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Death and Dying Preferences in China and among Ethnic Chinese US Residents

February 3, 2025
By 30592

A comparative study of end-of-life care preferences among Chinese populations in China and the United States conducted by Yifan Lou (Columbia University, 2019, 2022) reveals shared cultural values influencing end-of-life care decisions, despite differing societal contexts and healthcare systems.

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Death and dying are profound issues that are shaped by cultural, societal, and policy factors. People often assume that the experiences of dying, death outcomes, and end-of-life care decisions—such as opting for hospice care and forgoing treatments—are largely determined by the societal structures and policy frameworks of where individuals live. However, death and dying rituals are deeply cultural, and individuals within the same ethnic groups may share fundamental beliefs and values, even when they are in different environments.[1] The shared cultural perspectives, moreover, can lead to comparable end-of-life care choices and,[2] consequently, similar dying experiences, regardless of societal or policy differences.

I studied Chinese older adults as an entry point to understand how different social contexts and life experiences impact preferences for a “good death” and end-of-life outcomes for individuals with shared cultural roots.

There are approximately 1.5 billion people of Chinese ethnicity living around the world, with about 12% of them aged 65 and older.[3] Ensuring a “good death” for this rapidly growing demographic is becoming an increasingly critical public health priority. However, a key question remains: do Chinese people living in different parts of the world—in Western and Eastern countries—share similar perceptions, wishes, and choices regarding end-of-life care, decision-making, caregiving, and family communication?

 

Working as a social worker in a nursing home four years ago inspired me to conduct this research.

I was privileged to receive a Sylff Research Grant (SRG) that enabled me to explore this topic through a comparative project. I examined the end-of-life care experiences of Chinese individuals in China and the United States—two countries with distinct cultural, social, and healthcare contexts. By investigating these populations, I hoped to shed light on how cultural values, social circumstances, and life experiences (such as immigration versus remaining in the home country) influence older adults’ death and dying experiences. The findings can be critical for policymakers seeking to develop healthcare and palliative care strategies that respect the diverse values, traditions, and preferences of older adults, ensuring their end-of-life experiences align with their cultural beliefs and desires.

With the SRG award, I was able to conduct a series of mixed-method studies examining end-of-life care experiences among Chinese populations in China and the United States. These studies included one qualitative and one quantitative study focused on Chinese individuals in China, as well as a quantitative study of Chinese older adults in the United States. This research yielded findings with which I was able to make two conference presentations with manuscripts in preparation at the Gerontological Society of America’s Annual Scientific Meeting in November 2024 and to draft another manuscript currently under review.

Decisional Conflicts among Family Members

In the first study, I built relationships with community-based healthcare agencies in Shanghai and Beijing providing hospice and palliative care to older adults. I conducted fieldwork alongside these agencies, collecting and analyzing qualitative data on the experiences and perceptions of end-of-life care among older adults, caregivers, and healthcare providers. The study focused on how societal-level factors influence these end-of-life care experiences. Using a multi-level ecological perspective, I sought to shed light on the specific challenges and stressors that family caregivers face when navigating end-of-life care, particularly for individuals living with cognitive impairment.

A hybrid grounded theory approach was used to guide the analysis. Five key themes emerged from the data pointing to multi-level challenges and stressors, framed by social ecological theory. At the individual and interpersonal levels, emotional exhaustion due to decision-making was a prominent theme, especially when caregivers faced communication barriers regarding necessary decision-making paperwork during frequent emergency room visits. Caregivers of individuals with dementia also encountered unique decisional conflicts, often involving disagreements among siblings and uncertainty about the validity of the expressed wishes of those in advanced stages of dementia.

At the mezzo level, a common theme centered around the stigma associated with hospice care for dementia patients, in contrast to the more widely accepted notion of such care for individuals with cancer. Specialized care for dementia symptoms is often viewed as unnecessary or as overtreatment, and the sending of older parents with dementia to hospital-based hospice care—since home-based hospice care is rarely available in China—is considered a violation of filial piety. This stigma often prevents caregivers from seeking appropriate services and support for their dying loved ones. On the macro level, the lack of disease-specific end-of-life resources emerged as a significant challenge. This gap in resources often results in long waiting lists and rising service costs, making it difficult for caregivers to find care that aligns with the specific needs of older adults with different conditions (such as dementia, cancer, and heart failure).

Pain Management in End-of-Life Care

The lack of palliative care and effective pain management is a recurring theme in qualitative studies, and this prompted me to question whether this is a widespread issue for older adults across China. However, generalizing these findings requires nationally representative data. Fortunately, during my fieldwork in Beijing, I connected with a team of interdisciplinary researchers who share similar interests and conducted the first national longitudinal survey of end-of-life care among Chinese older adults.

Through this collaboration, I was able to complete my second study, in which we examined the prevalence of pain and its association with place of death and pain management in the context of urban-rural differences, using data from the China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey. Our sample included 958 decedents aged 60 and above, and we employed logistic regression models for analysis.

Our findings revealed that 26.4% of decedents did not receive timely and effective pain treatment, and 66.5% of families were unable to manage the decedent’s pain. Additionally, 41.96% of decedents experienced severe pain symptoms. Rural residents, those with severe pain, and those who died at home were more likely to forgo adequate pain treatment compared to their urban counterparts. Urban-rural differences emerged where rural older adults with severe pain and those who died at home were less likely to receive timely and effective pain treatment than urban older adults. In urban areas, severe pain symptoms and place of death were significantly associated with receiving appropriate pain management, but this was not the case in rural areas.

This quantitative study supports and extends the qualitative findings, highlighting the urgent need to improve pain management and address disparities in end-of-life care, particularly in rural China.

As noted in the previous qualitative study, many older adults in China do not communicate their wishes for future care to their family members. As a result, family members often face the stressful task of making end-of-life decisions without knowing their loved ones’ preferences and are left uncertain whether any wishes expressed earlier are still valid—particularly if illness has progressed to the point of cognitive impairment.

This raises the question: Are similar gaps in end-of-life care planning present among older, ethnic Chinese adults in the United States, despite the availability of various social policies (such as Medicare benefits for end-of-life care planning) and advocacy programs?

US Trends Mirror Those Seen in China

To address this, I attended networking workshops at gerontology conferences and got connected with a group of researchers who conducted the first population-based study on Chinese immigrants in the United States and have been collecting end-of-life, care-related data since 2021. By working with them, I was able to access this data and start my third study.

We referred to the Population Study of Chinese Elderly in Chicago (also called the PINE Study) to investigate the prevalence and preferences of end-of-life care planning, along with associated sociodemographic and health determinants among older Chinese Americans.

Linear and logistic regressions were conducted to analyze the data. Our findings showed that 46.1% of participants considered end-of-life care planning to be important or somewhat important, yet only 22% had discussed their end-of-life preferences with family members. The most preferred locations for end-of-life care were home (43.7%), hospital (35.5%), and nursing home (10.1%), with only 4.3% preferring hospice care. In terms of decision-making, 47.1% viewed end-of-life care as a family decision, 39.6% saw it as a personal decision, and 7.5% and 3.3% preferred their children or spouses to make decisions on their behalf, respectively.

Our analysis also revealed several factors associated with greater engagement in end-of-life planning, namely, older age, female gender, higher education, greater acculturation, higher levels of religiosity, and more chronic health conditions. These factors were similarly linked to a greater likelihood of having end-of-life care discussions with family members.

Our findings highlighted a low level of engagement in end-of-life care planning among Chinese older adults in the United States, mirroring trends observed in China, despite the availability of more resources and advocacy programs in the United States. This underscores the need for culturally appropriate interventions that respect the diverse preferences for end-of-life care among Chinese older adults in both countries to improve preparedness and decision-making at the end of life.

Next Phase of Research

These SRG-funded pilot studies have laid the groundwork for my next phase of research, which will involve a larger-scale comparative analysis of end-of-life care preferences among Chinese populations in Western and Eastern countries. I am currently compiling the data and developing a plan to conduct a formal statistical population comparison study. This line of research holds significant societal implications for populations worldwide that share similar cultural values and migration histories.

 

End-of-life care for older adults of Chinese ethnicity.

Additionally, these studies underscore the shared cultural foundations among Chinese communities across different social contexts in relation to preferences for end-of-life care and decision-making, despite the unique challenges and needs that arise in each country. This suggests that interventions that have proven effective among Chinese populations in the United States can also be adapted for use in China and raises the possibility of implementing cost-effective interventions across different settings.

This SRG-funded work has broad research implications, as it paves the way for further comparative studies among other ethnic groups to explore whether cultural preferences remain consistent when individuals migrate to or reside in different countries. If such patterns hold true, it could lead to more efficient and scalable interventions tailored to diverse cultural contexts, ultimately improving end-of-life care for various ethnic communities worldwide.

Notes

[1] Megumi Inoue, “The Influence of Sociodemographic and Psychosocial Factors on Advance Care Planning,” Journal of Gerontological Social Work 59, no. 5 (2016): 401–22.

[2] Yifan Lou and Jinyu Liu, “Death Narrative in 19th-Century China: How Did Newspapers Frame Death and Dying,” Omega: Journal of Death and Dying 84, no. 2 (2021): 634–52.

[3] Dudley L Poston Jr and Juyin Helen Wong, “The Chinese Diaspora: The Current Distribution of the Overseas Chinese Population, Chinese Journal of Society 2, no. 3 (2016): 348–73.

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The Age of Uncertainty and Nuclear Proliferation

October 24, 2024
By 32081

In an article that was originally published in Turkish in Gazete Duvar, Mühdan Sağlam (Ankara University, 2015–16) discusses the dysfunction of the liberal global system, citing the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Nihon Hidankyo to highlight heightening nuclear proliferation risks and the need for disarmament.

