Description
Academic disciplines are powerful mechanisms to direct and control the production and diffusion of discourses and knowledge. The unprecedented events that dawned upon humankind in the present times essentially exposed the cracks and issues with the orthodox nature of controlling the production and diffusion of knowledge. The tool is used to set up the propaganda for a divisive ruling. The systems of exclusion that have been sustained through the academic disciplines have systemically subjugated the marginalised. In India, there has been a visible shift towards majoritarian politics and sectarianism. BJP since its re-election in 2019 has been implementing a series of Hindu nationalist policies that have been perceived as majoritarian, communal, and intolerant in many domestic and international quarters.
Abrogation of Article 370, implementation of National Register of Citizens (NRC), enacting Citizenship Amendment Bill together with NRC are a few laws and policies used in this regard. The popular support for these divisive and biased laws has striking similarities with the propagandist policies of Hitler’s Germany. In “Mein Kampf,” Hitler wrote that propaganda “must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. This paper seeks to interrogate the role of knowledge creation in populist politics and the role that dominant discourses on security play in facilitating the rise of majoritarian politics. It will also look at how the task of forgetting IR can help in escaping the vicious circle of legitimizing majoritarian politics.
