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Papers by FATHIMA NIZARUDDIN
Asiascape: Digital Asia, 2022
The introduction to the special issue on 'Digital Platforms in Contemporary India: Transformation... more The introduction to the special issue on 'Digital Platforms in Contemporary India: Transformation of Quotidian Life Worlds' focuses on the ways in which everyday interactions in contemporary India have changed since the arrival of digital platforms. Locating these changes within their specific contexts, the essays in the special issue examine the new circulatory assemblages and representational tropes that emerge through interactions between diverse platforms and their various users. In particular, the essays trace the different ways in which bodies, mobilities, and platforms are entangled in everyday life in an unfolding phenomenon. This introduction outlines the new spatiotemporal shifts catalyzed by the platformization of everyday activities in India, drawing connections among the various essays in the special issue. The introduction attempts to map these shifts as part of a two-way process, which acknowledges that the resulting transformations also have the potential for reimagining the existing logic of platforms.
Thinking with the South Reframing Research Collaboration amid Decolonial Imperatives and Challenges, 2024
Global Authoritarianism Perspectives and Contestations from the South, 2022
This article maps the links between authoritarian turn in India under Modi and the expansion of t... more This article maps the links between authoritarian turn in India under Modi and the expansion of the circulatory network of Hindu majoritarianism in the country under the conditions provided by informational capitalism. It traces some of the specific ways in which transformations caused by the ascent of informational capitalism contributed to the strengthening of majoritarian subject positions in India. The article argues that the figure of the Bhakt or ‘devotee’ in the context of Hindu majoritarianism is central to the strengthening of such positions and traces how digital platforms work within the configurations around the production of Bhakts
Transmedia Selves Identity and Persona Creation in the Age of Mobile and Multiplatform Media, 2023
Asiascape: Digital Asia, 2022
The article uses the context of the Northeast Delhi riots in 2020 to examine how mobile instant m... more The article uses the context of the Northeast Delhi riots in 2020 to examine how mobile instant messaging platforms have changed the nature of riot networks in India. What role does the state's partisan approach play in aiding the use of these platforms by the constituents of such networks? Does the lack of adequate mechanisms to hold technology companies accountable contribute to how their platforms are used to aid the circulation of extreme speech, misinformation, and violence? The article explores these questions and argues for a framework to govern mobile instant messaging platforms that goes beyond attempts at self-regulation as well as efforts by national governments to regulate them. The complications that arise when such platforms are used by networks that favour majoritarian rulers are analyzed to examine the need for placing issues related to the governance of platform ecosystems within the framework of the protection of human rights.
International Journal of Communication, 2021
This article uses the context of the widespread circulation of accounts about “CoronaJihad” in In... more This article uses the context of the widespread circulation of accounts about “CoronaJihad” in India during the COVID-19 pandemic to examine how public WhatsApp groups that participate in disseminating such accounts function within the ecosystem of hate around Hindutva majoritarianism in the country. The manner in which the WhatsApp platform operates within this ecosystem is mapped through a granular study of three public Hindutva WhatsApp groups; the messages within these groups during the first phase of the COVID-19 lock-down in India were examined during the course of this study. The pattern of messaging within the three groups that contribute to the narrative of “CoronaJihad,” which blames the minority Muslim community for the spread of the virus in India, were analyzed. The article focuses on factors including company policies and the specific sociopolitical situation in the country to understand the circumstances that make WhatsApp’s deep entanglement with the divisive politics of Hindutva majoritarianism in India possible.
HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 2020
The protests against the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) and a nationwide NRC (National Register ... more The protests against the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) and a nationwide NRC (National Register of Citizens) have emerged as an important challenge against right-wing majoritarianism in India. These protests frame themselves as part of a struggle to save the Indian constitution and its secular character. How can we understand the role of such protests in resisting the right-wing efforts for a Hindu Rashtra, or a Hindu nation where minorities, especially Muslims, will be marked as undesirable Others? The article attempts to answer this question by looking at Hindu Rashtra as a performative project. The manner in which the processes of anti-CAA-NRC protests attempt to challenge the claims of Hindutva narratives are analyzed. The article explores the possibility of undoing the Hindutva ecosystem of hate through cultural and media materials as well as bodies from the sites of protests which assert the constitutionally guaranteed principle of equality
Dastavezi: The Audio-Visual South Asia, 2019
BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies, 2018
The article analyzes the role of the documentary form in building pronuclear narratives around th... more The article analyzes the role of the documentary form in building pronuclear narratives around the Indian nuclear project. It situates the nuclear films made by two state institutions, Films Division of India (Films Division) and Vigyan Prasar, as part of a network of expert statements, documentary assertions, and state violence that bring into being a pronuclear reality. Through the insights gained from my practicebased enquiry, which led to the production and circulation of a film titled Nuclear Hallucinations, I argue that the certainty of the pronouncements of such documentaries can be unsettled by approaching them as a tamasha. I rely on the multiple connotations of the word tamasha in the South Asian context and its ability to turn solemn assertions into a matter of entertainment or a joke. This vantage point of tamasha visàvis the Indian nuclear project builds upon the strategies of antinuclear documentaries that resist the epistemological violence of pronuclear assertions. In this article, I explore the role of comic modes and irony in forming sites of tamasha to create trouble within the narratives that position nonviolent antinuclear protestors as " antinational " elements. The article also expands on how the point of view of tamasha can engender new solidarities, which can resist the violence of the Indian nuclear project by forming new configurations of possibilities.
