The Department of Political Science, University of Hyderabad hosted Prof. Himadeep Muppidi of the Vassar College, USA who delivered a special talk in the Department of Political Science. The talk, titled “Inside Mass Destruction: Making of a Colonial Vernacular,” was held in the Seminar Hall, School of Social Sciences, on January 7, 2026. This was the first official departmental talk of the year 2026.
The session was chaired by Prof. Vasanthi Srinivasan, a faculty member at the department. Dr. Aparna Devare delivered a brief and light-hearted introduction, cordially welcoming Prof. Muppidi and the audience to the talk.
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Prof. Himadeep Muppidi expressed his delight in having the session and started the talk with an insight on the long existing ethos of International Relations (IR) as a discipline, especially in the West. Discussing certain parts of his book, Inside Mass Destruction: Making of a Colonial Vernacular, Prof. Muppidi traced through some of the ways by which the dominating colonial influence of the West has shaped the modern discourse within IR. He argued that even in the post-colonial settings of the 21st century, there exists a tendency among scholarship to rationalize certain episodes of genocide, often facilitated through a distinguishing lens with culturally and historically embedded racial undertones.
Denoting certain politically significant events in the U.S., Prof. Muppidi utilized the example of the election of Barack Obama as the first African-American U.S. President and the anxious socio-political atmosphere it created among certain sections of the population. He also explained how such conditions of anxiety, especially among the West, are understood through the historically cultivated insecurity arising out of the allocation and consumption of the material resources among the ‘tiny’ majority; aggravated by the seemingly underlying ‘frustrations of the unsettled self’.
The speaker also referred to the works of Jack London and Sven Lindqvist, using their account to carefully unfold the racially motivated sentiments that dominated during the 19th and 20th century. He showcased the Western imagination characterized by the inherent anxiety of the horror, where the sudden discovery of the New World, brings about the fantasies of loneliness and extermination. This results in a White quest for the extermination of the ‘other’ arising out of the indifferent sensibility which has been cultivated.
The talk was then followed by a Q&A session, which saw intriguing queries from the students and faculty alike. The discussion threw light up on the interesting concerns of the scholars with regard to the existing status of International Relations as an academic discipline, showcasing the imperative to find the right balance while addressing its colonial undertones.
The session concluded with a formal vote of thanks delivered by Dr. Anagha Ingole, faculty member of the Department of Political, marking an end to the thought provoking and insightful engagement.
Report by: Suryadev Sureshbabu, MA student, Department of Political Science