Kisan Morcha and Sikhi: Neoliberal Violence, Hindutva Fascism and the Left ABSTRACTS Balbinder Singh Bhogal, Hofstra University Resistance beyond Protest: the praxis of the silent witness Central to Gur-sikhi is the question of how to transform egoic subjectivity (haumai) into political subjectivity (simaran, kirtan, katha) and political community (seva, langar, sangat-pangat), into a fearless and sovereign community (Khalsa-panth) that loves and cares (paraupkar, sat-sangat, halemi-raj), not for itself, but for human justice and freedom for all – to the point of death and martyrdom (shahid) for the other. This “silent” witness in action, I argue, demonstrates a form of resistance beyond common forms of “loud” protest, and is uniquely tied to the Sikh tradition’s socio-cultural praxes. In the Sikh-inspired, Sikh-led, farmers’ protest, these values-in-action (simaran, seva, langar etc), represent an ignored aspect of the morcha, because they are seen as “religious” in nature and quite “set apart” from the political – which is assumed to reside only in speeches, demands and manifestos. This assumption, embedded in modern secular subjectivity, de-politicizes such practices, when in actual fact, I argue, they form the very soil from which the movement initially sprouted, and continues to enable and sustain it: for gur-sikh existential praxis taps into what remains unsaid in narrations of both the powerful and the powerless. John Maerhofer, Rutgers University, NJ Democratizing Unfreedom: Biopiracy, Eco-fascism, and Land-commoning Strugges in India The mass mobilizations led by small farmers and agrarian workers against expanding deregulation of agriculture in India enable us to understand the convergence of three persistent issues: (1) the relationship between 21st-century imperialism and biopiracy in postcolonial India; (2) the growth of Hindutva ecofascism and ultra-nationalist citizenship as a mechanism for managing dissent and thus safeguarding globalized capitalist plunder; (3) the necessity for developing what James Angel labels the “in-againstand-beyond the state” approach to counter the unfreedom of neoliberal dispossession. Emphasizing class solidarity as the basis for solidifying the shared ethos of ecological belonging and re-collectivity, I argue that these demonstrations broaden the possibilities for land-commoning in the pursuit of self-governance, and as the basis for undoing the legacies of uneven development and structural inequality that have intensified in India’s liberalization period. Prabhsharandeep Singh, University of Oxford, UK Kisan Morcha: Religion, Public Space, and the Indian Left Although the current agricultural laws would affect the farmers throughout India, the current farmer protest originated in Punjab and continues to have the Sikh farmers as the leading and the largest participants. The farmer unions leading the current protests, mostly of the Marxist background, legitimize Indian nationalism by undermining the minorities’ questioning of the South Asian subcontinent as a workable nation state. Given these circumstances, in this paper, I will examine the conflicting ideas of religion, the role they have been playing in shaping the public space, and how the Indian left has been vital to the survival of India as a nation state that has recently made an undeniably fascist turn. Dr. Prabhsharanbir Singh, University of British Columbia, Canada Neoliberalism & the Wars of Subjectivity: Exploring the Inner Dimensions of Kisan Resistance The devastating impact of neoliberalism is not limited to the exploitation of natural and human resources. It also involves a 'psychic Mcdonaldization' of diverse communities across the globe. The ongoing resistance against the corporatization of agriculture in India is also a fight to preserve a singular mode of life threatened by its onslaught. This talk is aimed at explicating the specific practices deployed by Sikh farmers that enable them to effectively resist neoliberalism and build its alternative simultaneously. I argue that the success of the fight against neoliberalism is tied to the mobilization of culturally singular practices such as Seva (‘self-less service’) and Sidak (‘faith’, ‘trust’), both of which are playing a crucial role in the ongoing protests.