On 30th August 2024, the Department of Political Science organised a lecture by Dr Papia Sengupta, from the Centre for Political Studies, JNU, titled ‘Rising Polarization: Can we build Differential Solidarities?’ where she called for a re-engagement with civil society as a site for building networks of solidarity, in a polarising world. Prof. KK Kailash chaired the session and Prof. Kham Khan Suan Hausing acted as the discussant for the lecture.
The speaker sought to address concerns over the move towards a deeply divisive world in the wake of ‘waves of polarisation’ increasingly prevalent in our society. She brought about three avenues to address these: resistance, acts of citizenship, and differential solidarities. While her talk hinged on the latter, she dwelled on the first two briefly as well. About the idea of resistance, she emphasised the need to focus on ‘civil society’ rather than the ‘state’, utilising the framework of protests as a site for building solidarities. This process becomes integral to presenting a united front against the threat of the state’s coercive powers. Secondly, she brought attention to ‘acts of citizenship’ as a methodological tool that construes citizenship as everyday deeds. Within this realm, the speaker delineated two types of citizens: active citizens and activist citizens. While the former accepts the state’s diktats, the latter seeks to bring about change. To that end, activist citizens take on a role, not just for protest but also for critique, presenting a coalescence of the social with the political.
Lastly, the importance of differential solidarities was emphasised, drawing inspiration from the idea of imagined solidarities. Such solidarities are held together through finding a common ground (over suffering), trust building measures in an increasingly untrusting world and improved inter-community communication. These build networks of solidarity that traverse not only vertically and horizontally but even transnationally. To underline the need for this concept, the speaker brought about the idea of ‘polysectionality’ as opposed to that of inter-sectionality, harkening the former as an approach from the ‘South’ for the problems of the South, which provides a multi-dimensional understanding of the latter and can capture the heterogeneity that exists within the broad categories that are often taken as a ‘like unit’.
Prof. Hausing, in his succinct comments after the lecture, veered the discussion towards Habermas’ communicative action, the need for reciprocity and the role of institutions when discussing the idea of solidarities. Building on this, Dr Sneha Banerjee raised the question of ‘processes’ that occupy the liminal space between the institutional and the normative. At the same time, Dr. Subba brought the question of regime types into the discussion. Prof. Kailash pointed out the need to distinguish between ‘resistance’ and ‘protest’ while emphasising that ‘suffering cannot claim a monopoly over solidarities.’ The speaker responded to these comments graciously, expressing her gratitude for the added nuances to her argument and emphasising the need for conversations across the ideological spectrum. The session ended with a vote of thanks by Ms. Khushi Jain, a master’s student from the Department of Political Science, thus concluding a thoroughly insightful talk.
Credits:
Ann Varughese (23spma42)
Rajat Pratap (23spma67)