs.”

   “They authoritatively construct political subjects, social demands, group membership, and criteria for belonging to either the “People” (Us) or its “Enemies” (Them). Hindutva constructs these subjects in authoritarian ways through a logic of difference or more precisely, a logic of differentiating. Whereas some identities are constructed to be particularly despised by Hindutva, and hence ultimately disposable, some others are tolerated but sought to be disciplined and domesticated.”

   “no social identity in India is outside the purview of Hindutva.”

   “Dalits who Hindutva needs to show as not radically different (at least as much as Muslims are) despite their stigmatized and dominated status within the Hindu caste system, and hence oppositional identity to “Hindu”.”

   “These include “racialized” Muslims and northeasterners, and those who are constructed as the “political Other” of Hindutva, namely the politically identified Left, secular and rationalist individuals. The latter are frequently identified by Hindutva as “anti-national” which makes them vulnerable to being incarcerated under anti-terror and sedition laws.”

   “the label of being a “terrorist” is also applied to Muslims. In contrast, Hindu Rashtra constructs its own membership in three broad categories. Those constructed as “Internal Other” include “Dalits” and “Adivasis” who are to be tolerated but sought to be disciplined, domesticated, and incorporated as subordinate citizens.”

   “As an anti-caste identity, “Dalit” is inherently inclusive in contrast to Hindutva’s caste exclusivity, it is moral in contrast to Hindutva’s cynical use of power, and it stresses Dalit difference in direct challenge to Hindutva’s attempts to make it equivalent to other identities and demands in society.”

4. Natrajan, Balmurli. Why don’t they use the toilet built for them?’: Explaining toilet use in Chhattisgarh, Central India; Volume Contributions to Indian Sociology, 55(1), 2021 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0069966720972565
5. Natrajan, Balmurli. Cultural Identity and Beef Festivals: Toward a ‘Multiculturalism Against Caste’; , Contemporary South Asia; Volume 26, 2018 https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ccsa20/current
6. Natrajan, Balmurli. Against Stigma: Studies in Caste, Race, and Justice Since Durban; Orient BlackSwan; 2009
7. Natrajan, Balmurli. Castes Without Casteism? The Real Beef with Caste and ‘Culture’ British Association of South Asian StudiesNottingham, 2017
8. Natrajan, Balmurli. “Caste as Political Identity: Difference, Hegemony, Solidarity”Rethinking Difference in India: Racialization in Transnational Perspective American University, D.C.Washington D.C, VA 2019