1 00:00:00,180 --> 00:00:11,660 Great. Yeah, they won't welcome everyone to this, the first session on off more than I would say South Asia seminar and thank you very much, 2 00:00:11,660 --> 00:00:16,280 everyone for joining us and welcome to this seminar series. My name is Umar Brydon. 3 00:00:16,280 --> 00:00:22,610 I'm department, a lecturer here at Contemporary South Asia programme Oxford School of Global Studies, 4 00:00:22,610 --> 00:00:26,910 and it is my privilege to welcome and introduce our professor Sue Regards, 5 00:00:26,910 --> 00:00:37,670 Bob Modi and Professor Hugo Godin's today in this seminar series for the talk titled Citizenship, Publicness and the Politics of Inclusive Democracy. 6 00:00:37,670 --> 00:00:47,570 Of Bhagwati is a public sociologist and professor of sociology at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Bombay. 7 00:00:47,570 --> 00:00:55,760 He was also recently awarded New India Foundation's Fellowship to work on his book, titled Is Postcard City Possible? 8 00:00:55,760 --> 00:01:04,310 And he's also author of Civility against Caste and co-editor of Civility in Crisis with Coverage. 9 00:01:04,310 --> 00:01:14,600 Hugo is a senior lecturer in sociology and co-director of the Centre for South Asia Studies programme at the University of Edinburgh. 10 00:01:14,600 --> 00:01:21,080 His research focuses on interplay between caste politics and Dalit movements in Tamil Nadu. 11 00:01:21,080 --> 00:01:26,180 He is author of Untouchables, Citizens and Fantasy in Parliament, 12 00:01:26,180 --> 00:01:33,320 as well as numerous articles and chapters on identity, violence, space, cost and politics. 13 00:01:33,320 --> 00:01:37,400 Sudhakar and Hugo will discuss their recent edited volume, 14 00:01:37,400 --> 00:01:44,720 titled Civility in Crisis and offer insights into the central concept of civility and the contribution of the volume. 15 00:01:44,720 --> 00:01:51,950 The talk will be around 40 to 45 minutes and we will open the floor for question and comments after that. 16 00:01:51,950 --> 00:01:59,960 So if you have any questions, please type them in chat box or Q&A and we will take them after the talk. 17 00:01:59,960 --> 00:02:07,460 So to continue. Thank you very much once again for joining us today and over to you. 18 00:02:07,460 --> 00:02:13,670 Thanks so much. And, Claire, I understand you're going to be managing slides for us. 19 00:02:13,670 --> 00:02:22,430 So if you want to brilliant the magic of of film, great to see so many people here, 20 00:02:22,430 --> 00:02:27,350 including several names that I recognise really showed me that it can't be that impersonal. 21 00:02:27,350 --> 00:02:30,620 One of the great things about someone who is actually chatting to people after the event, 22 00:02:30,620 --> 00:02:40,400 but thanks for the very kind introduction to than I have been working together for many, many years from an established double act. 23 00:02:40,400 --> 00:02:46,430 But we haven't practised this, so apologies if the scenes show. 24 00:02:46,430 --> 00:02:55,010 I said that I would start off and I wanted to start off largely so that I could acknowledge three accounts lead on this project. 25 00:02:55,010 --> 00:03:03,230 But also, I'm going to set the scene before we move on to discussing the central concepts of the book and giving you a sense of what it covers. 26 00:03:03,230 --> 00:03:10,940 The book itself comes out of a long running working relationship that started formally in 2012, 27 00:03:10,940 --> 00:03:16,370 when we got a UK TV grant enabling colleagues at the University of Edinburgh and 28 00:03:16,370 --> 00:03:22,760 Tata Institute every account that was to work together and share ideas and come up 29 00:03:22,760 --> 00:03:30,890 with new concepts that led to one volume from the margins to the mainstream and 30 00:03:30,890 --> 00:03:37,910 subsequently led to this ferry account was the driving force behind this volume, 31 00:03:37,910 --> 00:03:47,240 not only in terms of organising, putting things together, getting a workshop which led into the book, but also intellectually civility and crisis. 32 00:03:47,240 --> 00:03:55,340 For those of you who know his work will not be surprised to learn, it emerges out of his first book, Civility against Cost, 33 00:03:55,340 --> 00:04:02,490 and we'll return to why we think the concept of stability is so central and so important and a little bit today. 34 00:04:02,490 --> 00:04:13,850 What we hope to do in this talk is give you a flavour of the arguments are central to this volume and of course, trade you to go out and buy a copy. 35 00:04:13,850 --> 00:04:24,380 OK, next slide, please, Clare. The starting point for the volume, as with much of our work, are the insights of DR. 36 00:04:24,380 --> 00:04:35,270 The breadth. We're all familiar with his insight that, you know, we're all familiar with the line that India is the world's largest democracy, 37 00:04:35,270 --> 00:04:45,200 it's trotted out time and time again in order to persuade us of such things in order to situate India in a certain political context. 38 00:04:45,200 --> 00:04:57,770 But long back at the outset of the Republic, Ambedkar warned that democracy was being implanted on potentially on fertile soil from the very outset. 39 00:04:57,770 --> 00:05:03,170 He pointed towards the fragility of the construct of democracy and argued that the 40 00:05:03,170 --> 00:05:10,280 social dimensions of politics had to be taken into account and that if they weren't, 41 00:05:10,280 --> 00:05:14,450 then the whole enterprise could collapse. 42 00:05:14,450 --> 00:05:25,100 Democracy, because work shows very clearly cannot ever be merely a set of institutions or formal political arrangements. 43 00:05:25,100 --> 00:05:35,570 It has to involve a sea change in social relations and values and attitudes and the quotes on the slide here. 44 00:05:35,570 --> 00:05:48,680 You'll probably all be very familiar with capture their sense of the contradictions between social conservatism and political equality. 