Conference Presentations by FATHIMA NIZARUDDIN
In May 2020, while the world continued to grapple with ways of dealing with the pandemic, UN Secr... more In May 2020, while the world continued to grapple with ways of dealing with the pandemic, UN Secretary General António Guterres spoke about the “tsunami of hate” targeting specific communities in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. One such maelstrom, targeting the Muslim community, was seen taking place in India, with allegations of ‘corona jihad’ becoming widespread during the first phase of the COVID-19 lockdown in the country. In places like India where right-wing populist governments are in power, polarizing the population is part of the electoral and governing strategies utilized by the ruling parties.Against such a backdrop, how can we understand the role of the state, media, civil society organizations as well as social media and tech companies in tackling hate speech? All four of these groups are mentioned as stake holders who can contain the spread of pandemic related hatred in the United Nations Guidance Note on Addressing and Countering COVID-19 related Hate Speech.
Drafts by FATHIMA NIZARUDDIN
IRGAC website, 2022
An exploration about the ways in which right-wing digital circulations can be challenged by creat... more An exploration about the ways in which right-wing digital circulations can be challenged by creating thinking spaces within communities through the use of arts-based research
Embodied travel in the form of yatra has been a chief element in the right-wing Hindutva mobilisa... more Embodied travel in the form of yatra has been a chief element in the right-wing Hindutva mobilisations in India. Many scholars place yatra as a processional movement which emerges from the field of Hindu pilgrimage. This article argues for an expanded definition of yatra to understand the role played by embodied travel in forming networks of communication in South Asia. In order to form such an expanded definition, the processes of an activist travelling film festival Chalti Tasveerein are placed as a configuration of yatra. The manner in which WhatsApp messages, YouTube videos and digital copies of films work with embodied travel is examined. The article links the processes of Chalti Tasveerein with the oral transmission of the poems of iconoclast saint-poet Kabir. Parallels are drawn between the anti-caste and anti-orthodox stance of Kabir’s work and Chalti Tasveerein’s activities which work against the he spatial and temporal claims of Hindutva. By placing these two instances of circulation which are separated by several centuries within the framework of yatra, an attempt is made to understand how alternate imaginations that oppose the dominant conservative discourses of their time use embodied travel to claim a space for their narratives.
Thesis Chapters by FATHIMA NIZARUDDIN
This practice-based research uses the context of the documentary assertions around the Indian nuc... more This practice-based research uses the context of the documentary assertions around the Indian nuclear project to examine how comic modes and irony can be employed to undermine authoritarian knowledge claims that make use of the epistephilic dimensions of the documentary form. An analysis of the pro-nuclear assertions in the documentary narratives of two state institutions in India, Films Division and Vigyan Prasar, was done as part of this enquiry. The diverse ways in which Indian anti-nuclear films engage with these narratives in humorous and ironic ways was also studied. The insights gained from this analysis contributed to the production and circulation of a film I made titled Nuclear Hallucinations, which is centred around the Kudankulam anti-nuclear movement in South India. Through its processes, the research develops a specific configuration of the vantage point of what I call tamasha in order to unsettle the certainty of pro-nuclear knowledge claims in documentary. Nuclear Hallucinations experiments with the use of satirical impersonations, irony, hallucinatory voice-overs and comic appropriation of pro- nuclear arguments to arrive at strategies that can elicit a response from the realm of tamasha. These experiments are informed by a framework that treats film as a process that goes beyond the limits of the edited film; the sites of engagement created during the production and circulation phases of the film are treated with equal importance. The research argues that the interventions created by the vantage point of tamasha offer new ways to resist the epistemological violence of documentary narratives that privilege the documentary form’s ability to authorize assured knowledge claims.
