Universities have increasingly found themselves as targets of Far-Right campaigns seeking to destabilize them. In Aotearoa as in connected settler colonial spaces, this Far-Right campaign is the face of white supremacy, seeking to platform extremists, and concocting a discourse of panic around the Western University in danger because of the struggles put forth by Indigenous, Black, ethnic migrant and diverse intersectional communities against the prevailing ideology of white supremacy.
At the core of the moral panic propagated by the Far-Right is the construction of the University as a hallowed institution of Western civilization (as if Universities and knowledge generating spaces didn’t exist outside of the West). Projecting Indigenous, Black, and migrant communities as threats to Western values, the racist campaign of the Far Right seeks to return the modern University to its good old days. Consider the following post by McGimpsey, a Case, Research and Drafting Advisor at the FSU until March, 2024.
These good old days are days of yore before the colored multitude took over the Universities and turned them into woke bastions!
Positioning itself as the advocate of free speech in Aotearoa and uncritically deployed by the media as a credible source on free speech issues (in spite of multiple analyses that have debunked the methods deployed by the FSU), the Free Speech Union draws on this narrative of decolonization and DEI as threats to the Western ideals of academic freedom.
It glorifies a false narrative of the Anglosphere as the strongest anchor for peace and prosperity, actively erasing the empirically documented history of colonial violence. Consider the following post from the FSU’s X handle, which the handle later apologized for after being publicly called out for the racism.
The FSU is very much a part of the broader global infrastructure of propaganda seeking to impose a narrow definition of free speech and academic freedom on Universities, strategically conflating the two, driven by the agenda of upholding and reproducing the hegemonic status quo.
This broader context offers explanatory ground for understanding the systemic attack launched by FSU on Massey University. The University and its progressive vision that aspires to build a future shaped by Te Tiriti offers a decolonising register that fundamentally threatens the ideology of white supremacy. An earlier decision by the University to not host an event with Don Brash because of the leadership’s worry around being seen as endorsing racism placed it as a target of the FSU.
It is no surprise then that the PULSE survey on organizational climate at Massey University secured through an OIA request becomes the lightning rod for FSU to amplify its campaign targeting the University. The FSU framing of the survey is constructed around ideas of academic freedom. An FSU letter and an RNZ story quoting the FSU state, “Universities rely on voices being free. How do academics progress knowledge in an environment that doesn’t welcome debate and dissenting ideas?”
The FSU hyperbole would lead the reader to believe academic freedom is under threat at Massey. Yet, critical interrogation of the claim lays visible its vacuous form. The hyperbole from FSU is in response to a qualitative comment on the section on Two-way communication, which stated, “Staff also fear that they are not safe to express their honest opinions for fear of reprisal of being seen as not towing the party line.” That cherry picked sentence (We know from my past analyses that the FSU has a penchant for cherry picking responses to fit its ideological agenda) is part of a broader excerpt in a section on staff responses to the prompt, “At Massey University there is open and honest two-way communication.” The prompt had nothing to do with progressing knowledge within one’s own expertise area and the freedom to do so.
The broader paragraph that showcased the example read:
“Staff feel there is a lack of open and honest two-way communication at Massey University. They perceive that senior leadership is not transparent and that important decisions are made without sufficient consultation or input from staff and students. Staff also feel that they are not safe to express their honest opinions for fear of reprisal or being seen as not towing the party line.” The paragraph in its entirety seems to be speaking to the decision-making and consultation processes in the management and administration of the University. It is clear that the staff perceptions of two-way communication are around the University’s day-to-day management functions, not around academic freedom in topic areas of expertise.
The same section also has positive and neutral examples of staff response. The positive response for instance states:
“Staff feel confident that their PVC and HoS are receptive to feedback and make changes when needed. Staff also appreciate the collegial and friendly atmosphere at Massey and feel fortunate to have supportive supervisors who they can communicate with freely. The official and legally correct communication style of the university is also seen as a positive.”
The neutral response states, “There is open and honest two-way communication among staff within schools and between colleagues. However, there is a lack of transparency in leadership decision-making and communication from senior leadership to staff. Some staff feel that their concerns are not listened to and that there is a level of distrust among staff about messages coming from senior leadership.”
Again, both of these responses are reflective of what the overarching prompt was about, perceptions about two-way communication in the organizational practices of the University. Unlike what the FSU makes the responses to look like, the qualitative comments across the spectrum reflect the objective of the prompt, to gauge staff perceptions about two-way communication in the management of the University.
When one picks qualitative comments for analyses, there are going to be a wide range of responses that capture diverse opinions. Considering the sentiment analysis of the generated narratives in response to the prompt, it is worth noting that 5% of staff offer positive responses, 29% offer neutral responses, and 66% offer negative responses. What this does point to is the opportunity to grow two-way communication across the layers of decision-making in the University. The sharing of the PULSE survey report itself, including the range of responses is an exemplar of transparency, a critical step toward building two-way communication. Moreover, the survey itself is part of a process that can work toward building and growing organizational culture.
One might ask, how would I personally respond to the item? I have access to this survey and to diverse platforms to communicate my views on this issue of organizational communication and will certainly not be turning to the FSU to communicate my perception.
What the prompt and the responses to it however don’t capture is academic freedom. There is no evidence to support FSU’s mischievous framing “How do academics progress knowledge in an environment that doesn’t welcome debate and dissenting ideas?” The prompt that generated the responses had nothing to do with academic freedom. Broadly, the PULSE survey actually is not designed to evaluate the space for dissenting (academic) ideas. It is not an academic freedom survey. In fact, when you look at the entirety of the PULSE survey, you recognize that the survey is not designed to evaluate the climate of the University around academic freedom, the freedom to teach and research ideas in one’s area of expertise. That would be an important survey to have on hand, but this isn’t it.