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The deadlock in the liberal global system has of late become clear for anyone to see. The system has long been marked by imbalances, double standards, and the disproportionate decision-making clout of the Security Council’s five veto-wielding countries. In fact, these inequalities have been pointed out since the United Nations was founded in 1945, as suggested in the speech by its second Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld that the “UN was not created in order to bring us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell.”

Although international relations experts point to different dates and events as to when the system reached a standstill, almost all agree that it has now become dysfunctional. There is no telling what a new replacement system would look like, but there are expectations.

Some experts posit the possibility of a new bipolar order, while others caution against the potential for Chinese hegemony. There are also those suggesting that we may enter an “age of disorder” and that we need to take a broader look at history.

The current uncertainty and lack of direction serve to highlight the significant risk of a major conflict. One fundamental question that must be addressed is whether war will accompany the transition to a new order (or disorder). Providing a definitive answer at this time would be difficult, but we can nonetheless examine the pertinent issues, particularly the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons. The focus of my article will be on nuclear armament and its potential for creating a state of perpetual conflict.

“Now I Am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds”

Toward the conclusion of World War II, a considerable number of experts hypothesized that the atomic bombing of a nation that was already prepared to capitulate altered the trajectory of global history, if not the war itself. The bomb was developed as part of the US Manhattan Project and dropped first on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki, causing unprecedented suffering to the civilian population and destruction of infrastructure.

The world gained its first glimpse of the concept of nuclear weapons through this devastating and inhumane attack. Indeed, in response to the devastation he had unleashed, the head of the Manhattan Project, J. Robert Oppenheimer, stated in an interview in the 1960s that he recalled a line from the Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” The contradictions, dilemmas, and remorse felt by the physicist are portrayed in Christopher Nolan’s award-winning 2023 biopic. Nolan did not include images of the people who died in Japan; instead, he allowed their screams to resonate. Those screams have done little, however, to prevent the world from moving ahead with nuclear armament.

The Nobel Peace Prize in 2024 was bestowed upon the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo in recognition of its contributions to the global effort toward nuclear disarmament. The official announcement of the Norwegian Nobel Committee states, “This grassroots movement of atomic bombing survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, is receiving the Peace Prize for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.”

Members of Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots Japanese organization of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, hold a press conference after winning the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize. ©Tomohiro Ohsumi / Getty Images

The organization states on its website, “We hibakusha have been describing the realities of the damage of the atomic bombing and appealing on our suffering, because we want that no one else should ever suffer the hell we have experienced.” Following the award, the co-chair of the group has drawn parallels between the experiences of hibakusha 80 years ago and people in Gaza today. “Children are being covered in blood and living every day without food.”

This serves to remind us of the gravity of the current situation and the necessity of pursuing a path to peace and disarmament. The formation of a mushroom cloud and the subsequent blinding ball of flames are not prerequisites for creating hell on earth. In the period since 1945, what actions have been taken on the global stage to prevent human suffering?

As Nihon Hidankyo maintains its stance against nuclear weapons, it appears that for some, anti-nuclearism has become a mere rhetorical device employed in ostentatiously decorated halls of power. Let us now examine the sequence of events and the current situation.

Embracing the Bomb to Win the Arms Race

The global landscape during the Cold War was characterized by the coexistence of two distinct centers of economic and political influence: the USSR and the Eastern bloc on one side, and the US and the Western camp on the other. Common to both systems, however, was that they were engaged in the arms race, which meant that the path to being first required a focus on developing and utilizing weapons of mass destruction.

In 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, which the Soviet Union interpreted as a message directed at itself. In response, the Soviet Union accelerated the development of nuclear weapons. When the USSR successfully tested its first atomic bomb in 1949, the United States, which had been developing nuclear weapons since the 1930s, was still in the lead. Two years later, the United States proceeded to test a hydrogen bomb.

In 1953, the USSR, too, conducted a nuclear test involving a hydrogen bomb. And the 1957 launch of the Soviet Union’s artificial satellite, Sputnik, into space had a profound impact on the global landscape, intensifying the already palpable sense of dread surrounding an impending nuclear conflict and the underlying geopolitical tensions.

The launch of Sputnik conveyed a clear message: If one possessed the capability to launch an artificial satellite into space, it would be possible to attach a nuclear warhead to the satellite’s head, transform it into a missile, and subsequently target US territory. One of the world’s superpowers was now confronted with the imminent threat of a potential nuclear attack.

In response to the perceived threat of imminent nuclear attack, the United States increased its nuclear weapons arsenal. This process resulted in a significant strategic transformation within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which had been established by the United States. The deployment of “medium-range guided missiles” on the territories of allied nations in close proximity to the Soviet Union was initiated. The world was gradually becoming an unparalleled arsenal.

Disarmament Treaties: Short-Lived Period of Prudence

The concept of the “balance of terror,” which was used to describe the arms race during the Cold War, is no longer a suitable description, as it does not reflect the rational limits of the situation. Instead, it better describes the intense emotions that are generated by this race. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis served as a stark reminder to both parties that they were on the verge of a catastrophic outcome. After this crisis, the United States and the Soviet Union entered into the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), which resulted in the signing of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I and SALT II) and the subsequent Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). These treaties sought to limit the deployment of ballistic nuclear missiles. This was followed by the signing of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) in 1972. Notwithstanding these agreements, the budgets allocated by both parties for armaments continued to rise.

The nuclear threat, which reached its peak during the Ronald Reagan administration, entered a new phase with the USSR’s economic and social exhaustion. Mikhail Gorbachev’s “new thinking” (novoye myshleniye) policy facilitated the resumption of nuclear disarmament negotiations in 1985. Following negotiations between Reagan and Gorbachev, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was concluded in 1987, resulting in the destruction of approximately 2,700 missiles. This collaborative approach to nuclear disarmament was further extended to encompass restrictions on conventional weapons in Europe. However, this period of reason and prudence was not to last long.

Appealing for an End to the Cycle of Violence

Some of the agreements concluded were subsequently nullified as a result of changes in circumstances. These actions were taken with a degree of audacity that demonstrates a lack of awareness of historical precedent. This approach showed a disregard for the concept of historical continuity, as encapsulated in the phrase was prevalent in the early 2000s, “Yesterday was yesterday, and today is today.”

In 2019, the United States withdrew from the INF Treaty. In the context of the war in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the suspension of START, which had been extended for five years in 2021. He stated, “Today I have to announce that Russia is suspending the START treaty,” adding, “Of course, we won’t be the first, but if the United States conducts nuclear tests, so will we.”

While tensions escalated between the United States and Russia, the rest of the world remained in a state of vigilance, anticipating potential outcomes and seeking to ensure a well-prepared response. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)’s 2024 yearbook, Armaments, Disarmament and International Security, indicates that as of January 2024, nine states, namely, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel, possessed a total of 12,121 nuclear weapons, of which 9,585 were operational. Approximately 4,000 of these were deployed and under the control of operational forces.

The aggregate data suggests a decline in the number of nuclear warheads, but this is merely a consequence of the dismantlement of retired warheads by Russia and the United States. By contrast, numerous states with relatively modest nuclear arsenals, including China and the United Kingdom, are either augmenting or intending to expand their nuclear capabilities.

In the United States, several polls conducted in the weeks preceding the presidential election indicate that the two candidates are in a statistical tie. It is unfortunate that we are not yet in a position to determine the extent to which the situation could potentially be worse than the damage caused by the Joe Biden administration.

We are at a critical juncture where all the available options seem unsatisfactory. And it would be untenable to frame the least unfavorable outcome as being the optimal one. The global system is currently at a standstill, the world has become a veritable arsenal, and the future is fraught with potential for further conflict. In the light of these circumstances, Nihon Hidankyo and the civilians who have suffered as a result of the ongoing war and terrorist attacks in the Middle East are once again appealing to humanity to put an end to this senseless cycle of violence. 

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End-of-Life Care Decisions for People with Dementia in China: Patients Rarely Have a Say

August 22, 2024
By 30592

Given that Asian medical decision-making experiences tend to be overlooked in academia and policy design, gerontologist Yifan Lou (Columbia University, 2019, 2022) conducted an SRG-supported study to provide empirical evidence for end-of-life decision-making narratives in China. She hopes to contribute to effective interventions and services for older Chinese with dementia and their family caregivers, as well as to discussions on culturally specific definitions of a “good death.”

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With generous support from SRG, I was able to finish the data collection, transcribing, and preliminary analyses of the project entitled “End-of-Life Decision-Making Experiences among the Primary Caregivers for Older Adults with Dementia in China.” This study aims to understand the values and unique challenges around end-of-life care among Chinese dementia caregivers, the results of which can inform the future design of a culturally sensitive intervention on advance care planning (ACP) for people living with dementia and their family caregivers in China.

China is the country with the largest population of older adults and people living with dementia in the world. The country’s population of people living with dementia is projected to reach an estimated of 75.6 million by 2030 (Xu et al. 2017). Unlike other critical illnesses like cancer, dementia always requires primary caregivers to make many end-of-life care decisions, including but not limited to admission to nursing homes, tube feeding, and do-not-resuscitate orders, on behalf of the people living with dementia themselves. Those decisions are extremely hard for caregivers, especially if they are experiencing physical exhaustion from long-time caregiving, emotional distress, and “anticipatory grief” due to the nature of dementia (Jones et al. 2019). Advance care planning can help to relieve the burden of caregivers and also make sure that those with dementia will receive the treatments that align with their preferences. Studies suggest that people at an early stage of dementia are still capable of making ACP choices (Yaffe et al. 2002; Hirschman et al. 2008).

