• Date: November 24th, Friday, 2023, 14:00 – 15:30
• Location: Room 304, SNUAC (Bldg. 101)

Presenter: Heewon Kim (Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics, History, and International Relations, Aston University, UK)

The Modi government led by Bharatiya Janata Party, India’s ruling party, continues its aggravated oppression of Muslims. The Islamophobic politics and the atmosphere of Muslim hatred shown through oppressing religious minorities including Muslims to convert to Hinduism, the spread of the love jihad controversy, the cow vigilance committee’s hatred and lynching toward Muslims working in the beef and cow leather industry, and the passage of civil rights law revision excluding Muslims reached the peak with fake news that the Muslim’s religious gathering held in March 2020 in Delhi was for spreading COVID-19 in India. Researchers analyze such a phenomenon as the result of the collapse of Indian secularism, the regression of democracy, the emergence of a competitive authoritarian regime, the proliferation of illiberalism and populism, and the change to electoral autocracy since the rule of BJP in 2014. Yet, it is necessary to understand Islamophobic politics and the Otherization of Muslims in India from a more long-term perspective. This colloquium will analyze the minutes of the constitutional assembly to examine India’s secularism and the rights granted differently by religious sectors and see the implications that the deinstitutionalization of some religious minorities’ rights has in understanding the Indian government’s policy for religious minorities and the current Muslim situation in India.