Left-Handed Practice: Religion and Politics in South Asia

Undergraduate / Graduate

The decades from 1917-1947 marked the rise of left-wing politics across South Asia and its diaspora. Whether officially linked to the Soviet Comintern, like the Communist Party of India, or in broad support of revolutionary anti-imperialism, like the Ghadar Party, leftist ideas, organizations, and agitations flourished in the subcontinent and continue to inform the politics of several states in the region. This course explores how thinkers, writers, activists, and everyday people in twentieth-century South Asia have understood the power of religion to engender, justify, interpret, challenge, and reimagine this tradition of emancipatory politics. Students will encounter a range of unorthodox ideas and practices including Muslim socialism, Hindu communism, mystical Marxism, Dalit Buddhism, and revolutionary renunciation. Particular attention will be given to questions of caste, gender, and sexual futures. Decades of right-wing mobilization have associated religion invariably with reactionary politics. This course reveals different possible configurations of religion and politics in modern South Asia.