ACP is still an emerging concept in China, however, where death and dying are cultural taboos. There are no studies elucidating the experience of dementia caregivers around end-of-life care decisions, and little is known regarding how their emotional burdens can be relieved to make sure people living with dementia can meet a dignified death. ACP in China cannot be promoted without knowing the Chinese people’s perceptions of and their current experiences with this issue. My study thus seeks to provide empirical evidence for decision-making narratives in China, which can significantly contribute to future developments in interventions and services for older Chinese with dementia and their family caregivers.

Having No Say in Care Decisions

In the project, I was able to interview 20 dementia caregivers and 5 health-care professionals in collaboration with community-based health-care centers. I conducted semi-structured interviews with the 25 participants on their experiences and perceptions of medical decision-making for people living with dementia. I also administered background questionnaires on their socioeconomic and health information. The participants had diverse backgrounds in terms of socioeconomic status, rural/urban residence, relationship to people living with dementia, and their own health status.

©fzant/Getty Images

Because the majority of participants used the Shanghai dialect in the interview, I outsourced the transcribing to a research assistant who can understand the dialect and have basic knowledge of social science research. The research assistant and I further worked on data analysis, the results of which were finalized and will be presented at the annual scientific meeting of the Gerontological Society of America in November 2024. To disseminate the results and make real impact, I also plan to present the results to community-based social service agencies and work with social workers in the agencies to design culturally appropriate interventions and evidence-based practices.

Our preliminary results show that people with dementia in China never have a say in their medical-care decisions. More specifically, as was seen in with my previous research in health communication during end-of-life care, we consistently observed three different types of power dynamics in the triad relationship among primary caregivers, medical professionals, and other family members: shared power between primary caregivers and doctors, balanced power between primary caregivers and other family members, and unbalanced power among the three stakeholders. Guided by Dahl’s relational power model (Dahl 1957), we further discussed the outcomes of the three different types of power dynamics. None of the three, though, involved the person who is actually experiencing death and dying. Primary caregivers, health-care professionals, and other family members frequently cited as reasons for such exclusion concerns about filial piety, the uncertain validity of the people living with dementia’s expressed wishes given their cognitive status, and concern for family harmony.

The nuanced data has the potential to spawn more research questions related to death, dying, and medical decision-making involving people living with dementia. More particularly, we will further explore the unique challenges of caregivers and health-care professionals when they try to make big life decisions for the patients without being able to confirm their wishes and preferences. We will also investigate how culture plays a part in medical decision-making so as to inform the development of culturally appropriate interventions and service delivery.

It is also possible to use this data to understand how family members communicate needs and information with health-care professionals. Health communication is an important topic in China because of frequent conflicts between the patient, family, and provider in hospitals. By understanding the concerns of family members and providers simultaneously using the data, we will be able to detangle the potential reasons behind the miscommunication in medical decision-making.

Framework for Intervention

My study is among the first to understand the experiences of advance care planning in the Chinese community. The study provides practitioners a framework for understanding and intervening in medical decision-making and ACP for surrogates of people with dementia. The results highlight the distinct decision-making experiences of people living with dementia in China compared to those in the West and suggest that policymakers should consider the voices of the local people and families. The study may also shed light on the medical decision-making process in other Asian countries with similar cultures, such as Korea and Singapore.

The Asian medical decision-making experience is largely overlooked in academia and policy design, particularly given that end-of-life care, hospice care, and ACP are all Western concepts. I thus hope to contribute to the growing conversation on adopting ACP and related concepts in Chinese and other Asian societies and to the larger discussion on culturally specific definitions of a “good death.” Future studies can provide a comparative lens to more comprehensively understand how health-care decision-making in end-of-life care settings works in Asian and Western countries.

References

Dahl, R. A. (1957). The Concept of Power. Behavioral Science, 2(3), 201–215.

Hirschman, K. B., Kapo, J. M., & Karlawish, J. H. (2008). Identifying the Factors that Facilitate or Hinder Advance Planning by Persons with Dementia. Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders, 22(3), 293–298.

Jones, K., Birchley, G., Huxtable, R., Clare, L., Walter, T., & Dixon, J. (2019). End of Life Care: A Scoping Review of Experiences of Advance Care Planning for People with Dementia. Dementia, 18(3), 825–845.

Xu, J., Wang, J., Wimo, A., Fratiglioni, L., & Qiu, C. (2017). The Economic Burden of Dementia in China, 1990–2030: Implications for Health Policy. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 95(1), 18.

Yaffe, K., Fox, P., Newcomer, R., Sands, L., Lindquist, K., Dane, K., & Covinsky, K. E. (2002). Patient and Caregiver Characteristics and Nursing Home Placement in Patients with Dementia. JAMA, 287(16), 2090–2097.

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Farewell to Religious Freedom: Persecution of Christians and Muslims in Hindu India

April 4, 2024
By 28804

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Modi has fanned the flames of Hindu nationalism to reap political gains at the expense of India’s religious minorities and the ideals of secular democracy and cultural diversity, writes Amit Singh (University of Coimbra, 2020–21), who notes that religious intolerance could also lead to the curtailing of academic and press freedom.

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Alarm about an impending genocide of Muslims and the persecution of Christians in India has been sounded, triggering a crisis in human rights. Why has a nation known for religious diversity and cultural unity turned against its own citizens—particularly Christian and Muslim minorities? The answer lies in the ideology of Hindu nationalism (also known as Hindutva) that has guided the government of Narendra Modi, who came to power in 2014 seeking to transform secular India into a Hindu state. The rise of Modi as prime minister has emboldened Hindu extremists to carry out violence against religious minorities with tacit government approval. Hindu nationalists employ religion and nationalism to polarize the masses and capture political power.

Hindu nationalism is an ethnic ideology that seeks to achieve the dominance of the Hindu religion and culture over religious minorities. It is often associated with the belief that Indian Muslims and Christians are not loyal to the state and should thus be seen as foreigners. Hindu nationalists accuse them of defiling the purity of the country and Hindu culture and have promoted violence from time to time, such as the communal riots in Gujrat (2002), Orissa (2008), Delhi (2020), Gurugram (2023), and more recently Manipur (2023–24).

When India gained independence in 1947, it chose to become a secular state, rather than a Hindu nation. Secularism was considered essential to Indian democracy in order to prevent the Hindu majority from dominating religious minorities. Some Hindu nationalists who believe in the supremacy of the Hindu religion were troubled, however, by the idea of religious equality, which granted the same constitutional rights to Muslim minorities. The Indian Constitution guarantees the freedom of religion to all religious minorities, including Christians and Muslims. It affirms that all Indian citizens are equal, irrespective of their religion, and that the State shall maintain an equal distance from all religions, denying any role of religion in state affairs.

A Changed Situation

On January 22, 2024, Prime Minister Modi crossed the line separating religion and state by participating in the inauguration ceremony for a controversial Hindu temple in Ayodhya. This, at least metaphorically, made India a Hindu state. The visit to the Ayodhya Ram temple, built where a mosque was demolished in 1992 by Hindu fundamentalists, was a stark warning to all who still believed in religious equality and cultural diversity in secular India.

The Ram temple premises in Ayodhya (photo taken by the author).

What does a Hindu India mean for Christian and Muslim minorities? It means “subordination to the Hindu majority and living as second-class citizens, just like the Jews under Nazi Germany,” a Christian priest in the north Indian district of Varanasi told me, adding, “Religious persecution of Christian minorities by Hindu fundamentalists has reached a critical stage.”

Musa Azmi, a Muslim activist in Varanasi, expressed concern that large-scale riots against Muslims may be organized by Hindu fundamentalists before the national election in 2024. “Even the local courts are taking decisions that favor the Hindu majority,” he complained. Indian religious minorities feel that they no longer enjoy the religious freedom and rights they had under the secular Congress Party until 2014. 

In the first eight months of 2023, there were 525 attacks against Christians in India. Manipur has experienced several incidents of targeted violence against Christians amid ongoing civil unrest. According to a report by the United Christian Forum (UCF), Christians are also legally harassed, as the police have failed to prosecute perpetrators of mob violence. Statements made by ruling party leaders appear to have acted as a force multiplier, leading to greater impunity. The ruling Hindu nationalists party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has threatened Catholics in Goa with calls to “wipe out” the history of Portuguese presence.

Hijacking Religion for Political Gain

Most of the religiously motivated attacks have been carried out by ultranationalist, right-wing Hindu groups, such as Hindu Yuva Vahini, Hindu Jagran Manch, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Bajrang Dal, and Vishva Hindu Parishad. These groups are linked to the ruling BJP, which uses the Hindu identity and religion to turn the sentiments of the majority against not only Christian and Muslim minorities but also the core of principles of the Indian Constitution, such as secularism, religious pluralism, and respect for cultural harmony and diversity. The Modi government has hijacked Hinduism and the national media to demonize religious minorities and the political opposition, who are portrayed as enemies of the Hindu religion.

Public acts of violence against Muslims appeal to core Hindu nationalist supporters. In their efforts to restore India’s lost glory, Hindu nationalists pursue such policies as securing the site of the Babri mosque for a Hindu temple and renaming places with Hindu names (often replacing Muslim names). The identities of religious minorities are being erased, and past events are being retold to create an “official” Hindu state history. Simultaneously, they have been stripping Jammu and Kashmir of its special status through the dilution of Article 370, and moving towards a new Citizenship Law with the potential to exclude Muslims from Indian citizenship.

Studies have shown that religious strife politically benefits the Hindu nationalist party, and this has encouraged violence against religious minorities and their sacred sites. Now that the Ram temple has been inaugurated, the controversial Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi appears to be the BJP’s next target in an effort to win the national election in 2029. This means that religious polarization and the vilification of religious minorities are likely to increase in the coming years.

The author published a study on the impact of Hindutva on secular democracy and human rights in 2024.

