This politics of recognition or samman has been crucial to the BJP’s politics since it came to power in 2014. Since humiliation is predicated upon a feeling of self-loathing, the politics of humiliation succeeds by projecting this feeling upon an external entity. The colonial discourse dismissed Hindu men as effeminate, incapable of defending their families or their country. For instance, in his appeal to Hindu men to save the motherland, M.S. Therefore, when BJP leaders speak of the humiliation of India in general and of Hindus in particular, they are mobilising something that is present in our intergenerational, postcolonial imagination.

Source: The Telegraph June 03, 2023 06:18 UTC