" We or our nationhood re-defined" by Anand Patwardhan

Anand Patwardhan talks about“ We or our nationhood re-defined ” as part of the Azim Premji University Colloquium Series. February 12, 2015. About the Topic The history of majoritarian mobilization in India is not as old as is made out. Communalism, as we know it today, began around the early twentieth century. It was fueled, in part, by classes that felt threatened by the rise of a nationalist movement that was beginning to espouse egalitarian ideas. Today this majoritarianism drapes its mission in the national flag and dons the mantle of "development". We would like to ask some questions of this phenomenon: Who is this development for? Can development and majoritarianism go hand in hand? About the Speaker Anand Patwardhan was born in 1950. He received a B.A. in English Literature from Bombay University in 1970, won a scholarship to get another B.A. in Sociology from Brandeis University in 1972 and earned a Master’s degree in Communications from McGill University in 1982.Anand has been an activist ever since he was a student — having participated in the anti-Vietnam War movement; being a volunteer in Caesar Chavez’s United Farm Worker’s Union; working in Kishore Bharati, a rural development and education project in central India; and participating in the Bihar anti-corruption movement in 1974-75 and in the civil liberties and democratic rights movement during and after the 1975-77 Emergency. Since then, Anand he has been active in movements for housing rights of the urban poor, for communal harmony and against unjust, unsustainable development, miltarism and nuclear nationalism.