Evil Empire 47the world. India transformed from colony to imperial power virtually
overnight. There has not been a day since the British left India in August
1947 that the Indian army and paramilitary have not been deployed
within the country’s borders against its “own people”: Mizoram, Ma-
nipur, Nagaland, Assam, Kashmir, Jammu, Hyderabad, Goa, Punjab,
Bengal, and now Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand. The dead number
in the tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands. Who are these dangerous
citizens who need to be held down with military might? They are in-
digenous people, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, communists. The pattern
that emerges is telling. What it shows quite clearly is an “upper”-caste
Hindu state that views everyone else as an enemy. There are many who
see Hinduism itself as a form of colonialism—the rule of Aryans over
Dravidians and other indigenous peoples whose histories have been
erased and whose deposed rulers have been turned into the vanquished
demons and asuras of Hindu mythology. The stories of these battles
continue to live on in hundreds of folktales and local village festivals
in which Hinduism’s “demons” are other peoples’ deities. That is why
I am uncomfortable with the word postcolonialism.
as: Talk of dissent and social justice has become mainstream in the age
of Trump—but social media hashtags often stand in for direct action,
and corporations frequently use the language of uplift and social re-
sponsibility while doubling down on unethical business practices. Has
protest been evacuated of its potential today? And in such an environ-
ment, what kind of dissent is capable of cracking the edifice of empire?
ar: You are right. Corporations are hosting happiness fairs and
dissent seminars and sponsoring literature festivals in which free
speech is stoutly defended by great writers. Dissent Is the Cool (and
Corporate) New Way To Be. What can we do about that? When