Talk:Kenneth Bo Nielsen

By Anirudha Patel

Kenneth Bo Nielsen currently works at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo, Norway as of August 2023. According to his university profile, his research interests are social movements in contemporary India, with a particular focus on land and environmental questions.

In 2021, he along with Hibatullah Akhundzada, the supreme leader of the Taliban co-signed a letter supporting "Dismantling Global Hindutva" Conference, as an academic and scholar 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."

Publications related to India

Articles

Hindutva and Religion

1. Nielsen, Kenneth Bo, Solano Jose Savio Da Silva, and Jigisha Bhattacharya. Hindutva and Communal Polarization in Goa. Contemporary South Asia, vol. 30, no. 3, 2022, pp. 1-17, doi:10.1080/09584935.2022.2142519.
2. Venkatachalam, Meera, Kenneth Bo Nielsen, and Renu Modi. The politics of gifts and reciprocity in South–South Cooperation: The case of India's Covid-19 diplomacy. Journal of International Development, vol. 34, no. 6, 2022, pp. 1-17, doi:10.1002/jid.3705.
3. Nielsen, Kenneth Bo, and Alf Gunvald Nilsen. India’s Evolving Neoliberal Regime of Dispossession: From the Anti-SEZ Movement to the Farm Law Protests. Sociological Bulletin, vol. 71, no. 4, 2022, pp. 582–600, doi:10.1177/00380229221116932.

Politics and Governance

1. Nielsen, Kenneth Bo, Siddharth Sareen, and Patrik Oskarsson. The Politics of Caste in India's New Land Wars. Journal of Contemporary Asia, vol. 50, no. 4, 2020, pp. 1-17.
2. Jakobsen, Jostein, and Kenneth Bo Nielsen. Compounding Aspirations: Grounding Hegemonic Processes in India's Rural Transformations. Revue canadienne d'études du développement, 2019, doi: 10.1080/02255189.2019.1666706.
3. Nielsen, Kenneth Bo. Orchestrating Anti-Dispossession Politics: Caste and Movement Leadership in Rural West Bengal. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 2019, doi: 10.1080/00472336.2019.1608285.
4. Nielsen, Kenneth Bo, et al. Indian Democracy and Its Prospects: 2019 and Beyond. In Indian Democracy: Origins, Trajectories, Contestations, edited by Alf Gunvald Nilsen et al., Pluto Press, 2019, pp. 170–177, doi: 10.2307/j.ctvdmwxfb.17.
5. Nielsen, Kenneth Bo, et al. Trajectories and Crossroads: Indian Democracy at 70. In Indian Democracy: Origins, Trajectories, Contestations, edited by Alf Gunvald Nilsen et al., Pluto Press, 2019, pp. 1–12, doi: 10.2307/j.ctvdmwxfb.4.
6. Jakobsen, Jostein, et al. Mapping the World’s Largest Democracy (1947–2017). Forum for Development Studies, vol. 46, no. 1, 2019, pp. 83–108, doi: 10.1080/08039410.2018.1465461.
7. Ruud, Arild Engelsen, and Kenneth Bo Nielsen. Political Dynasticism: Networks, Trust, Risk. Studies in Indian Politics, vol. 6, no. 2, 2018, pp. 157–167, doi: 10.1177/2321023018797407.
8. Nielsen, Kenneth Bo, and Heather P. Bedi. The Regional Identity Politics of India’s New Land Wars: Land, Food, and Popular Mobilisation in Goa and West Bengal. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, vol. 49, no. 10, 2017, pp. 2324–2341, doi: 10.1177/0308518X17719884.
9. Nielsen, Kenneth Bo. Unclean Slates: Greenfield Development, Land Dispossession, and EIA Struggles in Goa. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, vol. 40, no. 4, 2017, pp. 844–861, doi: 10.1080/00856401.2017.1370185.

Book Chapter

1. Nielsen, Kenneth Bo, and Alf Gunvald Nilsen. Love jihad and the governance of gender and intimacy in hindu nationalist statecraft. Religions, vol. 12, no. 12, 2021, pp. 1–17, doi:10.3390/rel12121068.
2. Dutta, Anwesha, and Kenneth Bo Nielsen. Autocratic Environmental Governance in India. Routledge Handbook of Autocratization in South Asia, edited by Sten Widmalm, Routledge, 2021, ISBN: 9781003042211.
3. Jakobsen, Jostein, and Kenneth Bo Nielsen. "Bovine Contradictions: The Politics of (De)Meatification and Hindutva Hegemony in Neoliberal India." Changing Meat Cultures: Food Practices, Global Capitalism, and the Consumption of Animals, edited by Arve Hansen and Karen Lykke Syse, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2021.

   The article alleges that India maintains a paradoxical stance by exhibiting contradiction in terms of being a leading exporter of beef at one end and being a nation where cows are considered holy. Author believes that it is wrong for India to be a part of global market or aims for economic policies that promote capitalist accumulation. Jostein calls this step taken by the the government as 'to turn India into a Hindu majoritarian state'.

