The Shaheen Bagh Protests (15 December 2019 - 24 March 2020): Coloniality, Epistemic Resistance, and Decoloniality in Present-day BJP-led India

该项目使用殖民主义的概念(Quijano，2007)来质疑印度独立于殖民主义而存在的资格。通过探索最近针对反穆斯林公民法的Shaheen Bagh抗议活动，我将调查这种抵抗的认识性(基于知识)方面，以了解当今印度人民党(BJP)领导的印度更广泛的反穆斯林不公正。这种方法的结果将是对印度等领土后殖民国家的殖民主义罪责以及当今对此的抵制的微妙理解。Shaheen Bagh从穆斯林妇女开始，她们中的许多人是第一次抗议，她们占领了德里的公共场所，抗议印度人民党的反穆斯林公民身份修正案。抗议者认为，这一行为是自2014年印度人民党赢得选举以来反穆斯林不公正行为的高潮：私刑，在没有征求她们意见的情况下将穆斯林妇女从伊斯兰离婚习俗中解放出来，站在伊斯兰圣地的破坏者一边，以及穆斯林占多数的克什米尔地区日益军事化。由于新冠肺炎的限制，抗议活动在第101天被迫结束，同时政府销毁了抗议现场的壁画和艺术品。因此，这一项目为记录沙欣·巴格赫的认识意义提供了及时的贡献。虽然学者(Anand 2011)将印度人民党对印度教的认识论承诺理解为印度教民族主义，但人民党领导的“后殖民”国家的动态往往是毋庸置疑的。我将通过用殖民主义来探讨印度教来解决这个问题，我认为，尽管英国在1947年结束了对印度的正式统治，但殖民主义-殖民主义-的压迫性性别和宗教逻辑在印度仍然是霸权，并被人民党永久延续。这产生了认知性和物质伤害--被不公正地刻板印象，从而受到虐待。反过来，Shaheen Bagh对殖民主义的抵抗将被视为认识论抵抗(Medina 2013)：女性抗议者颠覆压迫的性别和反穆斯林印度教女性的结构，视其为顺从和丧失代理。

This project uses the concept of coloniality (Quijano 2007) to question India's credentials of existing independently of colonialism. Through exploring the recent Shaheen Bagh protests against anti-Muslim citizenship laws, I will investigate the epistemic (knowledge-based) aspects of this resistance to understand broader anti-Muslim injustices in present-day Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led India. The outcomes of this approach will be nuanced understandings about both culpability for coloniality in territorially post-colonial states like India, and present-day resistance against this. Shaheen Bagh began with Muslim women, many of whom were first-time protestors, occupying public spaces in Delhi to protest the BJP's anti-Muslim Citizenship Amendment Act. Protestors perceived the act as the culmination of anti-Muslim injustices which have proliferated since the BJP's 2014 election victory: lynchings, 'freeing' Muslim women from Islamic divorce practices without consulting them, siding with destroyers of a holy Islamic site, and ever-increasing militarisation of Muslim-majority Kashmir. The protests were forced to end on their 101st day by Covid-19 restrictions, accompanied by the government's destruction of the protest site's murals and artworks. Hence, this project offers a timely contribution for documenting the epistemic significance of Shaheen Bagh. Whilst scholarship (Anand 2011) understands the BJP's epistemic commitment to Hindutva ('Hinduness') as Hindu nationalism, the dynamics of a BJP-led 'post-colonial' state often remain unquestioned. I will address this by exploring Hindutva with coloniality, arguing that despite the end of formal British rule in India in1947, the oppressive gendered and religious logics of colonialism - coloniality - remain hegemonic in India and are perpetuated by the BJP. This generates epistemic and material harms - being unjustly stereotyped and thus mistreated. In turn, Shaheen Bagh's resistance to coloniality will be explored as epistemic resistance (Medina 2013): the women protestors subverted oppressive gendered and anti-Muslim Hindutva constructions of Muslim women as submissive and bereft of agency.