The use of the Hindu religion under the Modi government has reached new heights, leading to an increase in the Hindu majority’s hostility toward religious minorities. Not only religious freedom but academic and press freedom have also been severely curtailed in India. With the growing influence of Hindu nationalism on Indian society, the religious persecution of minorities is likely to escalate in tandem with a decline of secular democracy.

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Celebrating Sylff’s Twentieth Anniversary at Jadavpur University

October 23, 2023
By 24646

The much-anticipated return of in-person gatherings in the Sylff community was spearheaded by Jadavpur University, which hosted a COVID-delayed LANS meeting in March 2023 to commemorate JU-SYLFF’s twentieth anniversary. Sritama Chatterjee (Jadavpur University, 2017) reports on the gathering of Sylff alumni, who explored key questions confronting scholars in the humanities and social sciences.

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How do we reimagine our scholarship and engagement with the public in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic? This key question was at the heart of the Local Association Networking Support (LANS) meeting organized by Jadavpur University on March 28, 2023. This was the third time that JU organized a LANS gathering to promote the spirit of collaboration, exchange, and community among Jadavpur fellows, who have become leaders in their respective fields around the world. The LANS meet offered a space for the fellows to rekindle intellectual networks, though the fellows have always made efforts despite the pandemic to stay in touch with one another. The occasion also marked the twentieth anniversary of Sylff at JU. We were honored to be joined by Mari Suzuki, executive director of the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research, on the occasion and for the Foundation’s continued support toward our work.

The presence of the JU-SYLFF executive committee at the meeting was also noteworthy. Each committee member, including our assistant pro-vice-chancellor and finance officer, offered encouraging words and pledged continuous administrative support for the work of the JU-SYLFF community. The LANS meeting began with Professor Shibashis Chatterjee, director of JU-SYLFF, welcoming Executive Director Suzuki, the fellows, and members of the executive committee to the meeting, followed by remarks from Professor Joyashree Roy, founder-advisor of JU-SYLFF, who recounted the history of how Sylff came to Jadavpur University in 2003. Faculty mentors present at the meeting—Professor Emerita Supriya Chaudhuri and Professor Kavita Panjabi—recounted how fellows over the years have gone on to make their presence felt in their distinctive ways.

As scholars in the humanities and social sciences, how we remember and document our institutional histories matter. To that end, we published the newsletter celebrating 20 years of Sylff at JU that carried articles and artwork of the members of JU-SYLFF community. The newsletter that I and other fellows—Moitrayee Sengupta, Sujaan Mukherjee, and Soumya Bhowmick—conceptualized and edited was the culmination of months of labor: writing a call for papers and multiple emails, reaching out to members of the community, writing an editorial, proofreading, copy-editing, and designing. Our hope is that the newsletter will serve to document the multiple interests and work that the JU-SYLFF community has done over the years and note the shifts and transformations.

Publication of the twentieth-anniversary issue of the JU-SYLFF newsletter.

The meeting followed a unique format featuring three roundtables focused on the themes of justice, governance, and public humanities. Questions developed by our faculty mentors and focused on these themes were shared with the fellows participating in the roundtable in advance so that the conversation could be streamlined and nuanced.

The first roundtable on justice was chaired by Professor Kavita Panjabi, and Sylff fellows Sreerupa Bhattacharya, Renee Lulam, and Sritama Chatterjee participated to consider the utility, limits, and potential of various modes of justice. Questions for this roundtable included: (a) Do you think restorative justice, which focuses on repairing the harm caused by the crime, can be a practical and effective alternative in contemporary times to retributive justice, which focuses on punishing an offence? Explain how or why not. (b) Do you think linguistic justice runs the risk of becoming a tokenism, whereby diversity accepted and even celebrated at the linguistic level may leave untouched a deep disdain for minorities and may even result in increased oppression in everyday life? To contextualize the roundtable, Professor Panjabi put forward various definitions of justice, such as restorative, reparative, and retributive, and referred to several Greek tragedies. In response to the questions posed, participants in the roundtable reflected on questions of accountability, the limits of the legal system, the #MeToo movement, and feminist ethics of justice.

The second roundtable focused on governance and was chaired by Professor Shibashish Chatterjee. Sylff fellows Sulagna Maitra, who travelled all the way from Dublin, and Sreya Mita were the participants for this roundtable. Questions addressed included: (a) How do we characterize the existing modes of governance in contemporary times? What are its normative goals? Your reflections on how modern capitalism and administration function would be very helpful. (b) How do we understand global governance and its challenges in the contemporary world order? What are the major issues involved? Is there a crisis of global governance at present? (c) Is governance a matter of justice or efficiency? What do existing practices suggest? Drawing on her expertise in humanitarian action, Sulagna Maitra reflected on the utility and limits of such action in the current geopolitical climate, while Sreya Mitra articulated her discomfort about the term “governance” itself: governance for what and for whom?

The conversations about equity and justice paved the way for the roundtable on public humanities and the value of the humanities in today’s world at a time of increasing anti-intellectualism. Chaired by Professor Emerita Supriya Chaudhuri, the roundtable saw Sujaan Mukherjee, Shubhasree Bhattacharyya, Sebanti Chatterjee, and Nikhilesh Bhattacharya speaking about the need for a more expansive understanding of what the humanities can bring to archival spaces, classrooms, and museum settings. The questions posed to the participants included: (a) One of the major concerns of public humanities is whether a humanities education itself can survive in an increasingly corporatized and managerial higher education system. What, in your opinion, is the role of the humanities today? (b) Should public humanities engage with the moral economy of well-being, debating questions of equality, access, freedom, and the need to formulate a concept of social justice? (c) How can public humanities go beyond narrowly human interests in order to address planetary concerns, such as inter-species relations, biopolitics, and environmental risk? In response to the questions about higher education, Shubhasree Bhattacharya reflected on a question that she was once asked, “What do you produce in the humanities?” While it prompted momentary laughter among all, it was a good reminder to escape falling into the vicious cycle of neoliberal models of academic productivity often demanded of scholars in the humanities and instead focus on work that will benefit communities and students, as stressed by both Mukherjee and Bhattacharya.

The LANS meet ended with a writing segment where participants reflected on their takeaways from the meet and with a group photo. As a JU-SYLFF fellow, I hope that the 2023 meeting will pave the way for more dynamic exchange and collaboration among fellows in the future.

Participants of the JU-SYLFF LANS meet 2023 pose for a group photo.

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Has the Hindu Majority Developed a ‘Nazi Conscience’ in India?

August 28, 2023
By 28804

Emboldened by state support, Hindu nationalists have unleashed violent attacks on religious minorities in India, writes Amit Singh (University of Coimbra, 2020-21), leading to the development of a ‘Nazi conscience’ among the country’s Hindu majority.

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Organized and sporadic violence by Hindu extremists against religious-ethnic minorities in India has shocked the world, particularly ethnic violence in Manipur. Under the Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, cases of mob-lynching and killings are becoming pattern in a religiously polarized Hindu India, targeted to minorities. The prominence of ethnic revival, large number of Hindu participations in such violence, and lack of their condemnation of these acts, all of these factors give rise to the question as to whether the Hindu majority has developed ‘Nazi conscience.’

Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. Photograph by the author

 
The idea of Nazi conscience was originally applied in the context of the genocide of Jews in Nazi Germany, where the Nazis, along with an ordinary Germans, morally justified the murder of Jews. A general apathy to the human rights of minorities, a lack of respect towards the life of ‘others,’ and normalization of violence against them are fundamental parts of the Nazi conscience. 

In the Indian context, Hindutva as a vehicle of Hindu nationalism has ignited a kind of Nazi conscience in ordinary Hindus that makes violence against religious minorities seem normal and justified. This includes witnessing daily violence against Muslim minorities and Dalits and not intervening in such acts.

The Hindutva’s political narrative of past invasions by Muslim rulers and their atrocities against Hindus in the middle ages and the partition of India in 1947 has made the Hindu majority hostile to Muslims. Constitutional privileges such as personal family rights for Muslims and religious grants anger the Hindu majority. They feel victimized and insecure, and Hindutva leaders manipulate these anti-Muslim sentiments for political victory.

Ideologically Justified Violence

The RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), a Hindu militant organization, has shaped Hindu nationalism into a hegemonic ideology and propagates Hindu exclusivity of religion and culture. The Hindutva ideologue MS Golwalkar asserted that the country's minorities should be treated in the same way as the Nazis treated the Jews. With its political front BJP currently in power, the RSS has succeeded in influencing the collective Hindu psyche to take vengeance against Muslims.

These calculated attempts by the RSS have been instrumental in creating a militant identity and Nazi conscience amongst the Hindu majority against perceived foreign “invaders,” such as Muslims and Christians. With each passing ethno-religious riot, the Hindu collective self is gradually being desensitized and freed from collective guilt in the observation or killing of human life. For a person with a Nazi conscience, violence is now perceived to be morally righteous.

Violence has become essential for Hindutva politics, and in this way it could be said that the Hindu majority has developed a ‘Nazi conscience.’ The Hindus have lost historical sensitivity towards religious minorities with whom they have lived for hundreds of years. The use of ‘Hindu nationalism’ in post-colonial India has actually benefited the BJP in elections. However, at the same time, Hindu nationalism has done great harm to communal harmony of Indian society. Hindus have been turned against Muslims—although, in some exceptional cases, Hindus did save the lives of Muslims.

Modi’s Hindutva state has played a key role in this process. The state has granted impunity to those involved in the lynching of Muslims and has rewarded those responsible for inciting riots. And the State has constantly harassed those who have come out in protest against Hindu intolerance and Islamophobia.

In large-scale riots, such as the Gujrat riots in 2002 and ethnic violence in Manipur, the perpetrators were Hindu extremists and victims were primarily religious ethnic minorities. Big riots, moreover, usually happen with the complicity of the state machinery and the Hindu majority. So, the majority is not just a passive onlooker but a participant in the ritual of violence.

