Hindu nationalism and disaster management
This lecture will look at how Hindu nationalist groups emerge as important actors in post-disaster management in India, and how these humanitarian interventions are productive of consolidating and reorganizing communities on ethnic or religious lines. In contrast to conventional methods of recruitment, post-disaster interventions enable a unique form of ethno-political mobilization fostering existing communal tensions and encouraging a culture of political clientelism.
Main content
By now it has been established that far from being mere ‘natural hazards’ disasters are political moments which trigger political reactions, providing fertile ground for a complex range of actors, each with their own distinctive agenda, to mobilize the affected people. Religious and ethnic outfits which enjoy greater social embeddedness than the state, emerge as important players in this context. The welfare interventions of these groups are motivated by a variety of factors including the ideological, cultural and political. The provision of relief and more institutionalized welfare, therefore often goes hand in hand with the process of consolidating and reorganizing communities on religious or ethnic lines. While that by itself is not unsurprising, this reorganization becomes problematic because it is often based on fostering of tension within coherent affiliations and encouraging a culture of political clientelism. This paper explores the role of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist group, in the specific context of post-disaster relief and reconstruction and argues that its implementation of seva(service) post disasters, enables it to undertake a unique form of ethno-political mobilization that is distinct from its conventional methods of recruiting support.
Malini Bhattacharjee teaches at the School of Policy and Governance, in Azim Premji University, Bangalore, India. She has recently completed her PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her PhD thesis explores the modes of mobilization undertaken by a Hindu nationalist group, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in the context of disaster relief and rehabilitation in two Indian states, Gujarat and Orissa, which were hit by an earthquake in 2001 and a super cyclone in 1999, respectively. Her research interests center around issues of identity, ethnicity and political conflict in South Asia and the politics of humanitarian assistance and social welfare.
This lecture is free and open for all, as all our events.
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The Bergen Resource Centre for International Development is a joint project by the University of Bergen and the Chr. Michelsen Institute.
