Ph.D. Exit Seminar in the Graduate Field of Development Studies
Abstract
Under Narendra Modi's BJP-led government, Hindu nationalist hegemony and state power have converged at the national scale, fundamentally transforming the landscape of violence in contemporary India. At its core, this transformation involves the structural interweaving of nationalist, neoliberal, and infrastructural violence—what I term "communal capitalism"—a form of Hindu nationalist statecraft, first developed in Gujarat, that fuses the orchestration of communal violence with the neoliberal violence of market-based infrastructural redevelopment. I examine the origins of this hegemonic project through Ahmedabad, a laboratory for Hindu nationalist rule during Modi's tenure as Gujarat's chief minister (2001–2013). The Sabarmati Riverfront Project stands as a critical case of this transformation, leading to the eviction of over 40,000 lower-caste Hindu and Muslim laborers from the city center to resettlement sites on Ahmedabad's periphery. These sites function as "double frontiers"—spaces where capital accumulation and ethno-territorial boundary-making intersect. Rather than spaces of outright exclusion, these frontiers produce precarious forms of incorporation. Here, Muslim agency functions like a rubber band, stretching to navigate state violence yet ultimately constrained by its structural limits. By following the nexus of politics and violence of the evicted across time and space, this dissertation illuminates both the sophistication and instability of contemporary authoritarian governance within broader global patterns of neoliberal and ethno-nationalist statecraft.
About the candidate
Shrey Kapoor is a postdoctoral researcher at the intersection of political science, European global studies, and South Asian studies at the University of Basel and the University of Zurich. His dissertation research examines the spatial dynamics of Hindu nationalist violence, with a particular focus on urban frontiers and processes of spatial ordering under communal capitalism in contemporary India. Building on this work, his current postdoctoral project explores transnational authoritarianism through a materialist and relational lens, investigating how infrastructural development and diaspora relations shape contemporary forms of state-sanctioned violence and collective resistance. He holds a BA in International Affairs from the University of St. Gallen and an MA in International Development from Sciences Po.
Date & Time
February 7, 2025
10:00 am - 11:30 am
Location
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Contact Information
Crystal Brown, Graduate Field Administrator
- cb942 [at] cornell.edu
Speaker
Shrey Kapoor, Ph.D. Candidate, Development Studies
Departments
Department of Global Development
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