"India, Hindutva, and V.D. Savarkar (1883-1966)"
Professional Development Workshop
Monday, December 9, 2024
“Teaching the history of right wing ideology:
The Case of India, Hindutva, and V.D. Savarkar (1883-1966)”
A talk by Janaki Bakhle (History, University of California at Berkeley)
Time: 5:30pm - 7:00pm
Location: Room 208 Knox Hall, 606 West 122nd Street, between Broadway and Claremont
Refreshments will be provided.
Open to all K-12 and College Educators (at no cost)
Please feel free to forward this invitation to interested colleagues
REGISTRATION REQUIRED AS BELOW
Please bring photo ID for entrance to the building
If one wanted to understand the rapid rise of right wing ideology and its takeover of numerous governments around the world (US, India, Argentina) one possible way to do it is to carefully study the writings of the ideologues associated with its championing. In India, the ideologue of right wing Hindu nationalism was an anti-colonial revolutionary nationalist, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883-1966) who is credited with having invented the term “Hindutva” or “Hinduness” and for having been one of the most vociferous and virulent opponents of the so-called father of Indian nationalism, M.K. Gandhi. A short fifty years after Indian independence from colonial rule, the Gandhian vision of nationalism and secularism has been defeated and in its stead, an aggressive Hindutva-nationalism has taken center stage, in the form of the BJP. How does one teach about Hinduvta (or any other right wing nationalism) without either labelling or dismissing it as fascism, or defending its basic principles? This is the question to which Prof. Bakhle will turn in this talk.
Janaki Bakhle is professor of Indian history at UC Berkeley. Her first book was titled Two Men and Music: Nationalism in the Making of an Indian Classical Tradition which examined how classical music under colonial occupation was given a Hindu pedigree, and emerged as a powerful socializing instrument that pushed Muslim performers out of the center of their own performative traditions and moved into the new space of the Indian nation a chaste, pious, and asexualized Hindu woman into it. Her second book is Savarkar and the Making of Hindutva published by Princeton University Press (2024). She is also the author of articles on secularism and Indian feminism, surveillance and revolutionary nationalism, and global intellectual history.
Materials
The following books will be distributed to workshop attendees:
Savarkar and the Making of Hindutva by Janaki Bakhle (Princeton University Press, 2024)
Sources of Indian Traditions, Vol. Two. Edited by Rachel Fell McDermott, Leonard A. Gordon, Ainslie T. Embree, Frances W. Pritchett, and Dennis Dalton. (Columbia University Press, 2014)
Registration
Participation in the workshop is limited to K-12 teachers, two- or four-year college instructors, or students planning a career in K-12 education who are enrolled in, or recent graduates of, a graduate degree program. School administration are welcome to attend. If you would like to register for either workshop, or have questions, please contact William Carrick at [email protected].
To register, please send an email to <[email protected]> which includes your name, school affiliation, level of students taught, and subjects taught. Students and recent graduates should include their school and degree program, anticipated graduation date, and a very brief statement of career goals.
There is no registration fee to attend the workshop, but registration is required in order to attend.
For additional information, please contact William Carrick at <[email protected]> or by phone at (212) 854-4565.