45 00:05:48,680 --> 00:05:55,580 The roots of democracy from babka lie not in government, parliamentary or other institutions, 46 00:05:55,580 --> 00:06:02,660 but in social relationships in the terms of associated life between the people who form a society. 47 00:06:02,660 --> 00:06:16,520 And if those aspects that are central to this for you, the failure to align institutions with social norms and relations are all too evident today. 48 00:06:16,520 --> 00:06:29,420 Next slide, please. And this brings us to the context of the volume and a sense of democracy increasingly in peril. 49 00:06:29,420 --> 00:06:40,370 And in thinking about this for the introduction, we pointed to a number of key areas which are worthy of attention and which need to be considered, 50 00:06:40,370 --> 00:06:43,820 and we can maybe return to them in the discussion. 51 00:06:43,820 --> 00:06:58,250 The first is the violence of indifference, and what we mean by that is the way in which people may not intend to cause harm to any particular person. 52 00:06:58,250 --> 00:07:11,540 They may not seek to inflict physical damage on anything or person, but through neglect, through a failure to consider implications. 53 00:07:11,540 --> 00:07:17,510 They nevertheless result in untold harm. We feel that very clearly during the pandemic, 54 00:07:17,510 --> 00:07:29,780 with the plight of casual labour laid off overnight and forced to trek thousands of miles in order to reach the safety of home. 55 00:07:29,780 --> 00:07:39,560 We saw that in the horrendous suffering of Stan Swamy before he died of COVID imprisoned. 56 00:07:39,560 --> 00:07:46,530 Despite many pleas for clemency, many pleas for urgent medical attention. 57 00:07:46,530 --> 00:07:52,310 We see that in the continued incarceration of our friend and colleague on a telephone day, 58 00:07:52,310 --> 00:08:03,200 we see that in the routine neglect of the sufferings faced by cleaners by Safaricom and current Jaffrey across India, 59 00:08:03,200 --> 00:08:12,650 the way in which deaths in manholes rarely occasioned the sort of outpouring of anger that we ought to expect. 60 00:08:12,650 --> 00:08:19,400 All of them are clear examples of the violence of indifference and speak to a lack of civility, 61 00:08:19,400 --> 00:08:25,640 a lack of civic engagement and sense of fraternity in the Indian Republic. 62 00:08:25,640 --> 00:08:33,080 But. Exclusions and exclusionary violence are not simply the result of indifference. 63 00:08:33,080 --> 00:08:45,860 Some are actively constructed through political rhetoric and through exclusionary policies such as the CAA, as we've seen recently. 64 00:08:45,860 --> 00:08:56,600 And so one of the things we look at in the volume is the way in which politics are framed and discussed and the way in which policies are framed, 65 00:08:56,600 --> 00:09:08,750 such that they include or exclude certain categories of people which look at the ways in which the institutions which are meant to guarantee equality. 66 00:09:08,750 --> 00:09:19,370 All too often fail in that regard. One of the clearest ways in which they fail is in the arena of caste and on the fly. 67 00:09:19,370 --> 00:09:29,630 There you have the picture of the young man in Gujarat who is set upon and beaten for skinning a dead cow. 68 00:09:29,630 --> 00:09:42,260 Brilliant, brilliant insight into caste youth caste structures is resting on ascending scales of reverend and descending scales of contempt, 69 00:09:42,260 --> 00:09:51,230 and these are all too clear today and interactions structured around caste identities. 70 00:09:51,230 --> 00:10:04,310 Both his work on caste and his work on communal legislative speak for the way in which communities may be marginalised and excluded. 71 00:10:04,310 --> 00:10:12,110 Back in 2005, I spoke of untouchable citizens when I was writing about Dalit movement in Tamil Nadu. 72 00:10:12,110 --> 00:10:19,040 What I meant to counter by that term was the paradox the impossibility of full citizenship. 73 00:10:19,040 --> 00:10:30,080 When some group, some people are still treated as lesser beings as unequal as less worthy of dignity and respect. 74 00:10:30,080 --> 00:10:34,580 Majoritarian politics and politics, the volume argues, 75 00:10:34,580 --> 00:10:44,720 consistently undermined the principle of social equality and the trust, which are at the heart of the project of stability, 76 00:10:44,720 --> 00:10:55,250 rather than focussing on political measures and performance is therefore in this volume, we structured our analyses around this central concept. 77 00:10:55,250 --> 00:10:59,600 And given that he was the intellectual lead on the concept at this point, 78 00:10:59,600 --> 00:11:06,980 I'm going to pause and let my partner Sylvia talk through the key virtues of the concept. 79 00:11:06,980 --> 00:11:15,680 You can move on to the next slide, please. Right. 80 00:11:15,680 --> 00:11:22,460 Can you hear me? Thanks, Hugo. 81 00:11:22,460 --> 00:11:30,590 So. Engaging with the idea of civility, 82 00:11:30,590 --> 00:11:43,580 like you will see his own work on on on the problem of citizenship in India and the purely manifestation of this problem in marriage forms is 83 00:11:43,580 --> 00:11:57,170 something that that we engage in have engaged through our work in detail and what this volume intends to kind of take this forward and civility. 84 00:11:57,170 --> 00:12:15,210 As I said, concept helps us also question several of of of the problems that may emerge with the way we engage and conceptualise Indian democracy. 85 00:12:15,210 --> 00:12:27,500 So before I make that case on on why civility in brief I will talk on, you know, what is civility, at least how we approach it? 86 00:12:27,500 --> 00:12:40,910 So as we all know, civility itself has has had a very uneasy history and it evokes a passionate kind of reactions as well. 87 00:12:40,910 --> 00:12:50,300 So because there is a long tradition of using civility to silence dissent, excluding people and issues from public discussions, 88 00:12:50,300 --> 00:13:00,200 as Shadi argues, and promoting civility can close down debates, often recasting disagreements in terms of etiquette and manners. 