   To prove her point the author alleges that:

   • The author appears to express dissatisfaction with India's economic development and seems to overlook how these policies can contribute to social welfare: "The Congress government had maintained a balanced and inclusive approach as it aimed to balance economic liberalization with social welfare policies in the areas of food, education and security. Whereas the Modi led government focused more on economic liberalization through policies such as “Make in India” and less on social welfare policies as it has been criticized for its COVID-19 pandemic situations, reduced funding for education and health."
   • Author alleges that – “According to Palshikar, the Modi regime seeks the support of corporate interests for its neoliberal economic agenda by convincing the corporate classes that this agenda will be implemented vigorously irrespective of its Hindu chauvinist socio-political agenda. At the same time, the BJP seeks approval for its socio political agenda from the larger public by linking it directly to the economic agenda: the ordinary citizen is thus sought to be convinced that their economic well-being is primarily a function of a strong nation and that, therefore, the hurdles in becoming a strong nation—in this rendering explicitly defined as a “Hindu nation”—need to be overcome. The “hurdles” in question include “pampered religious minorities,” “anti-national elements,” “seditious liberal intellectuals,” and so on.”
   • While Jostein expresses dissatisfaction with the policy of prohibiting the slaughter of cows, there is substantial evidence that cow veneration has deep roots in Hindu culture, dating back to the Vedic period. The reverence for cows is documented in ancient scriptures and texts, and has been a consistent element of Hindu practice and belief over centuries. "Whereas Hindu nationalists and fundamentalists see vegetarianism and cow-veneration as millennia-old cultural traditions that define Hinduism as a religious practice, secular historians argue that the elevation of the cow to sacred status for all Hindus is a more recently invented and historically contested tradition. "
   • The author seems to be against Hindu gatherings and calls it as shaping the state to reflect Hindu nationalist ideals “... and affiliated Hindu nationalist organizations partake of a new formation of the state, the formation of a de facto if not a de jure Hindu Rashtra”

   Author makes this following unsubstantiated claim "Modi government has encouraged Hindu nationalist rhetoric and policies and has been accused of promoting a Hindu nationalist agenda example - CAA"

Books

1. Nielsen, Kenneth Bo, Heather P. Bedi, and Solano Jose Savio Da Silva. Enabling the Great Goan Land Grab. Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 52, no. 41, 2017, ISSN: 0012-9976.
2. Nielsen, Kenneth Bo, and Solano Jose Savio Da Silva. Golden or Green? Growth Infrastructures and Resistance in Goa. Urban Utopias: Excess and Expulsion in Neoliberal South Asia, edited by Tereza Kuldova and Mathew Akkanad Varghese, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, pp. 53–74, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-47623-0_4, ISBN: 978-3-319-47622-3.
3. Nielsen, Kenneth Bo, and Alf Gunvald Nilsen. Law-Struggles, Law-Making and the Politics of Hegemony in Neoliberal India: Towards a Critical Perspective on the 2013 Land Acquisition Act. The Land Question in India: State, Dispossession, and Capitalist Transition, edited by Anthony P. D'Costa and Achin Chakraborty, Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 129–150, doi:10.1080/14747731.2014.937084, ISBN: 9780198792444.
4. Nielsen, Kenneth Bo, and Sarasij Majumder. ‘Should the Son of a Farmer Always Remain a Farmer?’ The Ambivalence of Industrialisation and Resistance in West Bengal. Industrialising Rural India: Land, Policy and Resistance, edited by Kenneth Bo Nielsen and Patrik Oskarsson, Routledge, 2017, pp. 63–82, ISBN: 978-1138936713.
5. Nielsen, Kenneth Bo, and Patrik Oskarsson. Industrialising Rural India: Land, Policy and Resistance. Industrialising Rural India: Land, Policy and Resistance, edited by Kenneth Bo Nielsen and Patrik Oskarsson, Routledge, 2017, pp. 3–18, ISBN: 978-1138936713.
6. Hansen, Arve, and Kenneth Bo Nielsen. Wheels of Change: Cars, Automobility and Development in Asia. Cars, Automobility and Development in Asia: Wheels of Change, edited by Arve Hansen and Kenneth Bo Nielsen, Routledge, 2017, pp. 3–14, ISBN: 9781138930704.
7. Nielsen, Kenneth Bo, and Alf Gunvald Nilsen. Conclusion. Social Movements and the State in India: Deepening Democracy?, edited by Alf Gunvald Nilsen and Kenneth Bo Nielsen, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 269–275, ISBN: 978-1-137-59132-6.
8. Nilsen, Alf Gunvald, and Kenneth Bo Nielsen. Social Movements, State Formation and Democracy in India: An Introduction. Social Movements and the State in India: Deepening Democracy?, edited by Alf Gunvald Nilsen and Kenneth Bo Nielsen, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 1–23, doi:10.1057/978-1-137-59133-3_1, ISBN: 978-1-137-59132-6.
9. Nielsen, Kenneth Bo. Managing 'Communities' of Resistance: Negotiating Caste and Class in an Anti-land Acquisition Movement in West Bengal. Staking Claims: The Politics of Social Movements in Contemporary Rural India, edited by Uday Chandra and Daniel Taghioff, Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 165–199, ISBN: 0199467773.
10. Nielsen, Kenneth Bo. Mamata Banerjee: Redefining Female Leadership. India's Democracies: Diversity, Co-optation, Resistance, edited by Arild Engelsen Ruud and Geir Heierstad, Universitetsforlaget, 2016, pp. 101–134, doi:10.18261/9788215026886-2016-06, ISBN: 978-82-15-02689-3.