Rewarding the Islamophobic Leader    

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is notorious for his complicity in the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujrat in 2002. He has built his political career on the basis of communal violence and fear. And the Hindu majority reelected him in 2019. The Hindu majority bears deep resentment against Muslims. In fact, one study reveals that the BJP gains in the polls after every anti-Muslim riot.

Under the RSS-backed Modi’s regime since 2014, anti-Muslim narratives have been strategically propagated by the government. The mainstream media has consistently cultivated a deep animosity against religious minorities. This process of vilification has normalized violence against them. The ascendency of Hindu nationalism has given Hindus ‘the power to claim, and receive, impunity for violence from elected governments.’

Muslims and Dalits have been lynched by mobs of Hindutva fanatics; violence against them is normalized and seems to be supported by the Modi government. Vijay Narayan, a political activist in Varanasi, argues that the Hindu majority is influenced by the fascist ideology of Hindu nationalism.

Failed Secularism

After the bloody partition in 1947, secularism was introduced as an alternative to Hindu nationalism to protect Indian society from communal frenzy and religious fanaticism. Indian secularism, unique in its kind, is associated with religious tolerance. Yet, ironically, the Hindu majority has never abandoned the idea that India is a Hindu nation. It has rejected traditional Hindu tolerance, an idea that enabled communal harmony among India’s diverse population.

Indian secularism has failed to prevent the rise of Hindutva and the communalization of the Hindu masses. As long as the public institutions and the mainstream media are under the influence of the Hindu nationalist government, the process of Nazification of the Hindu majority cannot be checked. Alarm about the possibility of an impending Muslim genocide is already being sounded. To achieve communal harmony, the state must rid itself of Hindutva and follow constitutional secularism. This seems almost impossible under the present Hindu nationalist government.

If the influence of Hindutva on the Hindu majority and the Hindu religion increases, the general state of human rights, especially freedom of expression and rights of religious-ethnic minorities, and secularism is likely to deteriorate. However, we must remember that religious tolerance and resistance is a part of the India’s ancient secular traditions that challenged Hindu fundamentalism thorough the various periods of Indian history. In the longer run, there is a possibility of resistance to Hindu religious bigotry that could weaken the influence of Hindutva on Indian society. It can bring secular democratic change stalling the process of the Nazification of the Hindu majority and preventing them from becoming a Nazified Hindu.

This article was originally published in The Loop and is reprinted here following slight modification by the author. The views presented here are of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Sylff Association.

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India Should Be a Human Rights Concern for Japan

May 16, 2022
By 28804

Amit Singh, a 2020 Sylff fellow, is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. In this article, he discusses how Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s March 2022 trip to India was paradoxical in the light of the latter’s poor human rights situation. But Japan has the potential to influence that situation by using its financial leverage, he says.

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The recent visit by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to India was a normal diplomatic trip that occurred under abnormal circumstances, given that the Indian government is waging an indirect war against its own citizens—the Indian Muslims, seculars, and liberals. Indeed, these are not normal circumstances for democracy and human rights in India. And signing trade agreements with a country that is currently on the list of countries at risk of genocide brings the human rights commitment of the Japanese government under question. Japan supports the idea that protecting human rights is the most fundamental responsibility of any nation and affirms that the human rights of all people should be respected, regardless of their countries’ cultures, traditions, and political and economic systems. In addition, it recognizes the importance of a thriving civil society and attaches great importance to dialogue with it. But even as Kishida shook his hands with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India’s scathing assault on human rights and civil society continued unabated.

Narendra Modi and Fumio Kishida in New Delhi 19 March 2022, Source: Government of India

 

Japan and India

Relations between Japan and India go back to the sixth century, when Buddhism was introduced to Japan. Since then, with the exception of some intervals, their relationship has continued to today.

In principle, both Japan and India are committed to taking bold measures to tackle challenges to sustainable development and global peace. But this task becomes even more difficult than it already is when democracies around the world are gradually overtaken by authoritarian and populist rulers who could seriously undermine the rule-based international order. Without strong democracies, it is hard to imagine a fair and just world. As such, the dismantling of Indian democracy should be a concern for Japan, an old ally of India that is connected with the latter through shared values of human rights, democracy, and the Buddhist precepts of nonviolence and peace.

Labeled as “partially free” and an “electoral autocracy,” India is currently governed by Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was once shunned by Western governments due to his complicity in the Godhra massacres. Even though India’s being a secular democracy provides constitutional safeguards to religious minorities, Hindu nationalists do not support the idea of religious equality. Hindu nationalism is radically far right, and given its belief in Hindu supremacy, it is a dangerous mix of religion and politics; it supports the discriminatory caste system, negates racial and religious equality, and disregards the discourse of human rights. Since 1925, The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has been India’s staunchest proponent of Hindu nationalism. The RSS is a parental organization of the current ruling party of India, the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP). Modi was a full-time RSS worker in the past, notorious for his complicity in the Godhra communal riots when he was the chief minister of the Gujarat state in 2002. Since Modi’s ascendance to power in 2014, a consistent move to curtail freedom of speech, the right to dissent, freedom of press, and religious freedom has descended India into a state of “elective despotism.”  


Kishida’s Human Rights Diplomacy

Against this background, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida landed in India on March 19, 2022, to strengthen Japan’s special relation with its old ally, ignoring ongoing human rights violations in India. Interestingly, Kishida wrote an article in an Indian newspaper highlighting the commonality between two countries, noting that they are “linked by universal values such as freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.” During his visit, however, there was no scrutiny of the current human rights situation in India or constructive dialogue on the subject with the Indian government. Even though Kishida supports a forceful brand of human rights diplomacy and firmly believes that the promotion and protection of all human rights is a “legitimate interest” of the international community, dialogue on this “legitimate interest” was absent in his India visit, as if his government did not want to offend the Indian government. His human rights concerns seem limited to China, Tibet, and Hong Kong.

There is a strange paradox between the two countries: whereas Japan has consolidated its democratic political structures and developed policies for the promotion and protection of human rights, the Indian government is in the process of dismantling democratic structures, vandalizing independent institutions, and vaporizing constitutional safeguards meant to protect its citizens. In the 2020 Human Freedom Index, which ranks countries based on civil, economic, and personal freedom, India was ranked 111th. Another report by the Economic Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index highlighted the “democratic regression” and “erosion of civil liberties” in India. In the land of Mahatma Gandhi—who introduced “civil disobedience,” a method of peaceful protest, to the world—the criminalization of peaceful expression is becoming a legal norm intended to stifle democratic dissent.

Procession of Hindu religious nationalists during the Hindu festivals often turns violent.


Potential for Japanese Influence

Using its financial leverage, though, Japan can support human rights in India. As Japan is currently India’s largest aid donor, it could positively influence the Indian government’s hostile attitude toward human rights by adding human rights conditionality (in trade negotiations), that is, providing that preferences can be withdrawn in case of systematic violations of human rights. In this context, Japan could follow the example of mainstreaming of human rights in European Union trade policy. To make human rights more effective, Japanese academic Maiko Ichihara suggests that human rights assistance to non-state stakeholders  could play an important role in supporting human rights abroad. It should be noted that Japan’s entire international aid apparatus is currently built around government-to-government assistance, excluding civil society and the human rights community of the beneficiary country.  

Observing Prime Minister Kishida’s efforts to promote human rights domestically and globally, however, his silence on the human rights situation in India has seriously impacted Japan’s positioning as a trustworthy and credible supporter for human rights worldwide. His reticence on the human rights situation in India also questions his noble intention to promote freedom and democracy as a universal value.

While Japan had hitherto been reluctant to intervene into the human rights affairs of other countries, this is likely to change under the Kishida government with the creation of a new cabinet-level position of special adviser on human rights, who would coordinate mainstreaming human rights issues across Japan’s ministries and in its foreign relations. But in order to promote and protect human rights abroad, Japan’s human rights diplomacy must go beyond realpolitik in its foreign relations, and the country needs to be more assertive in matters of human rights, particularly with its old ally India. Without a “serious commitment to human rights,” Japan’s human rights diplomacy will be ineffective in bringing any real, intended change.  

 

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Politics of Anxiety and Faith: Hindutva in War with Gandhi’s Soul

February 24, 2022
By 28804

“Our target is to make India Hindu Rashtra by 2021. The Muslims and Christians don’t have any right to stay here...So they would either be converted to Hinduism or forced to run away from here."                                 
         (Rajeshwar Singh, RSS office-bearer, cited in Islam, 2020)

It was not long ago when communal harmony and religious pluralism were synonymous with India. Mahatma Gandhi united a deeply religiously diverse Indian population to fight against British rule. Gandhi, a religious Hindu, mobilized diverse Indian citizenry to an inclusive, tolerant, and religiously plural discourse which helped religious minorities affirm their faith in an inclusive India. Gandhi tried to address the ontological (in)security of religious minorities who were unsure about their security in a Hindu majority nation. The idea of Ontological security (Gidden, 1991) refers to a ‘person’s fundamental sense of safety in the world’, it includes a basic trust of other people and, it is intimately connected to emotions.

It is important to note, Gandhi was murdered on 30th January 1948 by a member of RSS (Venugopal, 2016) Nathuram Godse, who abhorred the idea of Hindu-Muslim unity. Gandhi's long-cherished idea of communal harmony was disrupted when Prime Minister Narendra Modi – a Hindu nationalist leader – rose into power in 2014. Modi moved Hindutva (also known as Hindu nationalism) from the political margins to mainstream politics. So, one can naturally ask, what is the relationship between Hindutva and Gandhi’s inclusive nationalism regarding ontological (in)security and, what different emotional atmosphere Hindutva create compare to Gandhi's interculturality. Possibly, an analysis of the emotional process inscribed in the ontological (in)security script could help to find an answer.