89 00:13:00,200 --> 00:13:06,980 Silencing heterodox views and turning disputes of passion and idealism in this 90 00:13:06,980 --> 00:13:14,480 volume of the new civility is something that is definitely not politeness. 91 00:13:14,480 --> 00:13:24,290 So the civility here, we have worked towards understanding it mainly as a social political process and also the 92 00:13:24,290 --> 00:13:30,680 politics of politics that challenges lack of public ness and commitment to public life, 93 00:13:30,680 --> 00:13:41,000 equality and justice in society. So as opposed to politics of civility that oppress and exclude and limit the public to private groups, 94 00:13:41,000 --> 00:13:45,380 for instance, costs religion at these men heterosexual. 95 00:13:45,380 --> 00:13:54,230 There are numerous projects of progressive civilities which push the boundaries and the meanings of public life towards inclusivity and universality. 96 00:13:54,230 --> 00:13:59,180 Civility does not need to flow from state or courts, therefore, 97 00:13:59,180 --> 00:14:05,750 and pressures for political civility often come from margins and occasionally from bottom up. 98 00:14:05,750 --> 00:14:16,670 Campaigns, for instance, have been centred on the construction of new norms pertaining to human rights and have held non-reality states to account. 99 00:14:16,670 --> 00:14:25,610 We begin, therefore, by engaging more with the idea of civility and what it is and what it is not, 100 00:14:25,610 --> 00:14:30,680 and why civility is central to democratic governance. 101 00:14:30,680 --> 00:14:41,080 Can we please move to the next? So. 102 00:14:41,080 --> 00:14:46,120 The civility is generally lost in translation in non-Western contexts are limited to 103 00:14:46,120 --> 00:14:52,600 its normative deliberation or scholarly engagement on civility in India is missing, 104 00:14:52,600 --> 00:15:02,050 largely due to misgivings about authority, the scholarship and liberal liberal moorings attached to the very idea of civility. 105 00:15:02,050 --> 00:15:11,020 It is helpful, therefore, to rescue civility, both theoretically and conceptually from some of these misgivings. 106 00:15:11,020 --> 00:15:17,590 While we recognise the nature of civility and its potential misuse as a discourse of power and constructive engagement, 107 00:15:17,590 --> 00:15:25,330 dominance, violence and exclusion, we make a case for the recovery of civility as a philosophical idea and as 108 00:15:25,330 --> 00:15:32,080 an analytical tool to advance a deeper understanding of the problems facing. 109 00:15:32,080 --> 00:15:35,590 So we recall and advance a few arguments here, 110 00:15:35,590 --> 00:15:47,740 and these are laid in like four or five points to clearly point out our own argument and directions of our war. 111 00:15:47,740 --> 00:15:55,780 So we suggest first, that civility is not a western or Christian idea, nor is it essentially a call into this implicit or implicit predict, 112 00:15:55,780 --> 00:16:02,290 although discourses of civility were used to justify the subjugation of uncivilised populations. 113 00:16:02,290 --> 00:16:08,920 Second, civility cannot be understood merely as a product of capitalism or limited to liberal society of individuals. 114 00:16:08,920 --> 00:16:17,590 That individualism knocks down. Community and tradition toward civility is not simply politeness or face-saving 115 00:16:17,590 --> 00:16:23,920 behaviour or rule and activity that does not mean much for individuals. 116 00:16:23,920 --> 00:16:26,560 Civility is not synonymous with civil society. 117 00:16:26,560 --> 00:16:35,320 Violence Civil society represents the normative and association form that is essential for making procedural democracy work. 118 00:16:35,320 --> 00:16:43,150 Civil society may still lack civility and the democracy by void of justice and equality. 119 00:16:43,150 --> 00:16:49,090 Finally, we need civility is dialogue and seeks wider and greater. 120 00:16:49,090 --> 00:16:58,230 It's not static or rigid and continues to be a universal project, despite its paradoxical nature of. 121 00:16:58,230 --> 00:17:06,410 Finally. Did any legal authority are critical in making the period of civility work? 122 00:17:06,410 --> 00:17:13,030 However. These are also based on the long, drawn out changes in social relations, 123 00:17:13,030 --> 00:17:24,170 and so what we also need to look at ideas and we need to look at ideas and practises that. 124 00:17:24,170 --> 00:17:38,180 That cultivate incivility, says witness that that's also important, therefore it's so, so, so study of civility also needs to look at incivility. 125 00:17:38,180 --> 00:17:50,380 Go to the next slide, please. All right. 126 00:17:50,380 --> 00:18:00,070 Of Snowden, I think the previous one. So. 127 00:18:00,070 --> 00:18:07,660 So. Why civility of. 128 00:18:07,660 --> 00:18:20,890 Now, one of the important motivations that did come to my own work was some of the post-colonial scholarship that suggests that, 129 00:18:20,890 --> 00:18:32,530 you know, Indian democracy is radically different and therefore any any project that is universal in nature may make little sense. 130 00:18:32,530 --> 00:18:40,660 In the study of Indian democracy, while the government is itself very appealing, 131 00:18:40,660 --> 00:18:51,310 the idea was also to look at, you know, civility and its universal manifestations in one way, 132 00:18:51,310 --> 00:18:57,940 which would help us understand the local forms of incivility and therefore localised struggles of of, 133 00:18:57,940 --> 00:19:03,280 you know, universal ideals of equality, citizenship and indeed civility. 134 00:19:03,280 --> 00:19:12,460 So you know, what we suggest is that democracy and its success can very often be reduced to 135 00:19:12,460 --> 00:19:17,300 political institutions and procedures and beyond its formal institutional mechanisms, 136 00:19:17,300 --> 00:19:23,190 whether democracy like he was suggested, has social political meanings and has. 137 00:19:23,190 --> 00:19:31,760 Gary, the possibility that that majority might die might denies minorities. 