Introduction

In his speech to the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem in 2015, Benyamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, purported to describe a meeting between Haj Amin al-Husseini and Hitler in November 1941:

The past is a rich resource for populist exploitation as it is directly linked to moral boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. This chapter focuses on the questions of how national memory and moral remembrance have an effect on populism's moral and ethical relations to the past. According to Cas Mudde (2004), probably the most influential scholar on populism, morals are central to the populist appeal. Populism is a political stance that juxtaposes ‘the people’ against ‘the elite’. Populism relies on morals that determine ‘the pure’ and ‘the righteous’ values; hence, it is directly linked with disputes over the interpretations of the past. The rise of populism, which began in the 1970s and grew considerably in the 1990s and onwards, has made the past an increasingly important soft-power resource. This is because the populist revelations on what are ‘pure’ and ‘righteous’ values always lean on allegedly ‘true’ and so far ‘hidden’ understanding of what transpired in the past. Hence, as we will see, historical revisionism and claims over victimhood and suffering are the bread and butter of every populist appeal.

Though the term ‘populism’ was first reported in American newspapers in the 1890s in the context of the rise of the People's Party (Kaltwasser et al. 2017), the scholarship on populism has grown considerably since the 1970s creating a dense and fertile field. One of the first definitions of populism was offered by Gino Germani, an Italian intellectual referring to it as a multi-class movement, which ‘usually includes contrasting components such as the claim for equality of political rights and universal participation for the common people, but fused with some sort of authoritarianism often under charismatic leadership’ (Kaltwasser et al. 2017: 5).

This short introduction establishes the argument of the book: namely, that “greatness” in American culture is a useful tool to address “change.” The introduction also situates the importance of this history in contemporary discourse and situates the research in the fields of American Studies and Fame Studies.

Chapter 7 offers concluding thoughts on the afterlives of architectural terracottas and on their lingering symbolic power even after they had fallen from use in Italic temple architecture.

Pir Nawaz Ali Naz possesses a striking demeanor. A middle-aged man of medium height and portly build, his appearance is distinguished by a deep maroon turban, which he wears over his long, oiled hair. Seemingly a permanent fixture of his attire, the turban complements his thin, trimmed beard, and its color signifies his affiliation with the Chishti Nizami Sufi silsila. As I will demonstrate in this chapter, this is an association that is key to pir Nawaz's role as a Sufi guide, community leader, and gaddi nashin of his father pir Ahmed Ali Naz's shrine. Relegated to a corner of the small Kamboh graveyard in Ichra, this modest shrine is a simple structure built on a raised platform with Ahmed's grave, which is open to the sky but enclosed by three low walls on one side and an open area for conducting various activities adjacent to it (Plan 2.1). It is served by a small but active community of murids and neighbors under his son's watchful eye. Pir Nawaz is very much at the center of this neighborhood community and actively organizes and leads most of its congregations and activities.

Ahmed's shrine is usually only populated on Thursdays, when pir Nawaz and other community members gather here for performing prayers, conversing, and cooking and consuming langar. These Thursday gatherings serve as an occasion for the community to come together under the guidance of their pir. Besides Thursdays and festivals, a few members of this Sufi community also sporadically gather in pir Nawaz's aastana. Located a couple of kilometers from his father's tomb, in a very narrow lane of the Chah Jammu neighborhood, this is a small private room attached to pir Nawaz's residence but with its own entrance from the street. Ahmed's shrine and the community around it are intimately tied to this neighborhood. Many of the devotees reside in or around it, and all have personal connections with pir Nawaz. The area itself is densely populated, mostly residential, with a few small shops and other commercial ventures on the wider streets. It appears quite congested and tightly packed, with residences and shops spilling over into the street and sagging cables filling up the space above.

This is a short chapter to tell of my daughter's abuse at the hand of her ballet teacher.