An ontological (in)security approach could provide an interesting insight into the emotional processes of Hindu electorates which has helped Hindutva populists leader Narendra Modi elected as the Prime minister of India and reconfirmed, despite knowing his complicity in the Godhra communal riots (The Guardian, April 7th 2020) when he was the chief minister of the Gujrat state in 2002. An ontological (in)security approach helps in understanding the emotional environment created by such extremist’s (Hindutva) ideology and its violent response against the ‘Others’. Hindutva thrives through the emotional governance (Richard, 2007) communication through emotional messages, and provides emotional security to an insecure Hindu electorate through religion and nationalism while stigmatizing Muslims and Christians. The ontological security approach considers that humans are security seekers by nature, they are always in search of stability, and security while seeking to reduce their 'fear' and 'anxiety'. In this context, 'religion' and 'nationalism' are the two most important identity-signifier (Kinnvall, 2019) which provide stability and security in times of the perceived crisis. 

The aggressive rise of Hindutva in the 1980s is a crucial turning point for a secular Indian state, which is on the verge of becoming a Hindu authoritarian state where calls for genocide of Muslims (Aljazeera news, December 24, 2021) and their mob lynching is normalized. Hindutva is radically far-right, hierarchical, authoritarian, and based on the idea of Hindu supremacy. On different levels, Hindutva seeks to repress dissenting views, expunging religious pluralism and secularism from the Indian political discourse. Religious minorities in India, currently, live under the constant fear of being attacked by Hindu extremist organizations such as RSS.

The discourse of Hindutva consists of a populist narrative of nativism, nationalism, and religion. Its appeal became particularly relevant in the time of perceived economic, social and political, or psychological crisis, in which ontological insecurity arises from the attempt to put identity and autonomy in question with anxiety, insecurity and alleged dangers (Laing 1965). In this context, Hindutva leaders frequently incite Hindus by portraying Muslims as rapist and violent, setting a narrative of fear that the Muslim population will take over India in fifty years (Soz, 2016), thus, Hindus will be a minority in their own country; this appears to create ontological insecurity among Hindus who may perceive that their religious identity and autonomy is in danger, thus, they react by supporting Hindutva extremists leaders, and sometimes are complicit in violence against Muslim minorities.

Hindutva followers with Hindutva saffron flag taking its procession in Varanasi.

 

The Indian case shows us how an illusion of ontological (in)security has helped Hindu extremism rise. Modi have been religiously polarizing Indian electorates; he invoked past traumas (Islamic invasion of India) and glories (fantasies of the greatness of the Ancient India and Kingdom of Rama) of a lost Hindu nation. In his recent visit to Varanasi at the Kashi Vishwanath temple, Modi invoked the greatness of the Indian (Business Standard, December 13, 2021) while underlining the atrocities perpetrated under the Muslim rulers; while laying the foundation stone for the Ram temple at Ayodhya, Modi again invoked (Indian Express, August 5, 2020) India’s eternal glory. Setting the emotional political narrative around restoring the Hindu temples in Kashi, Mathura (The Hindu, December 10, 2021) and Ayodhya are also parts of this ontological security; temples represent the symbolic superiority of the mythic spiritual glory of the ancient Hindu nation, and their fall at the hands of Muslim invaders represents national humiliation (national trauma) of Hindus. This narrative generates an atmosphere of ontological insecurity among Hindus who could vent their anger against Muslims. 

It shall be noted that the Islamic invasion of India (12th to the 16th centuries) and the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 are some big events that are projected by Hindu nationalists as a historical traumatic event in their effort to generate narratives of constant rage, fear and, anxiety among the Hindu majority, which usually results in Islamophobia and, normalization of violence against Muslims. Central to such narrative construction (Kinnvall, 2016) are the collective identity and collective emotions, such as love for the nations or hate, fear, or disgust for the strange others such as Muslims. An ontologically insecure Hindu electorate demands unquestioned loyalty to its imagined nation, to its national history, and its sacred culture. Thus, these narratives of a sacred Hindu land became the objects of the people's imaginations onto which fantasies of national unity are projected to rescue the belief in the core and stable identities (Kinnvall, 2016) which is Hindu religion and culture. The use of violence, coercion and threats are justified by Hindutva to protect their core identities; because of this, Hindutva is also referred to as a muscular nationalism (Banerjee, 2012).

The re-invention of nationhood and religion (Kinnvall, 2019) in Hindutva discourse is aimed at 'healing' several ontological insecurities by which the Hindu majority suffers. Among such fears and emotional responses of Hindutva has been manifested in the forms of; Love-jihad, Corona-jihad (Milli cornicle, April 19, 2020) UPSC-jihad (The Print, November 18, 2020) mob lynching of Muslim (BBC, September 2, 2021) and Dalits, disrupting Muslim prayers (NDTV, December 18, 2021) vandalizing Churches (November 30, 2021) and boycotting Muslims vegetable (News Click, April 13, 2020) vendors and sellers.

Gandhi tried to heal public anxiety and insecurity through his inclusive nationalism. He mobilized people to gain political freedom from British colonialism. Nevertheless, Gandhian nationalism was not narrow or exclusive but meant for the benefit of the whole of humanity.  He tried to make public ontology secure through his idea of inclusive nationalism and intercultural unity. Gandhi believed in inclusive nationalism irrespective of religion, caste, and class. For Gandhi, nation was to improve the living conditions of the people (Patnaik, 2019) or to "wipe away the tears from the eyes of every Indian". Gandhi was inspired by the Hindu religious and spiritual values promoting Hindu ways of life, discipline, fasting method, and mental purity. His political actions (civil disobedience, fasting) were in line with the Hindu religious ideas of truth and non-violence. 

However, Gandhi was concerned about the deep communal tension among communities (Hindu-Muslims, Dalits-Upper castes, rich-poor), thus managing such tensions and averting serious conflict was on top of his political agenda. He believed that communal violence could trigger ontological insecurities among communities and could jeopardize the freedom struggle and communal harmony among them. His religiously plural discourse helped him create an ontologically secure environment and, cementing ties with Muslims and other religious minorities and lower-caste Hindus.

By employing an inclusive intercultural approach based on mutual respect and equal regard, Gandhi stressed the fundamental unity of all religions and tolerance for different faiths. At the ontological (in)security level, these methods, and processes reduced the anxiety and fear among diverse communities, assuaged fear of religious minority from the majority, and helped create a feeling of security. His idea to establish a ‘just society’ (Jahanbegloo, 2020) was also an ontological security provider to all Indians. Contrastingly, Hindu nationalists are instilling ontological insecurity among Hindus to exclude Muslims, to establish Hindu supremacy which has paved a way for an unjust society.

From the aforementioned discussion, it shall be clear that Hindutva, by creating an atmosphere of insecurity and anxiety has made the Hindu public ontologically insecure whereas Gandhi, tried to provide ontological security to the public by building an environment of religious harmony and intercultural faith. This shows that by looking into the emotional process enacted within Hindu nationalism through the idea of ontological (in)security it is possible to outline the major differences between Gandhian inclusive nationalism and the Hindutva exclusionary discourse.

 

References:

Banerjee, Sikata (2012) Muscular nationalism: gender, violence and empire in India and Ireland, 1914–2004 (New York: New York University Press)

Giddens A, (1991) Modernity and Self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Cambridge: Polity

Islam, Shamshul (2020) RSS founders 'endorsed' Nazis: It’s well-nigh impossible for races, cultures to 'coexist', Counterview, available at https://www.counterview.net/2020/09/rss-founders-endorsed-nazis-its-well.html

Jahanbegloo, R (2020) The Mahatma as an intercultural Indian, available at https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-mahatma-as-an-intercultural-indian/article32747352.ece

Kinnvall, Catarina (2019) Populism, ontological insecurity and Hindutva: Modi and the masculinization of Indian politics, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, DOI: 10.1080/09557571.2019.1588851

Kinnvall, Catarina (2016) Feeling Ontologically (in)secure: States, traumas and the governing of gendered space, Cooperation and Conflict, Sage publication, DOI: 10.1177/0010836716641137

Laing R. D (1965) The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness, Penguin Psychology, Paperback

Patnaik, P (2019) For Gandhi, nationalism was based on understanding what was required for people to be free, available https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/mahatma-gandhi-nationalism-capitalism-marx-6054147/

Richards B. (2007) Politics as Emotional Labour. In: Emotional Governance: Politics, Media and Terror. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230592346_8

Soz, A. S. (2016) RSS Claims About Rapid Growth of the Muslim Population are Simply False, available at https://thewire.in/politics/rss-claims-rapid-growth-muslim-population-simply-false

Venugopal, V (2016) Nathuram Godse never left RSS, says his family, available at https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/nathuram-godse-never-left-rss-says-his-family/articleshow/54159375.cms?from=mdr

Web resources:

Aljazeera: India: Hindu event calling for genocide of Muslims sparks outrage, available at

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/24/india-hindu-event-calling-for-genocide-of-muslims-sparks-outrage

BBC: Beaten and humiliated by Hindu mobs for being a Muslim in India, available at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-58406194

Business Standard: Kashi Vishwanath Dham is testament to India's culture, history: Modi, available at https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/kashi-vishwanath-dham-is-testament-to-india-s-culture-ancient-history-pm-modi-121121300642_1.html

Indian Express: Ram Mandir Bhumi Pujan: Full text of PM Narendra Modi’s speech in Ayodhya, available at https://indianexpress.com/article/india/ram-mandir-bhumi-pujan-full-text-of-pm-narendra-modis-speech-in-ayodhya/

