Identity and Discrimination in South Asian Politics

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel brings together a diverse set of perspectives to examine the role of identity and identity-based discrimination in South Asian politics, particularly in relation to marginalized groups. It features research on the relationship between state and non-state elite with language, caste, and national identity in India, addressing questions relating to how elites influence citizens’ language choices, when citizens are likely to find justifications for discriminatory religious nationalist laws persuasive, and how threats to elite status influence relations between high status elites and marginalized groups. It further includes discussions of how these dynamics spill over into and play out in South Asian diaspora communities, shaping political mobilization efforts in new contexts.

Sub Unit

• Division 62: South Asian Politics

Individual Presentations

• Speaking to the State: Audit Experiments on Language in Southern India - Deepika Padmanabhan, Yale University

• Ethnicity across Borders: Mobilization against Dalit Discrimination in the US - Anum Syed, George Washington University

• Citizen Support for Religious Nationalist Rhetoric - Rajeshwari Majumdar, Yale University

• The Elite Origins of Shared Identity: Evidence from Colonial India - Sebastian Lucek, Stanford University

• The Color of Politics: Skin Tone and Attitudes towards Caste-Based Voting - Susan L Ostermann, University of Notre Dame; Amit Ahuja, University of California, Santa Barbara

Chair

• Pavithra Suryanarayan London School of Economics

Discussants

• Mashail Aman Malik Harvard University

• Gareth Nellis University of California, San Diego