Talk by Priyamvada Gopal (English, University of Cambridge )

Partially in light of its recent currency for Hindu majoritarianism and the rhetoric of Hindutva, this talk will raise questions about the project of ‘decolonization’ in India through the work of Bhimrao Ambedkar. His famous polemic, What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables, written on the cusp of independence, raises questions relevant to our understanding of that period and present-day concerns. Ambedkar argues that the primary vehicle of anticolonialism, its ‘imagined community’ of the Indian nation, was, from the outset, compromised by a stratified and deep-rooted bedrock of exploitation, marginalization, and exclusion. What implications do the reality Ambedkar outlines have for how we think about decolonization in and of India? This paper argues that Ambedkar’s thought about what he saw as the ‘Hindu Raj’ following the British Raj is a vital contribution and corrective to regnant theories of decolonization not just because it offered a necessary challenge to caste Hindu anticolonialism but as an examination in itself, of what liberation is and what an actual end to colonialism might look like beyond a transfer of power. A strong engagement with Ambedkar’s critique has the potential to change our understanding of decolonization very profoundly.

Priyamvada Gopal was born in New Delhi, India, Schooling in Colombo, Sri Lanka; Thimpu, Bhutan;  Delhi, India; and Vienna, Austria. Gopal’s subsequent education was at Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Purdue University (USA), and Cornell University (USA, PhD 2000). Currently, Gopal is a professor of postcolonial studies at the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, and a professorial fellow at Churchill College. Her interests are in the literature, politics, and cultures of empire, colonialism, and decolonization. Some of her related interests are in the novel,  South Asian literature,  and postcolonial cultures.  Gopal’s published work includes Literary Radicalism in India: Gender, Nation and the Transition to Independence (Routledge, 2005),  After Iraq: Reframing Postcolonial Studies (Special issue of New Formations co-edited with Neil Lazarus), The Indian English Novel: Nation, History and Narration (Oxford University Press, 2009) and, most recently, Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent (Verso, 2019) which was shortlisted for the British Academy Prize for Global Cultural Understanding and the Bread and Roses Prize. My writing has also appeared in The Hindu, Outlook India, India Today, The Independent,  Prospect Magazine, The New Statesman, The Guardian, Al-Jazeera English (AJE) and The Nation (USA). I’ve contributed occasionally to the BBC’s Start the Week and Newsnight and programs on NDTV-India,  Al-Jazeera, National Public Radio, and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.