NATIONALIST ARTICULATION OF DECOLONISING UNIVERSITIES TWO SIDES OF

NATIONALIST ARTICULATION OF DECOLONISING UNIVERSITIES/ TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN 17 th June, 5. 30 -6. 30 pm CE 329, University of Kent, Canterbury Asim Siddiqui, Se. RGJ visiting fellow With the re-election of the Hindutva Nationalist regime in India, the systematic destruction of the Universities with a neoliberal and hypernationalist agenda is bound to take an ugly turn. Under the garb of Decolonizing Universities, the nationalist critique perpetuates the Brahminical domination of public Universities in India, a fact that Ambedkar foresaw at the time of independence and setup few constitutional provisions for making a decolonized and debrahminized society, in which higher education played one of the most important roles. Instant of deepening the Ambedkarite project, Hindutva nationalists have systematically worked towards undermining the Constitution and the Universities have been their prime target. In this talk, I would argue that nationalist critique of colonization is merely another side of the same coin and true decolonization in South Asia necessarily includes Debrahminization of the University, by drawing upon the experiences of the Ambedkarite-Feminist Collective in Azim Premji University. Asim Siddiqui is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Azim Premji University Bangalore. Further information E: klsresearch@kent. ac. uk