19 – The Poiesis of Decolonization in South Asia: Comparative Perspectives
The history of decolonization in South Asia is one of solidarity and disjunctions. On one hand,
decolonization made possible polyvocal exchanges of ideas, texts, and translations registered
across international conferences, literary magazines, and political rhetoric across the Global
South. On the other, it was characterized by political agitation and resistance movements,
fuelled by the dissatisfaction with the postcolonial bourgeois’ uncritical adaptation of the
structures of the colonial state. Despite their participation in anticolonial struggles, Adivasis,
caste-oppressed, women and minorities were marginalized. Despite these contradictions,
decolonization was a visionary project that sought to carve out new ways of imagining the
future.
In view of the renewed historical, political, and intellectual concerns about decolonization fuelled
by postcolonial and decolonial theory, this panel revisits the repertoires of anticolonial thought
from South Asia in its various polemical, philosophical, aesthetic, and literary articulations. We
invite papers that imagine decolonizing South Asia in comparative ways and highlight new
geographies, imaginaries, and intellectual traditions marginalized by nationalisms.
Possible topics and questions may include–
1. What did anticolonialism mean in the South Asian context? How radical was it?
1. Anticolonialism through South-South connections: South Asia, West Asia, and North
Africa.
2. Responses to the failures of decolonization.
3. Subaltern critiques of mainstream decolonization.
4. Political, intellectual, and aesthetic afterlives of decolonization.
5. Ontologies and lived experiences of anticolonialism
