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Vishal Ganesan Profile picture
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11 Nov, 6 tweets, 2 min read
If you've been following the India reportage in western media over the past year, you would expect the BJP to be in a vulnerable position following the "nation-wide, grassroots" protests against the "fascist" CAA, alleged mismanagement of pandemic, etc

livemint.com/elections/asse…
But assembly elections in Bihar (pop ~100m, and home to the bulk of migrant workers) just wrapped and the verdict was clear: The BJP/Modi are as popular as ever. A timely reminder that self-proclaimed "South Asia" experts are selling you a mental model of a country and a people.
And like any other model, you can test it against the available data to see if it fits. Spoiler alert: it does not. So as you see the divergence between the model and data grow, you are left with two choices:
1) Admit that Princeton Grad Priya who minored in South Asian Studies and contributes to Vice is full of shit and should be ignored or 2) accept the prevailing model and draw the inference from the divergence that the average Indian is an irredeemable extremist.
The commentariat will never concede that they are clueless, so they will guide you towards Option 2 like Captain Marlow down the River Congo. If you're interested in actually understanding, ignore them. India is a place; South Asia is a fantasy.
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More from @vjgtweets

Vishal Ganesan Profile picture
9 Nov
One of the interesting things about the America-India relationship is witnessing the intersection of two peculiar national pathologies of "exceptionalism." American exceptionalism is messianic, which simultaneously endows it with a brazen confidence and a
relentless outward gaze to whatever is next. The default assumption is that America's founding represents a fundamental break with the past, and therefore the laws of history don't apply to us. OTOH, Indian exceptionalism is inward looking and obsessed with the past.
Indians are convinced that the world revolves around them, and as a result every global event is interpreted through a provincial lens. Each has its pros and cons: America moves fast and breaks things, which gives its people immense creative energy,
Read 6 tweets
Vishal Ganesan Profile picture
1 Nov
Just watched Shithouse. Great movie. Revisiting freshman year music.
Read 5 tweets
Vishal Ganesan Profile picture
1 Nov
An excellent point by @esaagar. Opposing hindutva is one thing, but treating it as a lunatic fringe is simply inaccurate, and a rhetorical ploy often used to justify reductive, bigoted attacks against hindus, under the guise of opposing "hindutva, not hinduism"
When you claim that BJP supporters are all fascists/extremists, you're not referring (as you might imagine) to a small cabal of elite conspirators, but ~300m Indians-- many of whom are poor and "low" caste-- who support the BJP and subscribe to its ideology.
That's almost the entire population of America! Now, if you think that they're _all_ irredeemable fascists, then please just say so. Alternatively, consider the fact that maybe your understanding of an emergent political phenomenon in another country whose ascendance is
Read 13 tweets
Vishal Ganesan Profile picture
30 Oct
The "Hindoo menace" is truly upon us, fellow Americans. The evidence?

Exhibit A: "...a group of some 30 Indians and Indian Americans stood outside an elementary school here to protest."

Exhibit B: "As of October 14, the group [a Hindu PAC] had raised more than $225,000..."
It is remarkable. Once you look at the actual evidence-- which is trivial-- and measure that against the pervasiveness of the narrative, it becomes clear how much of this driven by good, old-fashioned American xenophobia, and widespread ignorance about India and Hinduism
30 protesters and $200k raised-- that's it. And yet this is somehow spun into a nefarious web of Hindu nazis who want to infect American politics. It is insanity. This is nothing but the progressive left version of the Sharia paranoia that took hold of the right post 9/11.
Read 6 tweets
Vishal Ganesan Profile picture
22 Oct
India trained a post-colonial elite that is exceedingly skilled at talking about India's problems, but totally inept at fixing them. Unsurprisingly, it is a commonly held view among this class that even attempting to fix India's problems is futile without first ushering in a
nebulous social revolution, the nature of which is heavily contested.Whereas status games in "doer" cultures are driven by ingenuity in problem solving, status among this class is measured by an ability to formulate increasingly arcane-- but rhetorically attractive-- explanations
for why India is the way it is. Ironically, despite the faux radical posturing, this makes Indian intellectuals natural conservatives, since any actual progress renders their elaborate explanatory models obsolete. This is one reason why there is such a dramatic asymmetry b/w
Read 6 tweets
Vishal Ganesan Profile picture
16 Oct
THREAD

Shivam's entire thread is worth reading, but this particular tweet deserves some elaboration, as I think it lies at the root of the challenges HAs face in the diaspora. 1/n
Shivam's insight here is deep on many levels, but I think all HAs can relate to the feeling of "defensiveness" that he describes.However, this goes far beyond the cliched immigrant story of being confronted with your difference from mainstream culture. Instead it strikes deep 2/n
at the heart of what makes Hinduism exceptional. I mean that literally, not as a judgment of Hinduism's value vis a vis other religions. The renowned Egyptologist Jan Assmann articulates the fundamental difference between Hinduism and "Abrahamic" religions thusly: 3/n
Read 28 tweets

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