Why then does the FSU construct this slippage between organizational climate and academic freedom? It is my sense that this slippage from staff response to questions of organizational communication and processes to academic freedom is part of a broader ideological agenda of the FSU around creating a moral panic around academic freedom, decolonization and Te Tiriti.
As I have noted in the past, when it comes to academic freedom, when my academic freedom has been targeted, initially by Hindutva extremists, the FSU was absent. Not only did it not have any public statements to make around the organized campaign targeting my academic freedom, it also went ahead to platform one of the Hindutva propagandists who also appeared on Counterspin, and had organized a campaign targeting my job at the University. I will also note here that when I had publicly noted this strategic absence of the FSU, one of its propagandists had suggested I was lying although they couldn’t offer any evidence of FSU offering support for my academic freedom.
More recently, in the context of my critiques of Zionist settler colonialism and the ongoing genocide being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza, far-right Zionist infrastructures in Aotearoa have targeted my academic freedom based on planted misinformation. This campaign is part of a broader campaign in Aotearoa launched by Far-Right Zionists targeting academic voices critical of Israel. Two of these Zionist creators and disseminators of disinformation sit on or have sat on the Board of the FSU (The exhibit below shows one of the posts by David Cumin, based on misinformation about the claim I made and that I have deleted a blog post, which I never did. See here). One of these Zionist propagandists targeted my job at Massey University, tagging the University and sought to get me fired.
In the face of public criticism that noted the hypocrisy of the FSU, the propagandist then peddled the same misinformation in an email sent out from the FSU email address to the FSU listserv. This resulted in increased hate and trolling that I received, including hate messages left on my official email and phone threatening to send me back to ‘wherever I came from.” Now these are actual examples of threats to academic freedom, and they originate from within the infrastructures of the FSU.
I will wrap up by making a critical observation, that in the face of the threats to my academic freedom, including in instances of foreign interference, my employer, Massey University Te Kunenga ki Purehuroha, has stood firm and stood tall by me. This public support by the University and its senior leaders has meant that the University has become a source of further aggravated attacks from the Far-Right on its institutional structure and processes. It has offered the necessary critical support, the support with security, and the support with care, including Senior Leadership calling up on me to check how I am doing. In the face of the threats to my academic freedom that came directly from the networks of the FSU, the fear that this campaign induced in me around my safety and public scholarship, my employer has stood by me. I would any day take the commitments and negotiations of the University I work in around questions of academic freedom seriously than I would an astroturf organization seeking to insert a wedge around academic freedom to serve its ideological agenda of dismantling the critical decolonization work much needed in our Universities in Aotearoa and globally.
The trope of academic freedom in danger is a critical resource in the organised attack of the far-right on the modern university. One of the core techniques of the far-right in its efforts to destabilise academic institutions, is cook up a frenzy around free speech – intentionally conflating free speech issues with academic freedom. As an exemplar of the communicative inversions performed by the far-right, the panic around academic freedom is actually a critical tool in catalysing attacks on the academic freedom of decolonising practices in the university environment. What the far-right, and the underlying infrastructure of white supremacy is triggered by, is that universities are slowly transforming, starting to acknowledge that centuries of colonial epistemic violence have erased the knowledge infrastructures of colonised peoples.
In Aotearoa New Zealand, as I have demonstrated in my analyses, the Free Speech Union uses ideologically motivated faulty surveys to create panic around academic freedom. With a fundamentally incorrect understanding of academic freedom (the freedom of academics to teach and publish in their areas of expertise) that conflates it with free speech, the Union constructs its propaganda around specific ideological issues (Te Tiriti o Waitangi, gender justice, and so on) which are at the heart of the far- right’s culture war propaganda in Aotearoa.
In its most recent campaign, the Free Speech Union has turned to releasing leaked climate surveys to construct the argument that academic freedom is under threat in Aotearoa. Deploying the tactical tool of leaks, it builds an affective register around academic climates, suggesting these environments are threatening academic freedom.
In August, the Free Speech Union targeted the Law School at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), placing its propaganda around a leaked climate survey (to David Farrar, yes, the same David Farrar that runs the debunked Free Speech Union survey on academic freedom) that suggested faculty dissatisfaction. Commenting on the selective excerpts from the survey published on David Farrar’s blog, noted Jonathan Ayling, the Chief Executive of the Union:
“Academics are being criticised and punished for speaking out, causing them and others to resort to self-censorship. Again, results from an internal law school survey displayed very low levels of satisfaction. This included 30% claiming they feel uncomfortable reporting inappropriate behaviour and more than one-in-three respondents experiencing bullying in the past six months.”
Mr Ayling’s blog then reports on a letter sent out to the Minister of Education and the AUT Vice-Chancellor. When you look closely at the items shared on Mr Farrar’s blog however, there is not a single reported item on the blog that substantiates the claim “academics are being criticised and punished for speaking out.” You also won’t find an item that actually measures self-censorship.
In other words, the frame around threat to academic freedom that is part of the moral panic crafted by the Free Speech Union in its press release and the letter to the Minister of Education is not substantiated empirically. There is no evidence of academics being punished for speaking out, as Mr Ayling claims.
Professor Mohan Dutta.
Mr Farrar’s blog embellishes the ideological reading of the survey with leaked emails and speculations. The survey creates the opening for attacking the Dean of Law at AUT who had spoken out against the attack on the teaching of Tikanga Māori. Writes Mr Farrar: “Now readers will recall that the Dean of Law is Khylee Quince and she attracted a lot of publicity when she called a senior KC a racist dinosaur who should go off and die in the corner.” The blog wraps up by further constructing the Dean as threat to academic freedom:
“As you can see the results for the Law Faculty are much much lower than AUT as a whole. So this would suggest the major issue is not the central administration, but the faculty management itself. I am told by sources that everyone knows what the major problem is, but people are too scared to say so.”