Indian Express: Delhi: Site of proposed church ‘vandalised’ in Dwarka, religious group returns to Punjab, available at https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/delhi-dwarka-church-vandalism-ankur-narula-ministries-7648358/

The Hindu: In Parliament, BJP pitches for Krishna Temple at Mathura, available at

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/in-parliament-bjp-pitches-for-krishna-temple-at-mathura/article37917874.ece

The Milli Chronical: OPINION: Corona-Jihad of Hindutva vs Communists of Kerala

available at https://millichronicle.com/tag/corona-jihad/

The Print: ‘UPSC jihad’ show offensive, could promote communal attitudes — govt in affidavit to SC, available at https://theprint.in/india/governance/upsc-jihad-show-offensive-could-promote-communal-attitudes-govt-in-affidavit-to-sc/547415/

NDTV: 'Must Say Bharat Mata Ki Jai': Gurgaon Muslims Trying To Offer Namaz Told, available at https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/gurgaon-namaz-row-must-say-bharat-mata-ki-jai-gurgaon-muslims-trying-to-offer-namaz-told-2657225

News Click: Muslim Vegetable Vendor Abused, Thrashed in Delhi, One Arrested, available at https://www.newsclick.in/Muslim-Vegetable-Vendor-Abused-Thrashed-Delhi-One-Arrested

The original article is published in Alice news.
https://alicenews.ces.uc.pt/index.php?lang=1&id=37275

 

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Credence, Chlorine and Curfew: Doing Ethnography under the Pandemic

July 15, 2021
By 28933

If there is one profound truth about ethnography, it is that intimacy,
and not distancing, is crucial.
(Fine and Abramson 2020, 1)

 

Sara Nikolić, a 2020 Sylff fellow, has had to conduct ethnographic fieldwork under the coronavirus pandemic. In this candid account of how the challenge affected her, emotionally as well as in terms of the course of her research, Nikolić says the experience reinforced her love of ethnography and her belief that it is not interchangeable with other methods.

 *　*　*

Starting fieldwork and facing the most significant academic endeavour in a young researcher‘s life is probably never easy. Starting fieldwork in your neighbourhood may sound like a good idea—only until the first wave of the doubt to your research site, the ability to set boundaries and juggle the insider perspective engulfs you. However, starting fieldwork in a densely populated large housing estate under the “first wave” of a global pandemic never sounded like a good idea.

“The expected delay in collecting data will abort many ethnographies. COVID-19 and its future viral siblings may deter those who would pursue ambitious field studies”. However, my research is not really that ambitious. So I try. In weeks when the number of infected seem to be declining, when everyone around me is healthy and when I manage to overcome typical postgraduate insecurities, I keep trying.

These lines are a testament to my confrontation with the flagrant fact that it is not entirely up to me—that I have chosen to relinquish control. In that sense, this essay is an attempt to become aware, articulate and accept how the coronavirus pandemic has affected the course of my doctoral research. This essay is an intimate confession about waiting and learning patience rather than about concrete adjustments of urban ethnography methodology to the crisis that has befallen us. In the following lines I will try to reconstruct the pandemic induced research challenges that led me to reinforce my love of ethnography and the value-laden belief that it is not interchangeable with other qualitative methods.

Alterations in a two-storey residential unit in blok 70, New Belgrade. Photo: Dušan Rajić

 Strict curfew introduced by the Serbian Government in March 2020 prohibited people over the age of 65 from leaving the house and occasionally prohibiting younger citizens from leaving their homes for up to 84 hours. When a vibrant and pulsating city dies abruptly, when its citizens’ movement is more restricted than during the bombing, little of the urban life remains for us, researchers of the everydayness, to explore. In the COVID-19 urban landscape of Belgrade—and any other city—intimate, in-person human subject research was (unofficially) prohibited, making ethnography an almost impossible method. Not only did conducting research seem impossible to me at the time, but the very idea of denying the situation we were in deeply disturbed me. The repulsion was so strong that it paralysed me even to dare to approach my neighbours, the rare passers-by who enjoy the spring sun, or the “privileged” individuals who were allowed to walk their dogs, with a request to participate in the research that had nothing to do with our current lifeworlds.

 However, hundreds of photographs, dozens of folders, transcripts, voice recordings, several “smell maps” and a few new acquaintances testify that I have not given up. Nevertheless, for senso-biographic approach and focusing on smell-evoked memories of urban environment that form the backbone of my doctoral research, as well as for the informants’ photographic diaries not to become (only) testaments of life under siege by the virus, I had to wait for the “first wave” to come to an end.

 I don’t know what the smell of my building would be, before this, I would probably say mould from the basement or the smell of cigarettes in the elevator, but all I feel now is chlorine. It smells like a kindergarten. (M, blok 45, female)

 One of my main research interests—self-management in socialist era large housing estates—lurked behind every freshly disinfected staircase. Many buildings’ occupants self-organised into weekly or even daily cleanings to keep the entrances and corridors clean and their families or flatmates safe from the virus. In improvised protective equipment consisting of colourful scarves tied over their faces, rubber gloves and old clothes, armed with their buckets, rags, brooms and mops and the last remaining Domestos or any other chlorine-based disinfectant provided by the municipality, these female troops regained control of the space for the benefit of all. As if taking control of the cleaning schedule, maintaining a routine, following the prescribed steps and performing it together for a moment made the situation outside seem less uncertain.

Bestowing details of these events I recognised as an initiation into the house council simply seemed too intrusive. I hesitated and refused to keep a journal record about self-organized cleaning episodes and to reiterate muffled staircase gossip I overheard during these rites of passage. It almost felt treacherous as in a moment of crisis I perceived my role in the apartment building as a tenant, a neighbour and a girl next door—rather than a cold, rigid and objective researcher.

Therefore, a fellow researcher reading this essay could assume that the research’s explicit part—such as interviews—went better than sketching notes and palpation of the neighbourhood pulse based on informal encounters. A reader could also assume that I, being a girl next door, had no trouble recruiting my neighbours. However, that assumption would be wrong. The fact that I lived close by and was a few minutes’ walk from them, that I was a friendly face they saw on their evening strolls was simply not enough. Nor was the fact that I knew some mutual friends and shared the local references. Lastly, the incentives that I could offer under the Sylff fellowship were irrelevant and insufficient. None of that matters when the danger from an infection is so tangible, and your family members are chronically ill, or you are pregnant or homeschooling your children, or someone close to you has passed away. And on my part, as a vulnerable and empathetic researcher, I could not give up the contacts I built under those trying circumstances and the trust I gained. To this day, I haven’t been able to use some deadline as an argument to recruit new, healthy, childless or carefree informants instead of ones who expressed interest and indicated trust, but their participation was postponed due to objective circumstances.

Ethnographic kit under COVID-19. Photo: Sara Nikolić

As a trained ethnographer, I learned about great heroes who went into the wilderness, who “through toughness and perseverance . . . overcome entry barriers”. I, of course, looked up to them. I too wanted to become a hero who overcame the ethnographic odds.

The reality is that I was anxious, frustrated, and impatient. I envied colleagues who enjoyed moments of privilege where they “finally have time to write”. The rising academic pressure, the “figure-it-out-on-your-own” University policy, the “just send me any chapter you have, and we will count it an exam” helping hand of my professors, the crowdsourced documents that offer solutions for “avoiding in-person interactions by using mediated forms that will achieve similar ends” seemed to conflict with the immersion aspect of ethnography I strived for.

These attempts to stay loyal to the ethnography I believe in bring along many pursuits to establish contact with potential respondents, many cancelled or indefinitely postponed meetings, many unanswered calls and messages, and too many sympathetic shrugs. Moments of elation are quickly followed by ones of letdown and despair. I try to push forward. Sometimes I slip or get lost along the way. Sometimes I try to fix it, reinvent my entry strategy, and rely on snowballing instead of a more organic approach. Seeing that I am only halfway in the process of collecting “the deep data”, I cannot refer to the quality and density of the obtained material.

Working version of the “smell map” of Blok 45, New Belgrade. Source: Sara Nikolić

 We will take a walk outside, in the fresh air and try to grasp your neighbourhood’s smells, and we will both wear masks. It does not interfere with the quality of the recording—I often explain to my potential informants. Smell mapping while wearing (K)N95 masks, however, does not really work. Instead of fleeting but current and vivid neighbourhood smells that we could not detect while wearing masks, during our strolls we frequently evoked childhood memories intertwined with the ubiquitous scents of the area, such as linden blossom or sludge.

Ding dong! The sound of footsteps, the unlocking of doors and clumsy contactless greetings. Just there, I would usually insist on taking off my shoes, as is the epidemiological recommendation and custom in this area. Furthermore, as good hosts, as an expression of respect for the guest, they would insist that I leave the shoes on. After those initial negotiations at the front door, I would get a bottle of alcohol to disinfect my shoes and mobile phone upon entering the apartment. And then, still from a distance, a hand gesture to signal in which direction the toilet is so that I can wash my hands before the interview. When the weather was nice, we would spend visits to the apartment on the balconies or with the windows open, sitting within a reasonable distance.

On a sunny September day, when everything was going at a good pace, the unglamorous and petty disappointment came. It was caused by an informant’s rejection to invite me into his apartment for the final interview, although it was agreed in advance. Of course, I did not let the injured ego peek outside, so I played it cool. However, I was still ashamed of my feelings, of the vanity that flooded me. Why did I take it so personally? Wasn’t I the one who told him he has the right to give up at any moment and set boundaries in which he feels comfortable and safe? How could I not have understood the respect he had for advised physical distance? Have I forgotten that I am not merely a researcher but a possible vector too?

