Nightmares of Decolonization: Paramilitary Violence and the Making of South Asia
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To (mis)quote Jawaharlal Nehru, at the stroke of the midnight hour on August 14/15, 1947, the Indian subcontinent was not just awakening to life and freedom; it was also being ravaged by ultranationalist and fascistic paramilitary movements who viewed freedom as the freedom to dominate as an ethnonational majority. In this paper, I trace the emergence of these movements and their ideologues from the 1920s through to the immediate aftermath of decolonization. In doing so, I offer a broad account of paramilitary movements, their entanglements with global fascism, their role in shaping the violent outcome of decolonization, and their participation in state-making and nation-building in South Asia.
Date: 11 November 2024, 16:00 (Monday, 5th week, Michaelmas 2024)
Venue: St Antony's College, 62 Woodstock Road OX2 6JF
Venue Details: Online - Zoom
Speaker: Ali Raza (Lahore University of Management Sciences)
Organising department: Asian Studies Centre
Organisers: Bhadrajee Hewage (University of Oxford), Zaki Rehman (University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address: saih@history.ox.ac.uk
Part of: South Asian Intellectual History Seminars
Booking required?: Required
Booking url: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_1n2OTliJRGGMyh_Crf9feQ#/registration
Audience: Public
Editor: Clare Salter