Note here the slippage from the report of a leaked climate survey to hearsay – the architecture of gossip in: “everyone knows what the major problem is, but people are too scared to say so.”
It is worth noting the targeting of the AUT Dean of Law, Māori academic Khylee Quince, is part of a broader campaign targeting senior Māori academics (often women) who have spoken out publicly against the white supremacist structures that make up universities in settler colonial Aotearoa New Zealand, and their organised campaigns directed at erasing the decolonising registers that have been built through decades of struggle. The ideologically motivated campaign around academic freedom mobilised by Mr Farrar and Free Speech Union works on slippages to construct the narrative of academic freedom under threat. Implicit in this, is the positioning of Te Tiriti o Waitangi as a threat to academic freedom in Aotearoa.
Indeed, the academic climate of settler colonial universities, embedded in whiteness and mobilised to uphold white supremacy, has worked historically to erase decolonising registers of knowledge generation. Prevailing norms of whiteness have devalued and undermined Indigenous knowledge claims, often working aggressively to silence decolonising scholarship. The voices of Indigenous and postcolonial academics have historically been silenced, with the academic freedom to do decolonising scholarship severely constrained by the norms of whiteness, upheld by notions of civility and norms of communication within white academic structures.
As universities in Aotearoa New Zealand, as with universities across settler colonial spaces globally, have started their decolonising journeys around reconciliation and recognition of Indigenous rights, the far-right white supremacist campaign seeking to silence these efforts has worked incessantly to construct decolonisation as a threat to academic freedom. The implicit and explicit targeting of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the positioning of Te Tiriti in opposition to academic freedom must be read within the broader architecture of the global proliferation of white supremacist backlash against decolonisation. Any conversation on academic freedom must begin with the recognition that the far-right panic around academic freedom is a threat to the academic freedom of academics studying, teaching, researching and publicly engaging on decolonisation, postcolonial theory, critical race theory etc. It must also be noted that academics teaching and researching in these areas have historically faced diverse intersecting forms of marginalisation, harassment, and threats to their academic freedom.
Professor Mohan Dutta is Dean’s Chair Professor of Communication. He is the Director of the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE), developing culturally-centered, community-based projects of social change, advocacy, and activism that articulate health as a human right. He is a member of the board of the International Communication Association.
The failure of Narendra Modi and his BJP to secure a supermajority at India’s latest election shows how those at India’s margins may be the antidote to the rise of authoritarian populism in the country, Mohan Dutta writes
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has designated himself as the voice of God, proclaiming himself as a divine essence who has transcended biological birth during the latest election cycle. Photo: Getty Images
Opinion: The outcome of India’s latest general election marks a significant moment in the nation’s democratic journey, punctuating the beginning of the process of democratic renewal since Hindutva’s take-over of institutional structures and democratic processes that started unfolding since the 2014 general election.
The renowned activist Harsh Mander describes it as “the most consequential in India’s journey of 74 years as a republic”. The critical question that lies ahead is: How does the 2024 moment form the pathway toward the renewal of India’s constitutional values that were born out of the anti-colonial struggle?
The results stand testimony to the power of those at India’s margins, Dalits, Muslims, and women, to stand up to the forces of authoritarianism that have worked over the past decade to destroy India’s fundamental democratic institutions. Amidst the jubilant celebrations of the power of grassroots democracy to halt powerful political and economic forces that have worked in tandem seeking to turn India into a Hindu Rashtra (Hindu nation), we must critically reflect on the deeper implications of this electoral exercise for the future of democracy in India, and the broader implications for global geopolitics.
The elections witnessed overwhelming participation of Dalits and Muslims, with the election of Dalit and Muslim leaders into the parliament. Dalit leader Chandrashekhar Azad was elected from the Nagina constituency, based on a campaign platform seeking to protect the Indian constitution, designed by the Dalit lawyer B. R. Ambedkar. In Rajasthan’s Bharatpur constituency, the 26-year-old Sanjana Jatav, who hails from a Dalit community, became one of the youngest members of the Parliament.
Despite Hindutva’s organised strategies of suppressing Dalit and Muslim votes, those at the margins mobilised to exercise their democratic rights at the ballots, underscoring the power of democracy at the grassroots secured through everyday struggle. It stands witness to the beautiful experiment on the global stage that is India’s democracy, resilient against the repressive forces mobilised behind the strongman politics of Narendra Modi.
Over the past decade, and more so since his election in 2019, Modi and his BJP have carried out systemic attacks on democratic institutions. Opposition politicians, independent journalists critical of the Modi regime, dissenting activists, and a wide range of civil society organisations have been systematically targeted and harassed through raids by the Enforcement Directorate, the agency charged with fighting economic crimes, creating a climate of fear and intimidation.
The Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, designed as an instrument to regulate activities that threaten the sovereignty of India, has been broadly interpreted to target dissenting voices against Hindutva, labelling dissenting activists as “anti-national”, and incarcerating them. The law has also been used to target Adivasi (Indigenous) rights activists, human rights activists, environmental defenders, and journalists critical of Hindutva’s power grab. The large-scale attacks on dissenters have produced a chilling effect, creating an atmosphere of fear and self-censorship that has undermined democracy.
These repressive processes have been directed toward journalists and media infrastructures as well, while corporate interests aligned with the BJP’s right-wing politics have taken over mainstream media infrastructures, systematically turning them into the lapdogs of Hindutva.
