Talk:Neeti Nair

By Sachi Anjunkar .

Neeti Nair is a Professor of History and Affiliate Faculty, Women, Gender, and Sexuality at the University of Virginia as of December 2023. According to her profile, her fields and specialties are modern South Asia, political history, transnational and diplomatic history, legal history, intellectual history and history of ideas.

In 2021, she 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."

Publications related to India

Books

1. Nair, Neeti. Hurt Sentiments: Secularism and Belonging in South Asia. Harvard University Press, 2023.
2. Nair, Neeti. Changing Homelands: Hindu Politics and the Partition of India. Harvard University Press, 2011. Paperback edition, 2016.

Edited Special Issues

1. Nair, Neeti, editor. “Citizenship, Belonging, and the Partition of India.” Asian Affairs, vol. 53, no. 2, 2022.
2. Nair, Neeti, and Michael Kugelman, editors. Ghosts from the Past? Assessing Recent Developments in Religious Freedom in South Asia. Routledge, 2021. Paperback edition, 2023. Originally published as a special issue of Asian Affairs, vol. 49, no. 2, 2018.

Peer Reviewed Articles

1. Nair, Neeti. "Toward Mass Education or an 'Aristocracy of Talent': Nonalignment and the Making of a Strong India." The Postcolonial Moment in South and Southeast Asia, edited by Gyan Prakash, Michael Laffan, and Nikhil Menon, Bloomsbury, 2018, pp. 183-200.
2. Nair, Neeti. "Indo-Pak Relations: A Window of Opportunity that has Almost Closed." Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 49, no. 51, 20 Dec. 2014, pp. 183-200.

   Neetu Nair argues that the BJP government is not fit to govern because it is not improving its relationship with Pakistan. According to her, PM Modi governs the country based on the demands of the RSS but fails to provide any proof or support to support such a claim.

   The author also claims that India should make a peaceful resolution with Pakistan by keeping Muslims in India happy and improved relations with Pakistan will result in them reducing their sponsorship of terrorism targeting India

   She makes the following statements while ignoring the facts on the ground in India, the political realities of Pakistani politics and the substantial investment PM Modi has demonstrably made in foreign policy

   • "Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led government, with its massive majority, presents a real window of opportunity to interrogate and deepen diplomatic processes already at play between India and Pakistan. However, the recent resurgence of Hindutva over governance amounts to letting go of this opportunity."
   • "Recent developments indicate that India’s elected government too, has fallen prey to the machinations of non-elected institutions, such as those in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). And, contrary to the expectations of some pundits earlier this year, Narendra Modi himself has chosen to highlight Hindutva over governance."
   • "If Modi is serious about his promise of “acche din” (good days), he will have to realise that there is no substitute for the real work of foreign policy making; that is, long hours of dialogue and negotiation at multiple levels."

3. Nair, Neeti. "Beyond the 'communal' 1920s: the problem of intention, legislative pragmatism, and the making of section 295A of the Indian Penal Code." The Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol. 50, no. 3, July 2013, pp. 317-340.
4. Nair, Neeti. "Articles on 'Hindu Mahasabha’, ‘Pt Madan Mohan Malaviya’, ‘Rangila Rasul’, ‘Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’, ‘Sanatan Dharm’, ‘Shuddhi’, ‘Swami Shraddhanand’." The Oxford Companion to Pakistani History, edited by Ayesha Jalal, Oxford University Press, 2012.
5. Nair, Neeti. "‘Partition’ and ‘minority rights’ in Punjabi Hindu Debates, 1920-1947." Economic and Political Weekly, Special Articles, vol. 46, no. 52, 24 Dec. 2011, pp. 61-69.
6. Nair, Neeti. "Bhagat Singh as 'satyagrahi': the limits to non-violence in late colonial India." Modern Asian Studies, vol. 43, no. 3, May 2009, pp. 649-681.