138 00:19:31,760 --> 00:19:39,430 Now what? We have seen over a bit of time, you know, in the last few years, 139 00:19:39,430 --> 00:19:49,880 especially the coming in of Citizenship Amendment Act, the very idea of citizenship being being constructed around, 140 00:19:49,880 --> 00:19:57,500 around, around religion, at least that's what it tells us is, yes, 141 00:19:57,500 --> 00:20:02,260 very localised nature of citizenship that revolves around community collective identities. 142 00:20:02,260 --> 00:20:10,690 But it also points to the very normalisation of of, for instance, 143 00:20:10,690 --> 00:20:19,150 of the othering of Muslims demonising Muslims and which becomes part of this vernacular form of democratic project. 144 00:20:19,150 --> 00:20:26,800 So the study of civility in India in has been considered, for instance, 145 00:20:26,800 --> 00:20:35,500 as a lost cause by some post-modern approaches that tend to attribute most of the political ills of individualism and 146 00:20:35,500 --> 00:20:42,310 instrumental rationalism to the West by locating community and political society at the heart of democracy in the East. 147 00:20:42,310 --> 00:20:47,860 Besides downplaying several problems of civility that emerged within the idea of community in India, 148 00:20:47,860 --> 00:20:52,810 such approaches simply demolished universal or biological possibilities of civility. 149 00:20:52,810 --> 00:21:00,640 What is lost isn't going to stop understanding of democracy, which no one the important papers in our volume from the detritus thought and 150 00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:08,620 the biological nature of civility that is central to any of this democracy. 151 00:21:08,620 --> 00:21:18,640 The promise and prospect of equal citizenship requires an erosion of old certainties and structures and creation of new norms and institutions, 152 00:21:18,640 --> 00:21:24,940 no matter where it is introduced to. 153 00:21:24,940 --> 00:21:36,080 So what we see here is. Especially in the study of of of past and Indian democracy, 154 00:21:36,080 --> 00:21:45,770 the idea of civility can help us engage with with what the problems and possibilities of equal citizenship. 155 00:21:45,770 --> 00:21:59,990 So as as, for instance, when it comes to study of extended caste, and Lynch had argued this very strongly that for untouchables, 156 00:21:59,990 --> 00:22:07,700 India in one sense remains an uncivil democracy because insofar as the promise of civil democracy is unfulfilled 157 00:22:07,700 --> 00:22:13,670 and they remain uniquely victimised by the many forms of uncivil violence that have historically been deadlocked, 158 00:22:13,670 --> 00:22:24,470 and we have various studies, including the recent one by Sonia Fuchs with which brings out this the very nature of Indian state, 159 00:22:24,470 --> 00:22:32,390 caste, embodiment of state and what it means for my of support groups. 160 00:22:32,390 --> 00:22:40,370 So civility as a concept can help us in foregrounding social political meetings of them and 161 00:22:40,370 --> 00:22:48,050 also understanding incivility and how it affects the possibility of citizenship publicness. 162 00:22:48,050 --> 00:22:59,540 So what this is what I had argued in my first book of Civility against caste, part of my body. 163 00:22:59,540 --> 00:23:05,300 But you went all the elements of the basis, and one of the key arguments that I made was, 164 00:23:05,300 --> 00:23:12,680 we have this paradox in India of a book of democracy to pursue democracy that is vibrant, that seems working. 165 00:23:12,680 --> 00:23:20,540 However, it it also had in it. 166 00:23:20,540 --> 00:23:33,100 It's based on, you know, the. Civility as something that is uncommon since what is the paradox of democracy and low civility? 167 00:23:33,100 --> 00:23:47,490 So. So what we did here was to kind of, you know, get more scholars to engage with the problem of civility and the nature of Indian democracy. 168 00:23:47,490 --> 00:23:57,590 Oh, fear and the next slide kind of bring these aspects in for discussion. 169 00:23:57,590 --> 00:24:06,680 Let me go to the next slide. Yeah. She will. 170 00:24:06,680 --> 00:24:09,450 Great, thanks for your time. 171 00:24:09,450 --> 00:24:20,780 I think many of these issues are to the fore, as mentioned earlier in the interplay between notions of civility and the continuing executions of cost. 172 00:24:20,780 --> 00:24:25,040 Indeed, I recently read a book Policing Matters by the Camorra, 173 00:24:25,040 --> 00:24:34,940 which notes how the project of policing in India is wedded to notions of caste identity and caste communities. 174 00:24:34,940 --> 00:24:41,450 We've known for a long time that the police are drawn from particular castes, which you know the interplay, 175 00:24:41,450 --> 00:24:52,820 the ways in which caste communities are constructed around projects of policing and the policing of boundaries to a full in the free papers here. 176 00:24:52,820 --> 00:24:58,970 Shamika highlights the caste exclusions built-in to project of civility. 177 00:24:58,970 --> 00:25:03,560 And one of the most progressive states of India, which is Kerala. 178 00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:10,910 And her chapter problem at times is the myth of a caste free association or public. 179 00:25:10,910 --> 00:25:19,400 She highlights and looking at public libraries of so-called public libraries and looking at interactions between different groups. 180 00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:27,740 She highlights how public spheres operate without meaningful cross caste interaction. 181 00:25:27,740 --> 00:25:35,300 And she notes that sociology tends to occur within particular neighbourhoods, which are shaped, 182 00:25:35,300 --> 00:25:42,590 governed and controlled by caste, and which she aptly refers to as a private public. 