Both the judiciary and the Election Commission, two critical pillars of India’s democracy, have been categorically undermined, with the BJP making wholesale political appointments into these institutions. Civil society organisations have noted the large-scale failure of these institutional structures to place checks and balances on the BJP as it has launched a full-blown assault on the constitution.
The electoral bonds scheme passed by the BJP, allowing anonymous donations to political parties and undermining the transparency of the democratic process by facilitating the flow of undisclosed funds, has also been the subject of much concern. The ruling party strategically used the electoral bonds to subvert Indian democracy, benefiting disproportionately from the bonds alongside vested corporate interests exerting undue influence on policies through this pathway.
Hindutva’s direct attacks on democratic institutions and institutional capture have been accompanied by its large-scale mobilisation of anti-Muslim hate, both offline and online, with television channels forming the critical infrastructure of hate. Termed India’s version of Radio Rwanda, these hate channels have manufactured and amplified the narrative of the Muslim infiltrator threatening the safety and security of India’s majority Hindus.
Building up to the elections, BJP politicians, including its lead campaigner Modi, delivered extreme Islamophobic speeches, referring to the Muslim population explosion, Muslim threats to Hindu property, and Muslim infiltrators, designed to evoke fear among the Hindu voter base. Critical observers have described the 2024 election campaign as the most hate-filled campaign, specifically highlighting Modi’s extremist speech. The violent rhetoric of Hindutva comes alongside the backdrop of extreme violence directed not just at Muslims, but also Adivasis, Dalits, and Christians.
There is also the propaganda of Modi as Godman, constructing him as a cult-like figure that has descended from the Gods to save India’s 1.1 billion Hindus and return India to its lost glory. Through various manufactured events, Modi has designated himself as the voice of God, reminiscent of fascist techniques of propaganda around Hitler and Mussolini. In remarks during the latest election cycle, Modi proclaimed himself as a divine essence who has transcended biological birth.
That the BJP was unable to secure the supermajority that would have enabled it to transform the Indian constitution along the lines of Hindu Rashtra speaks to the power of grassroots participation as a pillar of deliberative democracy.
The BJP candidate in Banswara where Modi labelled Muslims as infiltrators lost to Rajkumar Roat of the Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP) by a margin of 2,47,054 votes, speaking to the power of India’s margins in challenging Hindutva’s hate politics. The BJP lost in the Faizabad, the very constituency that is home to Ayodhya – the place where the 16th Century Mosque Babri Masjid was located until it was destroyed by Hindutva mobs and where the temple consecrating Lord Ram was built, forming the foundation of Hindutva’s voter appeal to the Hindu majority – demonstrating the critical role of bread-and-butter issues such as unemployment and social welfare.
The election outcome offers hope for India. This hope lies in the participation of those at India’s margins, who are often the targets of the techniques of repression, as the very antidote to the rise of such authoritarian populism. This process of constitutional renewal has a long road ahead that requires sustained dialogues and collective organising around the rights to voice and democracy of the margins of India who have been systematically disenfranchised by Hindutva’s far-right politics. It requires the ongoing and careful work of building and sustaining civil society as spaces of resistance to Hindutva, both in India and in the diaspora.
It requires those of us who have risked our lives and livelihoods to challenge Hindutva’s onslaught over the past decade to bear witness to its excesses, and to build broad coalitions in India and in the global community that work toward dismantling the pernicious ideology. It requires the mobilisation of the global community around the plights of India’s minorities, particularly its 200 million-plus Muslims, developing mechanisms for international legal infrastructures to hold India to account on its human rights record. It requires global civil society to draw on this moment to secure the release of unlawfully incarcerated political prisoners in India.
Here in Aotearoa, it requires the Crown to recognise that Indian Dalits, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians form a significant proportion of the diaspora, and listening to their voices should be at the core of how the country engages India. It requires mainstream politicians and government ministers to educate themselves on Hindutva, recognising its presence here, and developing policy mechanisms to regulate Hindutva funding and Hindutva organisations.
It requires the global recognition that the state of democracy in India is vital to the security and sustenance of the international rules-based order.
As we move forward from the elections, let us commit ourselves to the task of strengthening and deepening democracy in India. Let us commit to uprooting the infrastructure of Hindutva, including in the form of Hindutva organisations here in Aotearoa. What happens to India’s democracy matters to the global community’s journey in co-creating sustainable futures.
Mohan Dutta is the Dean’s Chair Professor of Communication at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University, and director of the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE). More by Mohan Dutta
The outcome of India’s 2024 General Election marks a significant moment in the nation’s democratic journey, punctuating the beginning of the process of democratic renewal since Hindutva’s take-over of institutional structures and democratic processes that started unfolding since the 2014 General Election. The renowned activist Harsh Mander describes it as “the most consequential in India’s journey of 74 years as a republic.” The critical question that lies ahead is: How does the 2024 moment form the pathway toward the renewal of India’s constitutional values that were born out of the anti-colonial struggle?
The results stand testimony to the power of those at India’s margins, Dalits, Muslims, and women, to stand up to the forces of authoritarianism that have worked over the past decade to destroy India’s fundamental democratic institutions. Amidst the jubilant celebrations of the power of grassroots democracy to halt powerful political and economic forces that have worked in tandem seeking to turn India into a Hindu Rashtra (Hindu nation), we must critically reflect on the deeper implications of this electoral exercise for the future of democracy in India, and the broader implications for global geopolitics.