Book Reviews by FATHIMA NIZARUDDIN
Studies in South Asian Film & Media, 2019
RePLITO: Concepts & Repertoires of Living Together by FATHIMA NIZARUDDIN
RePLITO Quarterly Newsletter #3, 2022
Asiascape: Digital Asia, 2022
The introduction to the special issue on 'Digital Platforms in Contemporary India: Transformation... more The introduction to the special issue on 'Digital Platforms in Contemporary India: Transformation of Quotidian Life Worlds' focuses on the ways in which everyday interactions in contemporary India have changed since the arrival of digital platforms. Locating these changes within their specific contexts, the essays in the special issue examine the new circulatory assemblages and representational tropes that emerge through interactions between diverse platforms and their various users. In particular, the essays trace the different ways in which bodies, mobilities, and platforms are entangled in everyday life in an unfolding phenomenon. This introduction outlines the new spatiotemporal shifts catalyzed by the platformization of everyday activities in India, drawing connections among the various essays in the special issue. The introduction attempts to map these shifts as part of a two-way process, which acknowledges that the resulting transformations also have the potential for reimagining the existing logic of platforms.
Thinking with the South Reframing Research Collaboration amid Decolonial Imperatives and Challenges, 2024
Global Authoritarianism Perspectives and Contestations from the South, 2022
This article maps the links between authoritarian turn in India under Modi and the expansion of t... more This article maps the links between authoritarian turn in India under Modi and the expansion of the circulatory network of Hindu majoritarianism in the country under the conditions provided by informational capitalism. It traces some of the specific ways in which transformations caused by the ascent of informational capitalism contributed to the strengthening of majoritarian subject positions in India. The article argues that the figure of the Bhakt or ‘devotee’ in the context of Hindu majoritarianism is central to the strengthening of such positions and traces how digital platforms work within the configurations around the production of Bhakts
Transmedia Selves Identity and Persona Creation in the Age of Mobile and Multiplatform Media, 2023
Asiascape: Digital Asia, 2022
The article uses the context of the Northeast Delhi riots in 2020 to examine how mobile instant m... more The article uses the context of the Northeast Delhi riots in 2020 to examine how mobile instant messaging platforms have changed the nature of riot networks in India. What role does the state's partisan approach play in aiding the use of these platforms by the constituents of such networks? Does the lack of adequate mechanisms to hold technology companies accountable contribute to how their platforms are used to aid the circulation of extreme speech, misinformation, and violence? The article explores these questions and argues for a framework to govern mobile instant messaging platforms that goes beyond attempts at self-regulation as well as efforts by national governments to regulate them. The complications that arise when such platforms are used by networks that favour majoritarian rulers are analyzed to examine the need for placing issues related to the governance of platform ecosystems within the framework of the protection of human rights.
International Journal of Communication, 2021
This article uses the context of the widespread circulation of accounts about “CoronaJihad” in In... more This article uses the context of the widespread circulation of accounts about “CoronaJihad” in India during the COVID-19 pandemic to examine how public WhatsApp groups that participate in disseminating such accounts function within the ecosystem of hate around Hindutva majoritarianism in the country. The manner in which the WhatsApp platform operates within this ecosystem is mapped through a granular study of three public Hindutva WhatsApp groups; the messages within these groups during the first phase of the COVID-19 lock-down in India were examined during the course of this study. The pattern of messaging within the three groups that contribute to the narrative of “CoronaJihad,” which blames the minority Muslim community for the spread of the virus in India, were analyzed. The article focuses on factors including company policies and the specific sociopolitical situation in the country to understand the circumstances that make WhatsApp’s deep entanglement with the divisive politics of Hindutva majoritarianism in India possible.
HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 2020
The protests against the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) and a nationwide NRC (National Register ... more The protests against the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) and a nationwide NRC (National Register of Citizens) have emerged as an important challenge against right-wing majoritarianism in India. These protests frame themselves as part of a struggle to save the Indian constitution and its secular character. How can we understand the role of such protests in resisting the right-wing efforts for a Hindu Rashtra, or a Hindu nation where minorities, especially Muslims, will be marked as undesirable Others? The article attempts to answer this question by looking at Hindu Rashtra as a performative project. The manner in which the processes of anti-CAA-NRC protests attempt to challenge the claims of Hindutva narratives are analyzed. The article explores the possibility of undoing the Hindutva ecosystem of hate through cultural and media materials as well as bodies from the sites of protests which assert the constitutionally guaranteed principle of equality
Dastavezi: The Audio-Visual South Asia, 2019
BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies, 2018
The article analyzes the role of the documentary form in building pronuclear narratives around th... more The article analyzes the role of the documentary form in building pronuclear narratives around the Indian nuclear project. It situates the nuclear films made by two state institutions, Films Division of India (Films Division) and Vigyan Prasar, as part of a network of expert statements, documentary assertions, and state violence that bring into being a pronuclear reality. Through the insights gained from my practicebased enquiry, which led to the production and circulation of a film titled Nuclear Hallucinations, I argue that the certainty of the pronouncements of such documentaries can be unsettled by approaching them as a tamasha. I rely on the multiple connotations of the word tamasha in the South Asian context and its ability to turn solemn assertions into a matter of entertainment or a joke. This vantage point of tamasha visàvis the Indian nuclear project builds upon the strategies of antinuclear documentaries that resist the epistemological violence of pronuclear assertions. In this article, I explore the role of comic modes and irony in forming sites of tamasha to create trouble within the narratives that position nonviolent antinuclear protestors as " antinational " elements. The article also expands on how the point of view of tamasha can engender new solidarities, which can resist the violence of the Indian nuclear project by forming new configurations of possibilities.
In May 2020, while the world continued to grapple with ways of dealing with the pandemic, UN Secr... more In May 2020, while the world continued to grapple with ways of dealing with the pandemic, UN Secretary General António Guterres spoke about the “tsunami of hate” targeting specific communities in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. One such maelstrom, targeting the Muslim community, was seen taking place in India, with allegations of ‘corona jihad’ becoming widespread during the first phase of the COVID-19 lockdown in the country. In places like India where right-wing populist governments are in power, polarizing the population is part of the electoral and governing strategies utilized by the ruling parties.Against such a backdrop, how can we understand the role of the state, media, civil society organizations as well as social media and tech companies in tackling hate speech? All four of these groups are mentioned as stake holders who can contain the spread of pandemic related hatred in the United Nations Guidance Note on Addressing and Countering COVID-19 related Hate Speech.
IRGAC website, 2022
An exploration about the ways in which right-wing digital circulations can be challenged by creat... more An exploration about the ways in which right-wing digital circulations can be challenged by creating thinking spaces within communities through the use of arts-based research
Embodied travel in the form of yatra has been a chief element in the right-wing Hindutva mobilisa... more Embodied travel in the form of yatra has been a chief element in the right-wing Hindutva mobilisations in India. Many scholars place yatra as a processional movement which emerges from the field of Hindu pilgrimage. This article argues for an expanded definition of yatra to understand the role played by embodied travel in forming networks of communication in South Asia. In order to form such an expanded definition, the processes of an activist travelling film festival Chalti Tasveerein are placed as a configuration of yatra. The manner in which WhatsApp messages, YouTube videos and digital copies of films work with embodied travel is examined. The article links the processes of Chalti Tasveerein with the oral transmission of the poems of iconoclast saint-poet Kabir. Parallels are drawn between the anti-caste and anti-orthodox stance of Kabir’s work and Chalti Tasveerein’s activities which work against the he spatial and temporal claims of Hindutva. By placing these two instances of circulation which are separated by several centuries within the framework of yatra, an attempt is made to understand how alternate imaginations that oppose the dominant conservative discourses of their time use embodied travel to claim a space for their narratives.
This practice-based research uses the context of the documentary assertions around the Indian nuc... more This practice-based research uses the context of the documentary assertions around the Indian nuclear project to examine how comic modes and irony can be employed to undermine authoritarian knowledge claims that make use of the epistephilic dimensions of the documentary form. An analysis of the pro-nuclear assertions in the documentary narratives of two state institutions in India, Films Division and Vigyan Prasar, was done as part of this enquiry. The diverse ways in which Indian anti-nuclear films engage with these narratives in humorous and ironic ways was also studied. The insights gained from this analysis contributed to the production and circulation of a film I made titled Nuclear Hallucinations, which is centred around the Kudankulam anti-nuclear movement in South India. Through its processes, the research develops a specific configuration of the vantage point of what I call tamasha in order to unsettle the certainty of pro-nuclear knowledge claims in documentary. Nuclear Hallucinations experiments with the use of satirical impersonations, irony, hallucinatory voice-overs and comic appropriation of pro- nuclear arguments to arrive at strategies that can elicit a response from the realm of tamasha. These experiments are informed by a framework that treats film as a process that goes beyond the limits of the edited film; the sites of engagement created during the production and circulation phases of the film are treated with equal importance. The research argues that the interventions created by the vantage point of tamasha offer new ways to resist the epistemological violence of documentary narratives that privilege the documentary form’s ability to authorize assured knowledge claims.
Studies in South Asian Film & Media, 2019
RePLITO Quarterly Newsletter #3, 2022