Talk:Vasanthi Venkatesh

By Rutvi Dattani

Vasanthi Venkatesh is an Associate Professor of Law, Land, and Local Economies at the University of Windsor, as of November 2022. Her research focuses on labor migration, immigration, and citizenship law, law and social movements, racialization and discrimination, and comparative law.

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."

Articles

1. Venkatesh, Vasanthi. Rewriting India: The Construction of the ‘Hindutva’ Citizen in the Indian state. Third World Alternatives to International Law Review, 2020

   1. Vasanthi alleges in this article that the BJP used their administrative powers and discriminated Muslims to further its so-called Hindutva Ideology through the amendment of the Citizenship act by the BJP government in 2019. She does not show even a cursory understanding of the Citizenship Act of 1955 which this act amends or the actual amendment itself. Instead, the author contributes to an echo chamber by suggesting that the Citizenship amendment Act is furthering an Islamophobic discourse and progressing Hindutva ideology.
   2. She states “By implementing the National registry of citizens the government is using facially neutral administrative regulations to construct the ‘documented’ Indian citizen. This ‘citizen’ is made to fit with Hindutva ideals by disenfranchising Muslims and threatening the de facto and de jure citizenship of non-dominant caste Hindus and other groups that challenge the ideology.” She forgets to mention every government requires its citizens to have documentation proving their citizenship and the right to govern what is legal and illegal immigration. She implies requesting citizenship documentation is a part of "Hindutva philosophy" and providing such documentation is equivalent to being Islamophobic.
   3. Vasanthi wildly accuses the BJP of pervasively using the logic of coloniality, exceptionalism and racism to maintain systemic inequities and embed oppressions without any substantiation or context. She goes on to state “Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has enacted laws and policies such as beef ban and, Muslim women protection on rights on marriage and building temple at disputed Babri Masjid land by furthering its Hindutva agenda undermining the democratic rights and political participation of Indian Muslims and other groups seen as incompatible with the Hindutva ideology.” These statements make her seem confused at best. The BJP's removed the ability for Muslim men to divorce their wife simply by stating "Talaq, talaq, talaq". This form of divorce is not accepted in Islamic countries and was broadly hailed as a positive change for Muslim women. None of the rest of her diatribe is substantiated by any evidence other than an Al Jazeera blog which can hardly be considered authoritative.
   4. She continues to use a single Al Jazeera blog to build the case that “The government has supported a narrative that blames the spread of the novel Coronavirus on Muslims who are facing ostracization and physical and verbal abuse as a result.” She opines that “The BJP government has also used the lockdown under the pandemic to arrest over a thousand CAA protestors, targeting Muslim activists, students, academics, and writers.” In effect, she calls the "COVID-19 lockdowns" implemented by most world governments as Islamophobic even if those governments were Islamic themselves.
   5. She fails to define the term "Hindutva Citizen in the Indian state" making this article a giant rant unrelated to its title.

References

• Vasanthi Venkatesh page on Academia accessed November 21, 2022