The elections witnessed overwhelming participation of Dalits and Muslims, with the election of Dalit and Muslim leaders into the parliament. Consider here the election of the Dalit leader Chandrashekhar Azad from the Nagina constituency, based on a campaign platform seeking to protect the Indian constitution, designed by the Dalit lawyer B. R. Ambedkar. Consider similarly the electoral win of the 26-year-old Sanjana Jatav who hails from a Dalit community, from the Bharatpur constituency in Rajasthan, among the list of the youngest members of the Parliament. Despite Hindutva’s organised strategies of suppressing Dalit and Muslim votes, those at the margins mobilised to exercise their democratic rights at the ballots, underscoring the power of democracy at the grassroots, secured through everyday struggle. It stands witness to the beautiful experiment on the global stage that is India’s democracy, resilient against the repressive forces mobilised behind the strongman politics of Narendra Modi.
Over the past decade, and more so since his election in 2019, Modi has carried out systemic attacks on democratic institutions. Opposition politicians, independent journalists critical of the Modi regime, dissenting activists, and a wide range of civil society organisations have been systematically targeted and harassed through raids by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the agency charged with fighting economic crimes, creating a climate of fear and intimidation.
The Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), designed as an instrument to regulate activities that threaten the sovereignty of India, has been broadly interpreted to target dissenting voices against Hindutva, instrumentalised to label dissenting activists as “anti-national,” and incarcerating them. Salient here is the deployment of the law to target Adivasi (Indigenous) rights activists, human rights activists, environmental defenders, and journalists critical of Hindutva’s power grab. The large-scale attacks on dissenters have produced a chilling effect, creating an atmosphere of fear and self-censorship that has undermined democracy.
These repressive processes have been directed toward journalists and media infrastructures as well, while corporate interests aligned with the BJP’s right-wing politics have taken over mainstream media infrastructures, systematically turning them into the lapdogs of Hindutva.
Both the judiciary and the Election Commission of India, two critical pillars of India’s democracy, have been categorically undermined, with the BJP making wholesale political appointments into these institutions. Civil society organisations note the large-scale failure of these institutional structures to place checks and balances on the BJP as it has launched a full-blown assault on the constitution.
Note here the electoral bonds scheme passed by the BJP, allowing anonymous donations to political parties and undermining the transparency of the democratic process by facilitating the flow of undisclosed funds. The ruling BJP strategically utilised the electoral bonds to subvert Indian democracy, benefitting disproportionately from the bonds alongside vested corporate interests exerting undue influence on policies through this pathway.
Professor Mohan Dutta
Hindutva’s direct attacks on democratic institutions and institutional capture have been accompanied by its large-scale mobilisation of anti-Muslim hate, both offline and online, with television channels forming the critical infrastructure of hate. Termed India’s version of Radio Rwanda, these hate channels have manufactured and amplified the narrative of the Muslim infiltrator threatening the safety and security of India’s majority Hindus. Building up to the elections, BJP politicians, including its lead campaigner Narendra Modi delivered extreme Islamophobic speeches, referring to the Muslim population explosion, Muslim threats to Hindu property, and Muslim infiltrators, designed to evoke fear among the Hindu voter base. Critical observers have described the 2024 election campaign as the most hate-filled campaign, specifically highlighting Modi’s extremist speech. The violent rhetoric of Hindutva is juxtaposed in the backdrop of extreme violence directed at Adivasis, Dalits, Christians, and Muslims.
The discursive infrastructure of the “Hindu in fear” is mobilised alongside the propaganda of Modi as Godman, constructing him as a cult-like figure that has descended from the Gods to save India’s 1.1 billion Hindus and return India to its lost glory. Through various manufactured events, Modi has designated himself as the voice of God, reminiscent of fascist techniques of propaganda around Hitler and Mussolini. In a speech in the 2024 election cycle, Modi proclaimed himself as a divine essence who has transcended biological birth.
That the BJP was unable to secure the hegemonic position that would enable it to transform the Indian constitution along the lines of Hindu Rashtra speaks to the power of grassroots participation as a pillar of deliberative democracy. That the BJP candidate in Banswara where Modi labelled Muslims as infiltrators lost to Rajkumar Roat of the Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP), by a margin of 2,47,054 votes, speaks to the power of India’s margins in challenging Hindutva’s hate politics. That the BJP lost in the Faizabad, the very constituency in which Ayodhya – the place where the sixteenth-century mosque Babri Masjid was located until it was destroyed by Hindutva mobs and where the temple consecrating Lord Ram was built, forming the foundation of Hindutva’s voter appeal to the Hindu majority – is located, speaks to the critical role of bread and butter issues such as unemployment and social welfare.
The 2024 General Elections offer hope for India. This hope lies in the participation of those at India’s margins who are often the targets of the techniques of authoritarian repression, as the very antidote to the rise of authoritarian populism. This process of constitutional renewal however has a long road ahead that requires sustained dialogues and collective organising around the rights to voice and democracy of the margins of India who have been systematically disenfranchised by Hindutva’s far-right politics. It requires the ongoing and careful work of building and sustaining civil society as spaces of resistance to Hindutva, both in India and in the diaspora.
It requires those of us who have risked our lives and livelihoods to challenge Hindutva’s onslaught over the past decade to bear witness to Hindutva’s excesses and to build broad coalitions in India and in the global community that work toward dismantling the pernicious ideology. It requires the mobilisation of the global community around the plights of India’s minorities, particularly its 200 million+ Muslims, developing mechanisms for international legal infrastructures to hold India to account on its human rights record. It requires global civil society to draw on this moment to secure the release of unlawfully incarcerated political prisoners in India.
Here in Aotearoa, it requires the Crown to recognise that Indian Dalis, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians form a significant proportion of the diaspora, and listening to their voices should be at the core of how Aotearoa engages India. It requires mainstream politicians and Crown ministers to educate themselves on Hindutva, recognising its presence here, and developing policy mechanisms to regulate Hindutva funding and Hindutva organisations.