Object elicitation and disinfection in the informant’s apartment. Photo: Sara Nikolić

 Although I do not attach half the importance to this episode today as I did on that September day, it encouraged me to think about how many people passed through my apartment from March to September? Very few, and I knew them all. I trust them. I know how responsible they are, how much they follow all the recommendations, how much they care and how much they are in solidarity with the people around them. Is it possible that I was so upset because I interpreted this man’s responsibility or privacy as distrust? So what if he was distrustful? Don’t we all have the right to be distrustful at a time when we are in danger from an “unknown enemy”, when the media is co-opting military rhetoric, when contradictory information and mutually exclusive recommendations are coming from all sides? Aren’t we, citizens of a country that declared coronavirus “the most ridiculous virus in the world”, and shortly afterwards deprived us of freedom of movement, justifiably distrustful towards anything and anyone? Amidst growing distrust that surrounds us, how can we closely and intimately research something as personal as home, something as inseparable from issues of trust as community relations and self-organization?

 Much as we might adapt our research plans to alternative methods in the current crisis and agree to data-oriented techniques such as structured interviews, we must not forget the importance of the immersive experience and deep hanging out for ethnography. As this crisis helped me rediscover that ethnography is not interchangeable with other qualitative methods, I realised that the pragmatic choice to take time was ideological. The choice that was the only possible one, and the one that I needed—to embrace the vulnerable researcher within me and remain faithful to ethnography at the cost of breaking deadlines and delaying my studies. The choice to advocate for slow science. A science that is not an end in itself, a science that is not cruel and does not require sacrifices or preposterous heroic deeds, a science that does not exploit or endanger the subjects under study. That is science based on questioning and building trust instead of taking it for granted.


Reprinted from https://www.ijurr.org/spotlight-on/becoming-an-urban-researcher-during-a-pandemic/credence-chlorine-and-curfew-doing-ethnography-under-the-pandemic/

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Role of Water in Geopolitics

July 8, 2021
By 28927

Eliska Ullrichova, a 2019 Sylff fellow, offers an overview of the concept of water wars and its implications. Given the rise in water scarcity—the major causes of which include overpopulation, overconsumption, and climate change—diplomacy has an important role to play in easing tensions over water supplies and managing international relations, Ullrichova assers.

*　*　*

Water does not respect political boundaries and, therefore, may be a source of leverage for upstream riparian states over those downstream. However, it is important to underline that water encompasses not only rivers, which are primarily associated with it in international relations, but all surface and groundwater. Based on the concept of water wars and related terms, this short paper illustrates what role water plays in geopolitics.

Water might play a manifold role in a violent confrontation.

Water Wars

The concept of water wars identifies three dimensions of water in geopolitics. Firstly, water resources or infrastructure are prone to be casualties of a violent confrontation either intentionally or accidentally. As an example, pollution of water resources is a well-known consequence of a conflict. Secondly, water resources may be used as a tool in achieving one side’s political, economic, or military interests (Pacific Institute 2019). The weaponization of water was a dominant military strategy of the Islamic State (IS) to achieve its military and political objectives. The IS contaminated water supplies of its enemies and, in particular, used large dams—such as the Fallujah Dam on the Euphrates in Iraq—to either cut off supplies of cities downstream or flood the area above or below the river flow. In addition, the IS used water infrastructure, especially dams, as their military command headquarters or prisons. This hindered the capture of IS positions, because what adversary would lead an airstrike over a dam, knowing that doing so would devastate the surrounding area (Mazlum 2018; van Lossow 2020)? Thirdly, water may cause a dispute over control of water resources and, in the worst-case scenario, the disagreement could lead to an outright and violent conflict (Pacific Institute 2019).

Using dams in a conflict is one of the most common examples of water weaponization.

The third element of water wars—water as a trigger of a violent confrontation—is widely discussed in the academic literature (see Dinar and Dinar 2000; Spector 2000; Postel and Wolf 2001; Gregory 2013). Interestingly, scholars agree that, firstly, water-related issues tend to be a source of an intrastate conflict rather than an international one (e.g., Spector 2000; Postel and Wolf 2001). Secondly, outright strife is rarely triggered by a single variable; they are usually triggered by a set of issues, among which access to water supplies may be included (Postel and Wolf 2001; Farnum 2018). In other words, it is often difficult to classify a violent clash as a war over water, since many other variables alongside it may play a role in the confrontation. However, it does not mean that water is not a catalyst for a conflict at all. Examples can be found as early as 2525 BC in Mesopotamian times between two city-states, Lagash and Umma. Umma repeatedly refused to pay for renting downstream Lagash’s territory for crop cultivation in the water-rich delta of Tigris. In response, Lagash damaged the irrigation system leading to the leased area. Umma could not cultivate crops without water supplies and thus attacked Lagash, which resulted in several successive military confrontations. After the defeat of Umma, the water treaty was reestablished and the canal system reconstructed (see the water conflict map made by the Pacific Institute 2018).

A Solution to a Conflict over Water?

When water causes a violent conflict, the zero-sum approach can never resolve it in a long-term perspective. If a river represents the core of the dispute between upstream and downstream states, the conflict will not result in a situation where two countries no longer share the river basin. On the contrary, water creates interdependent geopolitical relations, and an outright and violent conflict over water supplies is therefore not a sustainable solution. It also goes without saying that, just as the concept of water wars indicates, water resources can be contaminated and water systems destroyed in a conflict that is likely to influence all interested parties. In general terms, wars always have harmful consequences for the environment, and water resources are not an exception. Another feature of water in geopolitics is that civilizations are entirely dependent on water resources, because human beings cannot survive without drinking water. Moreover, economic development is associated with water resources (e.g., agriculture and the energy sector). In other words, a violent conflict over water resources cannot lead to a zero-sum victory, and all involved actors would most likely lose to a greater or lesser extent. This is a fundamental reason why it is believed that wars over water will not occur in future decades more frequently than they did in history (Dunn 2013).

However, it is undeniable that water stress has been increasing due to overpopulation, overconsumption, and climate change—the most significant causes of water scarcity—even in initially water-rich regions. Nevertheless, as I have discussed above, cooperation rather than conflict is a sustainable solution that could lead to a win-win situation. Therefore, water diplomacy, i.e., ʻusing diplomatic instruments with the aim to solve, mitigate or prevent disagreements over shared water resources for the sake of cooperation, regional stability and peaceʼ (Schmeier 2018), seems to be a promising path to fostering multilateral governance over shared water resources and ensuring water security. In view of these goals, the concept of water diplomacy is not limited to states but underlines the necessity of nonstate actorsʼ involvement that play a crucial role as mediator in negotiations over water-related issues, such as the World Bank, or that may provide essential information via monitoring (see, for example, Honkonen and Lipponen 2018).

Water stress has been increasing due to overpopulation, overconsumption, and climate change.

Although there is a consensus in the academic literature that water will not become a frequent catalyst for a violent conflict, it is and will remain a source of tensions in international relations. High water demand from all sectors of human activities (households, agriculture, energy, and so forth) and the reduction of water resources due to overpopulation, overconsumption, and climate change are contradictory phenomena producing unsustainable environments within and among societies. Nevertheless, an outright conflict over shared water resources cannot end in a zero-sum victory. As such, diplomatic instruments are crucial tools for addressing increasing water scarcity and, therefore, tensions over water supplies. Water diplomacy, also called hydro-diplomacy, thus need to be an integral part of international relations more than ever.

 

References

Dinar, S. and A. Dinar. 2000. “Negotiating in International Watercourses: Diplomacy, Conflict and Cooperation.” International Negotiation 5 (2): 93–200. https://doi.org/10.1163/15718060020848721.

Dunn, G. 2013. “Water Wars: A Surprisingly Rare Source of Conflict.” Harvard International Review 35, no. 2 (fall 2013): 46–49. https://refnj2014.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/water-wars.pdf.

Farnum, R. 2018. “Drops of Diplomacy: Questioning the Scale of Hydro-Diplomacy through Fog-Harvesting.” Journal of Hydrology 562 (July 2018), 446–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2018.05.012.

Honkonen, T. and A. Lipponen. 2018. “Finland’s Cooperation in Managing Transboundary Waters and the UNECE Principles for Effective Joint Bodies: Value for Water Diplomacy?” Journal of Hydrology 567 (December 2018), 320–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2018.09.062.

Von Lossow, T. 2020. “The Role of Water in the Syrian and Iraqi Civil Wars.” Italian Institute for International Political Studies. February 26, 2020. https://www.ispionline.it/en/pubblicazione/role-water-syrian-and-iraqi-civil-wars-25175.

Mazlum, I. 2018. “ISIS as an Actor Controlling Water Resources in Syria and Iraq.” In Violent Non-state Actors and the Syrian Civil War: The ISIS and YPG Cases, edited by Özden Zeynep Oktav, Emel Parlar Dal, and Ali Murat Kurşun, 109–25. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67528-2_6.

Pacific Institute. 2018. “Water Conflict Chronology Map.” Accessed March 24, 2021. http://www.worldwater.org/conflict/map/.

Pacific Institute. 2019. “Water Conflict Chronology.” https://www.worldwater.org/water-conflict/.

Postel, S. and A. Wolf. 2001. “Dehydrating Conflict.” Foreign Policy 126. https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/11/18/dehydrating-conflict/.

Schmeier, S. 2018. “What Is Water Diplomacy and Why Should You Care?” Global Water Forum. August 31, 2018. https://globalwaterforum.org/2018/08/31/what-is-water-diplomacy-and-why-should-you-care/.

Spector, B. 2000. “Motivating Water Diplomacy: Finding the Situational Incentives to Negotiate.” International Negotiation 5 (2): 223–36. https://doi.org/10.1163/15718060020848749.

White, C. 2012. “Understanding Water Scarcity: Definitions and Measurements.” Global Water Forum. May 7, 2012. https://globalwaterforum.org/2012/05/07/understanding-water-scarcity-definitions-and-measurements/.