Martelli, J. T. “Can the Popular Disembody Populism? Students and the Re-appropriation of the Nationalist Floating Signifier in Contemporary Indian Politics.” Studies in Indian Politics (8 April, 2021).

Jean-Thomas Martelli, head researcher in the Politics & Society department of the CSH just got his latest article published in Studies in Indian Politics (SAGE Journals) on 8th April 2021. This essay suggests that the short-lived popularity of the sit-in protests last year successfully appropriated the claim to be the people through invoking a nationalist repertoire partly shared by the current government. They did so by emptying its anti-minorities subtext through appropriating floating signifiers of patriotic belonging such as the Indian constitution, the flag and the anthem.

The full article can be accessed here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2321023021999140