It requires global civil society to draw on this moment to secure the release of unlawfully incarcerated political prisoners in India. It requires the global recognition that the state of democracy in India is vital to the security and sustenance of the international rules-based order.
As we move forward from the elections, let us commit ourselves to the task of strengthening and deepening democracy in India. Let us commit to uprooting the infrastructure of Hindutva seeded by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), including in the form of Hindutva organisations here in Aotearoa. What happens to India’s democracy matters to the global community’s journey in co-creating sustainable futures.
Professor Mohan Dutta is Dean’s Chair Professor of Communication at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University. He is the Director of the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE), developing culturally-centered, community-based projects of social change, advocacy, and activism that articulate health as a human right.
This opinion piece is the fourth of a five-part series on the intertwined webs of the far-right mobilised to attack communication and media studies pedagogy. This piece is written in solidarity with other communication and media studies academics, researchers, and practitioners who have been targeted by the far-right.
The far-right’s reactionary culture war, cooked up by the Trump-Bannon-Infowars-Fox infrastructure, materialised by extremist groups such as Proud Boys, and legitimised by the right-wing political machinery, has been and will continue to be vigorously resisted by academia.
In three earlier essays crafted for this series, I have discussed exactly how the United States-far-right’s culture war is mimicked here in Aotearoa by the right-wing ecosystem working incessantly to pump out fear as an organising tool, as a photocopy of Bannon’s political strategy of deploying hate as a marketing tool. The manufacturing of a culture war as a strategic issue generates leverage, and more specifically votes, for right-wing political parties while simultaneously working to disenfranchise communities at the margins.
I have also outlined how these attacks are directed at silencing academic voices, particularly those working on issues of social justice, disinformation, and hate. Although academics are often the direct targets, the ultimate goal of the far-right is to silence the voices of the marginalised communities we partner with. The force of the attacks is particularly violent when directed at those of us in academia who engage in public scholarship.
In this piece, I will turn to strategies for countering the far-right and outline some of the powerful ways in which academics are resisting these targeted hate campaigns across the globe. Because the far-right’s cancel culture originates from the hate ecosystem linked with Donald Trump in the US, I will also draw upon US-based examples of academic resistance as instructive lessons.
The various pressures from these outside forces, mediated through the interference from the Regents, tampered with the university’s hiring process, resulting in Professor McElroy’s offer being altered, with multiple iterations walking back the tenured position initially offered.
The attacks were organised amidst the Republican Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, signing a bill attacking DEI offices at public colleges, one among similar such concerted policies introduced by Republican lawmakers across the US. Note here that these fringe policies are built around the “Woke culture” and “Critical Race Theory (CRT)” frenzy that has been concocted by the far-right as political fodder, as a direct offshoot of Bannon’s political strategy of mobilising culture war as a campaign tool. As I have noted earlier, this hysteria around CRT is networked, traveling from the Trumpian ecosystem to the far-right ecosystem in Europe to Australia to Aotearoa.
A message from Jay Graham, a member of the Board of Regents on the McElroy hiring, depicting the underlying far-right reactionary agenda (reference to then President Katherine Banks).
The targeted campaign, materialised through the interference by the Regents and a timid administration lacking leadership, led to several institutional processes being violated.
A story published in the Texas Tribune first revealed these process violations and the change in the job offer to Professor McElroy. The story was picked up nationally, covered by major news media.
Responding to the events, the A&M Faculty Senate Executive Committee called for the Chancellor to meet with the full Faculty Senate to discuss political influence in faculty matters. The Faculty Senate met with then-President Katherine Banks, asked questions about the botched hiring, and initiated an investigation.An internal report examining the hiring process outlined several violations that took place during the appointment process.
“How this University treated this respected, honored, qualified, experienced, successful, and tenured fellow Aggie is unacceptable and would have been unthinkable yet for her race and gender… The fact that this University outwardly promotes very laudable principles in the Aggie Core Values, yet you don’t have the character nor the courage to follow these Core Values as the leader of this University reveals the deep chasm between your words and your actions.”
The fiasco led to the president’s resignation. The university separately settled with Professor McElroy for US$1 million and she stayed in her position at the University of Texas, Austin. The Texas A&M leadership released a statement, apologising “for the way her employment application was handled.”
In the backdrop of the organised campaigns of the far-right, coupled with the large-scale neoliberal transformations of universities that have foisted an overarching professional-managerial-consultant ideology, it is vital that academics across institutions globally work to strengthen faculty governance and oversight over decision-making processes, attending closely to the threats to academic freedom externally and internally, anticipating them, and responding to them pro-actively. In the US, elected bodies such as faculty senates carry out this powerful role of holding university managers accountable.
It is also critical that academics work alongside university leadership in developing institutional pedagogies around the threats posed by the far-right, mapping the pathways and sites of attacks, and developing and institutionalising strategies for responding.
For instance, one of the core strategies of the far-right is to pose as aggrieved students and concerned community members to carry out attacks targeting academics, often operating through fake social media accounts, anonymous email addresses, fake websites, sock puppet accounts, automated bots, troll farms, and instant messaging apps such as Telegram and WhatsApp. Email campaigns and university complaint portals are co-opted as tools for carrying out such swarm attacks, with influencers manufacturing grievance to mobilise such campaigns and directing followers to lodge complaints, working alongside automated bots and troll farms.
