LECTURE SERIES ON GOVERNANCE AND POLITICS IN SOUTH ASIA SUMMER SEMESTER 2025  Audacious Hope – An Archive of How Democracy is Being Defended in India

About the Talk: 

How can we, through individual and collective action, resist authoritarianism, casteism and majoritarianism? As the pillars of democracy crumble across the globe, big and small actions of resistance prop up hope and keep alive a way to rebuild. In the past few decades, ordinary folk in India have stood up to repressive state authority over and over again. Their vital acts of hope preserve the collective spirit of resistance and unwavering resilience necessary to continue the fight for democracy. Audacious Hope by Professor Roy is a careful, rigorous archive of these struggles, including the protests that united farmers across state borders in 2020 and the national outcry following the controversial CAA legislation. From the myriad ways people came to the aid of their fellow citizens during the pandemic to the testing of free-speech boundaries by cultural activists, the book to be presented undertakes the task of documenting resistance in its many forms.

About the Speaker: 

Indrajit Roy (DPhil, Oxford) is Professor of Global Development Politics at the University of York. He specializes on the global politics of hope, at the core of which lies an appreciation of the contentious connections between democracy and development. He investigates the social foundations of democratic deepening, erosion and renewal; the demands for development as a democratic practice; and the circulation of ideas about democracy and development between national and global contexts. Indrajit is a Trustee of the Political Studies Association (PSA) and the British Association of South Asian Studies (BASAS), Executive Member of the International Political Studies Association (IPSA), and Councillor of the Development Studies Association (DSA).