Cleansing the Nation: Hindu Nationalism, Gender and the "Clean India" Campaign

Department of Communication Colloquium welcomes Raka Shome presenting a talk based on her upcoming book “Cleansing the Nation.”

Shome’s talk will focus on the workings of contemporary (and increasingly authoritarian) Hindu nationalism in India, particularly as they operate through ‘development’ initiatives. Focusing on a signature development campaign of the Hindu nationalist BJP government that has been highly popular and mediated—the “Clean India” campaign or Swachh Bharat Abhiyan—this talk will explore how the logic of Hindu modern, as a mode of contemporary governmentality, plays out in the Clean India campaign. In particular, this talk examines the regulation of gender (and its intersections with caste and religion) in the current Hindu nationalist (modern) project of cultural purification and explores how the Clean India campaign evinces this.