Educating staff in front-facing roles in sifting through and identifying spurious complaints, in detecting far-right disinformation-based narratives in the complaints, in raising the appropriate security alarms, and adequately responding to these narratives, is critical. Similarly, given the deployment of Official Information Act (OIA) requests to feed far-right propaganda, responding proactively to the propaganda and debunking it is critical. Also crucial is building the capacity of university managers in detecting potential instances of foreign interference and raising these through appropriate channels within the university. Such pedagogy needs to be built preventively across institutions, given the message swarms that far-right campaigns build, often funded by powerful political and economic interests, including right-wing think tanks, lobbies, astroturfs, and foundations.
Moreover, relevant state structures and institutional processes ought to be able to support universities with addressing the concerns raised, given the threats to institutional processes and democracy, and critically in the context of foreign interference into academic freedom through organised campaigns.
Building legal infrastructures
In the case presented above, Texas A&M reached a $1 million settlement with Professor Kathleen McElroy. The report released by the University General Counsel demonstrated egregious process violations. During the hiring process, university officials initially pushed for a delay until after the state legislative session adjourned, anticipating potential backlash from conservative lawmakers. Following complaints about her hiring raised by university regents, officials changed the terms of her contract.
As the process unfolded, with the terms of her contract changing significantly, Professor McElroy responded to the university, asking it to communicate through her lawyers.
In a similar high-profile case, Black journalist, Pulitzer-prize-winning author for the New York Times, and founder of the New York Time’s 1619 Project, a long-form journalism endeavour that documents the intertwined histories of slavery and the founding of the United States and was earlier labelled by Trump as “ideological poison,” Nikole Hannah-Jones, was initially offered a tenure track position by the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, that was then changed to a five-year contract.
“Journalism schools reflect the same reality we see in the rest of the country…Why it’s especially troubling in journalism is that journalism is the firewall of our democracy. Journalism is what’s supposed to be exposing the way power is wielded. If that story is being filtered through an almost exclusively White lens, it’s not accurate. It’s not capable of helping us… understand the country we live in.”
The Hannah-Jones settlement is instructive because it includes several structural changes, proving the “correctness of critical race theory.” It outlines an inclusive search process for new employees in conjunction with the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; mental health counselling placed within the Multicultural Health Programme, complemented by the hiring of an additional trauma-informed therapist; and a $5,000 annual funding to the Provost’s Office to coordinate meetings and events sponsored by the Carolina Black Caucus working alongside UNC-Chapel Hill Vice Provost.
The far-right often directs its attacks on academics identifying with diverse marginalised positions. For instance, as with the examples of the organised campaigns targeting Professor McElroy and Hannah-Jones, the far-right interferences into university processes are racist, violating the fundamental human rights of academics having a protected characteristic. Building legal infrastructures such as the NAACP is critical to resisting the interference of the far-right into university processes.
Seeing and materialising connections
The organising structure of far-right hate produces its effect through the creation and amplification of fear. The mobilisation of fear results in swarms that target and attack academics and universities. These swarm-based campaigns have chilling effects, threatening the livelihoods and lives of academics.
The effects of these campaigns are amplified by the individualising processes that often place the onus of securing safety on individual actions to be taken by those being targeted. Consider the targeting of the University of Auckland academics, Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles and Professor Shaun Hendy. The pair became the targets of attacks directed at their work explaining the science behind COVID-19. In a complaint to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA), they noted the university had failed its duty of care to them.
Attacks such as these call for the allocation of institutional resources to support academic freedom for public scholarship.
However, amidst the ongoing cuts to university funding globally including here in Aotearoa, finding the resources and allocating them to security (including digital security), legal support, mental health support, and media support is a challenge for leaders. Making provisions for security on funding applications and allocating funding resources for security to universities are two policy responses that can offer meaningful safeguards. The inclusion of community and social impact in the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF) ought to be combined with funding allocated to building safeguards around public-facing impactful scholarship. To advocate for such policy-based support, it is important that academics, unions, students, university leaders and policymakers work together.
Academic solidarities globally have been crucial to challenging the attacks by far-right campaigns. Letter writing campaigns and petitions have been vital in both responding to and developing preventive infrastructures for addressing the threats posed by far-right campaigns targeting individual academics, programmes of research, and academic departments.
Academic organising across institutions is a critical resource in mapping and responding to the interplays between institutional racism and far-right attacks. Disciplinary associations here can play central roles in responding to the organised attacks, developing both preventive measures as well as effective responses. Responding to the far-right attacks on communication education and scholarship, my disciplinary association, the National Communication Association (NCA), issued the following statement:
“As the preeminent scholarly society devoted to the study and teaching of Communication, NCA recognizes that professional educators, including Communication scholars and teachers, are best equipped to determine what is appropriate for their classrooms and curricula. Among other theories that plainly acknowledge the histories and impacts of race, Critical race theory (CRT) is foundational to effective communication teaching, learning, and practice. Simply stated: Educators cannot effectively teach communication without teaching about systemic racism and its impact on our institutions and policies, including teaching about CRT and its principles. Students cannot adequately learn about effective communication without exploring systemic racism in the history of the United States. To restrict freedoms to engage in the teaching of, and communication about, CRT and other theories which examine the historical and current impact of their principles is inconsistent with the principles of democracy. NCA opposes legislation that would censor content within the curriculum or classroom based on political disagreement or contrived controversy, particularly when such legislation curtails or prohibits teaching about the role of racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination in the United States historically and today.”