183 00:25:42,590 --> 00:25:48,920 The spatial dimensions of spatial mapping of caste on to community and onto local, 184 00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:55,910 which have long been a feature of caste life, in other words, continues and shaped for people. 185 00:25:55,910 --> 00:26:03,140 You get to meet the people you get to encounter and the networks that are part of your very everyday life. 186 00:26:03,140 --> 00:26:05,060 In other words, where you live, 187 00:26:05,060 --> 00:26:16,340 who you interact with and how you engage with others are part and parcel of the speciality of sexual relations in India. 188 00:26:16,340 --> 00:26:20,930 And Rowena Robinson, in her chapter, takes us a little bit further. 189 00:26:20,930 --> 00:26:24,710 She's working mainly with Christians in Tamil Nadu, 190 00:26:24,710 --> 00:26:39,710 and she points out that this affects how we define trust and just what we mean by trust in a context marked by different a marked by caste exclusion. 191 00:26:39,710 --> 00:26:51,410 Her starting point is that Dalit converts are denied the dream of equality that the escape from caste promised for them. 192 00:26:51,410 --> 00:27:01,100 We know this from the fact that they are excluded, for example, from the welfare provisions provided by the state. 193 00:27:01,100 --> 00:27:11,030 So when we speak of Dalits, we tend to include Christian Dalits when we speak of scheduled castes expressly excluded from that formulation. 194 00:27:11,030 --> 00:27:17,000 As for the library, projects discussed by Savarkar Voting notes, 195 00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:22,640 how Christian educational institutions and David Moss's work shows this very clearly as well. 196 00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:34,310 Typically reproduce the societal divisions of casting class, rather than creating a space where the differences could be overcome. 197 00:27:34,310 --> 00:27:39,410 And in addressing this position of a minority within a minority, 198 00:27:39,410 --> 00:27:52,640 Rowena draws on Ambedkar conceptualisation of fraternity fraternity in some way could be a synonym for civility in the way it's discussed, 199 00:27:52,640 --> 00:28:01,190 and Rowena argues that both CA and bed fraternity in everyday engagements amongst citizens the 200 00:28:01,190 --> 00:28:08,330 thoughts of everyday engagements which show worker shows tend to be confined to caste groups. 201 00:28:08,330 --> 00:28:16,130 And she argues that we often see as Ambedkar driving on liberal learning from the West, 202 00:28:16,130 --> 00:28:24,020 and we know that Patkar did two degrees in the US and UK, but Rowena points out that actually. 203 00:28:24,020 --> 00:28:26,030 In the way in which it's formulated, 204 00:28:26,030 --> 00:28:36,500 it's unshackled from its Western and Christian determinations and is repositioned as the link between national integration and social justice. 205 00:28:36,500 --> 00:28:44,420 And it's basically about civility of trust and highlighting the importance of trust in 206 00:28:44,420 --> 00:28:52,610 a context marked by by both by differences which lock people into particular groups. 207 00:28:52,610 --> 00:28:56,660 So that is the promise of America's constitution. 208 00:28:56,660 --> 00:29:01,310 That is the promise of his project of fraternity. 209 00:29:01,310 --> 00:29:05,320 But sadly, severe can't work, and it's probably just as well. 210 00:29:05,320 --> 00:29:08,770 I'm discussing this. Otherwise you take a whole paper himself. 211 00:29:08,770 --> 00:29:22,400 Free accounts work shows that claims to universalism and cosmopolitanism made by contemporary associations actually belie the ideal of fraternity. 212 00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:28,040 They mask an underlying ethic of social closure and segmentation. 213 00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:34,850 They are in many ways about the caste politeness, which Sylvia has brilliantly talked about elsewhere, 214 00:29:34,850 --> 00:29:42,710 rather than meaningful engagement, interaction and a widening of networks and horizons Hindu cosmopolitanism. 215 00:29:42,710 --> 00:29:54,350 As he terms, it facilitates conjoined living and is allows people to live next to others, allows people to rub shoulders on the buses and investment, 216 00:29:54,350 --> 00:30:04,190 but is based on an anxiety towards strangers and which fundamentally affects the possibilities of dialogical communication. 217 00:30:04,190 --> 00:30:10,010 It facilitates modernity by allowing people to get on with things. 218 00:30:10,010 --> 00:30:16,940 But it does not allow progress with old territory and urban social life. 219 00:30:16,940 --> 00:30:23,490 So we end up with a contemporary manifestation of the caste private public. 220 00:30:23,490 --> 00:30:31,030 Such savage talks about manifest in such caste associations. 221 00:30:31,030 --> 00:30:38,740 So what we see here is the way in which the projects of stability run up against the clock for. 222 00:30:38,740 --> 00:30:46,370 Time and again and a central project of civility is to create. 223 00:30:46,370 --> 00:30:52,040 Trust between different groups, if we can move on to the next slide, please. 224 00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:57,950 Then we can examine these in somewhat greater depth. Sorry, I can't. 225 00:30:57,950 --> 00:31:08,910 You're right. So thank you both. So like the the last three papers and the question they race, 226 00:31:08,910 --> 00:31:18,450 and Rowena makes this very strong and important point of how this idea of threat from Ambedkar is 227 00:31:18,450 --> 00:31:31,350 something that would be a key book of place for us to think of the challenges that Indian faces and how, 228 00:31:31,350 --> 00:31:42,210 you know, civility that fought if approached to fraternity and the problems of the making of equality in Indian democracy joins us again 229 00:31:42,210 --> 00:31:53,410 brings us to the problem that that dialogue as such is difficult today and that as a volume emphasises that civility is process. 