Sentiment, Politics, Censorship
The State of Hurt
- Rina Ramdev - Associate Professor, Department of English, Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi
- Sandhya D. Nambiar - Assistant Professor, Department of English, Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi
- Debaditya Bhattacharya - Assistant Professor, Department of English, Bhagini Nivedita College, University of Calcutta
Data Analysis for Political Science
A refreshing read in terms of its take on the issue of hate speech, hurt, and politics of it.
The currency of “hurt” as a claim to, and pretext for, political correctionism—and often taking recourse to the logic of the antipopular as anti-State—has erected a machinery of censorship governed by the economies and excesses of a “marketplace of outrage.” This volume seeks to map this ready vocabulary of a potential victimhood and its consequent excuse for repressive regimes of State vigilantism.
It investigates the ways in which such “hurt” is expressed and abetted by the State or its actors, staged by popular media and often subsumed as public opinion. It builds the necessary structure of argument around the idea of “hurt” with reference to recent political events, the history of sentimental mobilizations and various kinds of censorship attempts in India.
[The book] delineates how “hurt” is felt and constructed, what “sentiment” mean and where it comes from, and how Indian politics and the nature of its media shape the creation and response to “hurtful” speech.
The editors deserve applause for taking bold stances…this book, thus assumes a focal importance for anyone involved in work and discussions around issues related to free speech, violence and the law.
Their book explores the question of bodily feeling, of sentiment and its inevitable entwinement with politics and censorship in the current Indian scenario…. The collection of essays in this book coming from a wide range of intellectuals offer a well-balanced perspective on an issue that has become more relevant now than ever.