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is an example of an organisational structure that is critical to safeguarding academic freedom in the US. Tracking the far-right campaign attacking Critical Race Theory in the form of bills passed across various states to Trump and the Make America Great Again (MAGA) campaign, noted the AAUP in its report:
“Language in these bills draws from Trump’s 2020 executive order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotypes and can be found in model legislation being pushed by MAGA lobbying arm Citizens for Renewing America. Both the executive order and model legislation are influenced by Russ Vought, Trump’s former budget director, who founded CRA. CRA is funded by the Conservative Partnership Institute, which is an effort by Trump allies to formalize extremist, far-right politics in the think tank sphere. Other organizations included under the CPI umbrella are the American Accountability Foundation, which attacks President Joe Biden’s Cabinet and judicial appointees, and America First Legal, which is run by former Trump speechwriter Stephen Miller and focuses on litigation that “oppose[s] the radical left’s anti-jobs, anti-freedom, anti-faith, anti-borders, anti-police, and anti-American crusade.” According to 2021 tax filings, CPI had an annual budget of $17.1 million, and revenues of $45.7 million.”
“In the case of retention of faculty members and administrative officers of color, while the individual motivations for their departures may be unclear, what is clear is that in one way or another a culture of exclusion, a lack of transparency and inclusion in decision-making, the chilling of academic freedom, discounting certain kinds of scholarship and teaching, and the constant threat of political interference have combined to fuel what some have called an “exodus” from the UNC system.”
Across global registers, it is critical to consider the possibilities for building academic associations committed to safeguarding scholarship. In Aotearoa for instance, such an organisation would among addressing other elements critical to academic freedom, track the funding flows of far-right hate and map potential foreign interference both discursively and materially, assess the risks to academia posed by disinformation campaigns, and respond robustly. Building partnerships with university leadership and relevant ministries are equally important in delineating the foreign interference at work (such as in the example of the “culture war” hysteria) and in developing preventive strategies to respond to it. Mobilising unions to address the threats to academic freedom is another potential avenue.
In addition, building solidarities with communities, civil society, and social movements is vital to resisting the forces of the far-right. The recognition that the attacks on universities are part of a broader pattern of attacks mobilised by the far-right ought to serve as the basis for crafting solidarities that witness and challenge the pernicious narratives and hate campaigns at societal levels. Connecting with activists and lending solidarity to those who are targeted by the far-right are critical to creating the broader infrastructure for resistance.
In the attacks I have experienced recently mobilised by the racist disinformation campaign launched by far-right networks here in Aotearoa, I have been humbled to be supported by collectives of activists, anchored in Māori leadership. When I discussed these targeted attacks with activists Tina Ngata and Sina Brown-Davis, they wrapped me up in a collective network of care. Within a few hours of our conversation, I had an email from The Manaaki Collective, offering a blanket of support, from security to legal assistance.
Te Tiriti and global leadership
The principles of Te Tiriti, foregrounding the values of participation, protection, and partnership offer powerful registers for resistance to white supremacy.
In Aotearoa, Māori have historically challenged racism and white supremacy in transformative ways, dismantling the hate politics of settler colonialism with the values of manaakitanga (caring about each other’s wellbeing, nurturing relationships, and engaging with one another) and whanaungatanga (forming, maintaining, and nurturing relationships and strengthening ties between kin and communities). Māori struggles for Te Tiriti justice have historically offered inspiration and hope to diverse struggles for social justice in Aotearoa and globally.
The Māori activists who have participated in the Activist-in-Residence programme at the Centre for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE), Tame Iti, Teanau Tuiono, Dr Ihirangi Heke, Marise Lant, and Tina Ngata each outline the transformative power of connection as the organising basis for approaching relationships among human beings, in and between communities, and with land and the ecosystem. This meta-theory of “connection as organising” lies at the frontiers for pushing back against white supremacist hate.
The sustained resistance to white supremacy offered by Māori activists and communities position Aotearoa as a leader for global progressive struggles against white supremacy, and for interconnected struggles for climate justice, racial justice, Indigenous rights and migrant rights. Amidst the disenfranchising effects of white supremacy that seek to silence activist and academic voices, the inspiring work of The Manaaki Collective offers a global model for Indigenous leadership in securing safe spaces for organising “for racial, social, environmental, and Te Tiriti justice.”
I wrap up this opinion piece by directly addressing the propaganda infrastructures of the far-right. Our message to the far-right reactionaries, in politics, in the media, on digital platforms, and in various hate formations, is loud and clear.
Backed by powerful economic forces, often hiding behind astroturfs, sock puppets, instant messaging apps, automated bots and fake websites, the far-right have launched propaganda campaigns that deliberately distort scholarship to suit the white supremacist agenda, confident that the targeted attacks can ban the teaching of critical concepts of social justice, and thus erase the powerful waves of voices emergent from the margins mobilising for transformational change.
And in spite of the economic power and political influence, replete with a digital infrastructure fuelling the dissemination of disinformation and hate, exponentially magnified by the globally linked hate networks, the far-right will continue to fail in securing hegemony.
The hate and divisive narratives that seed and propagate fear will fail because, as articulated forcefully by Martin Luther King, Jr, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
The far-right threats to stalk us, get us fired, get us and our families deported, incarcerate us, rape us, dox our families on social hate platforms, and kill us will not silence the conviction of our scholarship, and the public impact this scholarship creates. We will continue to, along with the communities we partner with, carry out our research, generate empirical evidence that empowers communities in their struggles for justice, and transform the status quo.
Our public scholarship will continue to build registers for hope. Communities at the margins will continue to rise up, raise their voices and challenge the marginalising processes that seek to silence them.
In not cowering to the fear-based campaigns of the far-right, we will continue to be inspired by the words of Indigenous activists. In the words of activist Sina Brown-Davis, “Be unafraid, be powerful, we have everything to fight for and nothing to lose.”
Professor Mohan Dutta is Dean’s Chair Professor of Communication. He is the Director of the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE), developing culturally-centered, community-based projects of social change, advocacy, and activism that articulate health as a human right. He is a member of the board of the International Communication Association.