230 00:31:53,410 --> 00:31:57,390 You're logical and open ended and it is. 231 00:31:57,390 --> 00:32:04,740 It is this process that leads and takes us towards greater civility. 232 00:32:04,740 --> 00:32:10,230 So, so the other three important chapters here. 233 00:32:10,230 --> 00:32:17,250 One is by Indrajit, drawing on a distinction genesis of democracy and liberalism. 234 00:32:17,250 --> 00:32:25,320 I'm going to stick imaginations of dignity in Bihar. Now what we see here is, again, you know, 235 00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:40,230 a criticism of liberal liberalism inspired theories or political approach to political society centred approach to democracy, 236 00:32:40,230 --> 00:32:50,130 and a case that he makes to understand how someone can make a case for appreciating agonistic 237 00:32:50,130 --> 00:32:57,300 empathy of how he highlights the contentious ways in which ideas of social justice and equality 238 00:32:57,300 --> 00:33:03,720 are advised civility in this reading and be rigid and firm and must be analysed by reference 239 00:33:03,720 --> 00:33:10,470 to its geographical dimensions and to its taste amongst different segments of given society. 240 00:33:10,470 --> 00:33:19,350 Another very important paper, which is also very contemporary and related to the question of citizenship, 241 00:33:19,350 --> 00:33:26,130 especially the Citizenship Amendment Act superset, but conversion to discuss the citizenship status of no children. 242 00:33:26,130 --> 00:33:34,950 Migrants from East Bengal to reveal the limitations of post partition citizenship regimes in India in highlighting 243 00:33:34,950 --> 00:33:41,670 the selective nature of citizenship claims scenario shifts our understanding beyond religion and look, 244 00:33:41,670 --> 00:33:48,300 its cost at the centre of Indian nationalism and associated incivility is facing most of the rest the people. 245 00:33:48,300 --> 00:33:51,180 The chapter is titled To Be a Hindu Citizen. 246 00:33:51,180 --> 00:34:02,040 It is like the title of the book, but it's very telling us of the times and the nature of Indian descent when when majority embodies the nation. 247 00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:10,170 Citizenship itself is around revolving around the idea of religion and the citizenship, he argues. 248 00:34:10,170 --> 00:34:19,140 How the Citizenship Amendment Act shatters Indian claims to have afforded equal citizenship to all at independence. 249 00:34:19,140 --> 00:34:26,760 He reveals how citizenship myth rests on solutions while opening up possibilities of equality or some. 250 00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:31,980 And another paper here is by Menangle, 251 00:34:31,980 --> 00:34:39,420 who offers a positive assessment of the prospects of quality and shipping a paper on debates around gender and sexuality. 252 00:34:39,420 --> 00:34:46,170 So drawing on the process of dialogue that enable queer and feminist groups to work past their differences, 253 00:34:46,170 --> 00:34:53,850 she looks at the possibilities of what she calls as trans words and politics in the construction of more civil society, 254 00:34:53,850 --> 00:34:58,260 most of society's borrowing from Ambedkar and more recent theories. 255 00:34:58,260 --> 00:35:06,120 She emphasises the need to engage with difference by being conscious of difference and disadvantage. 256 00:35:06,120 --> 00:35:15,060 So. You go your next lines. 257 00:35:15,060 --> 00:35:19,770 And in many ways, we probably should have ended with that paper, 258 00:35:19,770 --> 00:35:30,060 which holds out the promise of trust and a sense of how we might move beyond the intractable, intractable problems of cost exclusions. 259 00:35:30,060 --> 00:35:42,870 But the two of us are old cynics. And so actually what we turn to and in the final few chapters are groups who are working towards change groups 260 00:35:42,870 --> 00:35:51,330 who are engaged in processes of negotiation in order to highlight the issues that arise in these processes. 261 00:35:51,330 --> 00:36:02,700 So we're very lucky to have a chapter from Amitabh Bachchan's book An Uncivil City, which Richard kindly allowed us to take in. 262 00:36:02,700 --> 00:36:10,320 And it's great to have it, not least because COP26, the climate summit is on at the moment, 263 00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:19,230 and this is one of the few contributions which addresses the issue of environmental change and politics in India. 264 00:36:19,230 --> 00:36:27,090 And so I'm just looking at activists looking at forms of environmental politics and change. 265 00:36:27,090 --> 00:36:41,770 And yet she notes how forms of engagement reproduce systematic problems of a lack of trust and an inability to speak beyond boundaries. 266 00:36:41,770 --> 00:36:53,220 Ambedkar, as you will doubtless all know, famously discussed, discussed Village India as a think of localism as a den of ignorance and so urban 267 00:36:53,220 --> 00:37:00,690 India as a potential means of escape from such caste bound ways of operating. 268 00:37:00,690 --> 00:37:11,680 He placed his hopes in that sense in the modern city, but like other contributors, turn notes how exclusive fantasies of stability. 269 00:37:11,680 --> 00:37:17,860 May be reproduced in weigh in and how activists operate. 270 00:37:17,860 --> 00:37:28,330 She notes how the democratising policies of the city may often be applied in an impassioned critique of the kerbing of public spaces. 271 00:37:28,330 --> 00:37:37,030 One of the few opportunities where people can meet together can work in tandem rather than seeing each other across the divide. 272 00:37:37,030 --> 00:37:48,190 She argues that our collective life is diminished when we stop participating in an embodied way in something larger than ourselves. 273 00:37:48,190 --> 00:37:57,870 With the current government, we've seen a steady erosion of the spaces for communal and collective action and protests. 274 00:37:57,870 --> 00:38:01,870 You've seen a steady erosion of the spaces for dissent. 275 00:38:01,870 --> 00:38:15,010 And yet, as we just showed so powerfully, it is these spaces where people can meet together and offer the clearest route to a more civil engagement. 276 00:38:15,010 --> 00:38:23,020 Encapsulated in her work is the necessity of viewing civility as a process and reminding us, 277 00:38:23,020 --> 00:38:32,170 as does the work of no alliance, that welfare may be a process of civilisation, of a process towards civility. 278 00:38:32,170 --> 00:38:41,000 It is not a linear path. It is not an inevitable or seamless route towards progress, and it can at times be reversed. 279 00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:47,710 We can lose the gains we've made and end up in more antagonistic formations. 280 00:38:47,710 --> 00:38:57,580 James Maynard, drawing on his decades long work on fieldwork and in rural India, offers another insight here. 281 00:38:57,580 --> 00:39:02,650 And he speaks about intercostal accommodations and minimal civility, 282 00:39:02,650 --> 00:39:11,560 and what he's doing here is showing how there have been significant changes to social relations in India. 283 00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:19,120 So you speak to activists and I've done this many times, you especially Dalit activists in India, and I'll tell you nothing's changed. 284 00:39:19,120 --> 00:39:23,960 And Jim takes issue with this. And he says, Look, there have been huge changes. 285 00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:31,380 There have been significant changes not seen, not least in the fact that abuses will no longer go unremarked upon. 286 00:39:31,380 --> 00:39:39,460 Abuses will be challenged, they will be highlighted and they will often are seen in the picture their occupation protests. 287 00:39:39,460 --> 00:39:46,690 So there have been broad shifts in processes of caste interaction across the country. 288 00:39:46,690 --> 00:40:00,870 But while he notes, in fact, increasingly. Upper caste groups or dominant fruits seek to negotiate and compromise around contentious issues. 289 00:40:00,870 --> 00:40:07,350 Now, on the one hand, this marks an acknowledgement of diminishing power, 290 00:40:07,350 --> 00:40:13,260 the possibility of ignoring, neglecting or brushing an issue under the carpet. 291 00:40:13,260 --> 00:40:20,190 So they have to come to the table, which is an advance towards a more stable social sphere. 292 00:40:20,190 --> 00:40:28,620 But the process is neither perfect nor complete, and it often involves humiliations and betrayals. 293 00:40:28,620 --> 00:40:38,220 The dollar activists I interviewed in Tamil Nadu were more upset than anything by their own, championing their own politicians, 294 00:40:38,220 --> 00:40:46,770 those whom they had followed for decades, engaging in forms of what they saw as everyday corruption. 295 00:40:46,770 --> 00:40:57,030 His gems chapter speech, therefore contested and complex process by which social life may be rendered more civil, 296 00:40:57,030 --> 00:41:01,770 but it speaks to the difficulties of that process as well. 297 00:41:01,770 --> 00:41:15,150 It is going to involve difficult compromises. It is going to involve uncomfortable negotiations, and it may involve a sense of betrayal along the way. 298 00:41:15,150 --> 00:41:23,130 But what the process shows us is that we have moved away from the sort of rigid, 299 00:41:23,130 --> 00:41:33,750 hierarchical model of some textbook for at least and are increasingly forced to engage in war and reject calls. 300 00:41:33,750 --> 00:41:42,030 The agonistic of democracy. Next slide, please. 301 00:41:42,030 --> 00:41:50,920 And. What these papers show is that, you know, these are contested processes. 302 00:41:50,920 --> 00:41:55,150 And we felt that it was important to raise questions, 303 00:41:55,150 --> 00:42:02,500 we felt that it was important to stress that we didn't see this volume as the last word on the subject by any means. 304 00:42:02,500 --> 00:42:06,340 And so we invited Sylvia Collins colleague Ramesh Bevvy, 305 00:42:06,340 --> 00:42:17,530 who was excellent work on Drummond's and is part of a current trend of studying the privilege, which I think is long overdue. 306 00:42:17,530 --> 00:42:22,480 And Ramesh engages critically with the volume and raises questions for further 307 00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:27,370 research and question for us to reflect on in a really productive and constructive, 308 00:42:27,370 --> 00:42:32,050 engaged engagement with the contributions in the volume. 309 00:42:32,050 --> 00:42:39,190 And she says it begins by asking, OK, what does civility bring to the table? 310 00:42:39,190 --> 00:42:46,060 And engages with the ideas that we can't have just talked us through. 311 00:42:46,060 --> 00:42:54,310 And he encourages us to think through the substance of civility, which I think we fail to bring out in the initial introduction, 312 00:42:54,310 --> 00:43:01,990 but which I think we've seen in the talk here and in engaging with Ramesh. 313 00:43:01,990 --> 00:43:13,990 I think it becomes clear that what we have is a sense of fraternity and better sense as the bedrock of civility in the Indian context. 314 00:43:13,990 --> 00:43:20,770 So engaging not just with the concept of civility, but with the concept of fraternity. 315 00:43:20,770 --> 00:43:28,150 And it's also an encouragement to think about the relationship between civility and larger resource issues. 316 00:43:28,150 --> 00:43:32,870 How does this map onto welfare and resource distribution? 317 00:43:32,870 --> 00:43:44,380 And I think that here the work of Jim meinem and others is critical because what general discussion of processes of negotiation, 318 00:43:44,380 --> 00:43:53,380 interaction and political exchange shows is a population who refuses the apathy 319 00:43:53,380 --> 00:43:59,740 that may have characterised them in the past and will demand access to services. 320 00:43:59,740 --> 00:44:06,370 It's telling that Jim's work for clearly shows the National Rural Employment Guarantee 321 00:44:06,370 --> 00:44:13,630 Act and rigour worked best in those states where it was monitored by Civic Act, 322 00:44:13,630 --> 00:44:24,670 which was monitored by activists who would make sure that it was delivered on time and that the pay was distributed. 323 00:44:24,670 --> 00:44:32,200 So the process of stability can, we believe, ultimately lead to greater, better, 324 00:44:32,200 --> 00:44:38,770 more accountable and transparent welfare and resource distribution, too? 325 00:44:38,770 --> 00:44:44,320 But again, we're not here to bang the civility drum in and of itself. 326 00:44:44,320 --> 00:44:49,870 We we agree with Ramesh that we need to bring it into conversation with other approaches. 327 00:44:49,870 --> 00:44:57,810 We think that the lens of civility allows us to look at the ways in which these issues of a lack of trust, 328 00:44:57,810 --> 00:45:06,310 these issues of exclusionary communities and the move towards a more equal a democratic polity. 329 00:45:06,310 --> 00:45:14,320 We think this reality brings an insight into these processes that others do not, but we do not and considerably approach. 330 00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:21,520 And so we welcome people engaging with this work and look forward to your comments. 331 00:45:21,520 --> 00:45:34,120 So to conclude, I'll hand over to survey a condom if we could up the next slide, please. 332 00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:51,100 I thought that was the last last legs. So, so, so basically, you know, kind of summary of what we have been been discussing here is just the while. 333 00:45:51,100 --> 00:45:59,590 While the aspiration towards larger or greater civility is something that drives this volume and the contributions, 334 00:45:59,590 --> 00:46:04,060 it is definitely not in a delectably process. 335 00:46:04,060 --> 00:46:16,420 But inevitably, what we need to understand is and this is something that has come through my own research with the way Gostin do, 336 00:46:16,420 --> 00:46:22,880 no associations in Bombay that. 337 00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:37,200 That the making of individual subjectivity or modern kind of subjectivity is in urban areas, lack of lack of any adventure. 338 00:46:37,200 --> 00:46:44,100 Are they are constantly kind of concerned with with the cost as one of the important pieces of the making of this urban citizenship. 339 00:46:44,100 --> 00:46:59,610 So what we need to also look at and understand is that this persists where simply these constant and it it is is has to be at least biological, 340 00:46:59,610 --> 00:47:04,710 and it is also an evidence to process. 341 00:47:04,710 --> 00:47:13,260 We need to also distinguish, first of all, we need to recognise that a top down approach is also civilising mission. 342 00:47:13,260 --> 00:47:15,000 It's much about it. 343 00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:27,990 For instance, is it's an interesting scheme of the government of India, which in one sense demands practise of civility from below. 344 00:47:27,990 --> 00:47:35,140 If you listen to some of the speeches of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 345 00:47:35,140 --> 00:47:43,490 Did they carry a lot of quality agenda, but in one of his advertisements on on this, but you might a point here is that, 346 00:47:43,490 --> 00:47:50,620 you know, no power in the world can make India dirty if Indians decide to keep it clean. 347 00:47:50,620 --> 00:47:58,750 So, so and of course, we have seen a lot of this kind of demands from public, even in times of crisis. 348 00:47:58,750 --> 00:48:06,870 But as it's not always met, but you know. A compassionate response from speech. 349 00:48:06,870 --> 00:48:14,390 So, so the what what we see is we need to look at civility more broadly, how it flows on top, 350 00:48:14,390 --> 00:48:24,950 but how the demands of civility from below really are very important in making of this fraternity 351 00:48:24,950 --> 00:48:32,900 distrust across communities and lived kind of emancipatory citizenship possible in one sense. 352 00:48:32,900 --> 00:48:39,050 So very important again to to move beyond politeness, 353 00:48:39,050 --> 00:48:46,370 but also study politeness as something that hinders civility and not confuse politeness for civility. 354 00:48:46,370 --> 00:48:51,140 So, so we will conclude here. I think you also ran out of time. 355 00:48:51,140 --> 00:48:59,170 So. Thank you so much. You go unless you want to add something. 356 00:48:59,170 --> 00:49:03,280 No, I think that's going to be a thanks very much. And, you know, 357 00:49:03,280 --> 00:49:12,520 I think those points are illustrated in the two photos of Modi picking up a broom and pretending to be civilised have opposed to the Askar, 358 00:49:12,520 --> 00:49:20,890 who say that the sky country and the land who say, actually, we're going to burn the baskets, which are the marker of our trade. 359 00:49:20,890 --> 00:49:34,720 And as we said at the outset, actually the move towards civility is often advanced more by grassroots movements such as S.K. than top down processes, 360 00:49:34,720 --> 00:49:42,550 which may pay lip service to the concept without actually engaging in it in any meaningful detail. 361 00:49:42,550 --> 00:49:50,550 But yes, we look forward to your questions. Look forward to any comments. Look forward to your engagement. 362 00:49:50,550 --> 00:49:51,970 Thank you very much. 363 00:49:51,970 --> 00:50:01,830 So we can thank you for this excellent talk and opening up this discussion on the complex relationship between civility, citizenship and democracy. 364 00:50:01,830 --> 00:50:14,340 We will now open for question and answer session, and please do raise your hand to ask a question or type your question in the chat box. 365 00:50:14,340 --> 00:50:19,369 As as people are gathering, their thoughts can very quickly ask a.