Introduction

The current Russian government is revising the constitutional system and essentially curtailing the work of democratic institutions. In the process, it is increasingly turning to history as a means of self-legitimation. During the 1990s, which were difficult years for the economics of the country, ruling elites showed an indifference to history. Since the early 2000s, however, this indifference has been replaced, in the words of Alexey Miller, with ‘the escalation of historical politics’ (Miller 2012: 255), which has reached its peak in the third and fourth terms of Vladimir Putin's presidency. The authorities impose a correct picture, from their point of view, of the historical past with the help of school textbooks, large-scale multimedia projects, such as ‘Russia: My history’, and memorial laws (Koposov 2017: 207–299; Kurilla 2021), and even recently adopted amendments to the constitution.

In this chapter, I analyse the Russian government's uses of history. The chapter is divided into three sections. In the first section, I discuss two theoretical questions: First, can the Putin regime be considered populist, and, if so, what are its defining features? Second, what uses of history are characteristic of contemporary populism and its Russian variant? I will claim that Russian uses of history can be characterized as conservative, drawing on a particular kind of presentism. After David Armitage, I would call this ‘teleological presentism’ (Armitage 2020). In the second section, I will show how this essentially conservative regime of historicity works in the Russian context by focusing on the use of the idiom ‘historical Russia’. This phrase is increasingly used today in official rhetoric when explaining domestic and foreign policy agendas. In the third and final section, I present my vision of an alternative historicity, which could become a challenge for the kind of presentism produced by the current Russian government.

Drawing heavily on both survey data and interviews with potential candidates, this chapter argues that men are more likely than women to look in the mirror and see a qualified candidate, someone who has what it takes to run for office. Women are more likely than men to see someone who doesn’t quite embody the credentials, skills, and traits they think a candidate should possess. Differences in potential candidates’ self-appraisals are strong evidence of a gendered psyche, whose imprint leaves women feeling far less efficacious than men to envision themselves as candidates and, consequently, far less likely to consider running for office.

Introduction

The carbon emissions of the world's richest 1 per cent are more than double the emissions of the poorest 50 per cent, despite the fact that climate change is expected to disproportionately affect the poor, especially in the warmer parts of the world (Oxfam 2020; Goswami 2020). This suggests that climate and socio-economic justice are intertwined, and understanding the nature of the relationship between carbon emissions and economic inequality can help us arrive at potential pathways to address both.

Climate and socio-economic justice are crucial in the case of India. India is a significant player in the global economy, as its gross domestic product (GDP) is the fifth largest in the world (World Bank 2021). However, the country also experiences staggering levels of economic inequality. It has the third highest number of billionaires, but it also has the largest poor population in the world (Ankel 2020; Roser and Ortiz-Ospina 2019). The wealth of the richest 1 per cent of the Indian population is more than four times the total wealth of the bottom 70 per cent (Economic Times 2020). These indicators of economic inequality demonstrate a dire need to enhance socio-economic justice in India.

Three different indicators of carbon emissions are widely used for analytical purposes. The present climate crisis resulted from historically accumulated greenhouse gas emissions, measured in carbon dioxide equivalents. The United States (US) is the largest contributor, accounting for about 25 per cent of the global cumulative carbon emissions between 1751 and 2019, while India contributed about 3 per cent (Ritchie 2019). Hence, India's historical cumulative carbon emission is rather low. The second indicator measures annual carbon emissions, or a country's current emission levels. Based on this indicator, India has the third highest carbon emission levels globally; it trails China and the US by a huge margin. The third indicator is per capita annual emissions, which accounts for differences in the population size of countries. When countries are ranked in descending order of their per capita carbon emissions, India ranked 128 out of 210 countries in 2019 (Crippa et al. 2020). Even though India's per capita carbon emissions and its share in cumulative global emissions is low, its current scale of emissions is a matter of concern (Matthews 2016).

Arundhati Roy famously described the COVID-19 pandemic as a

As inspiring and insightful as these words are, such juxtaposition of utopia and dystopia barely scratches the surface of what and who we are as a nation. The soulcrushing images of burning pyres in parking lots turned into makeshift graveyards, which international and national media have immortalized, offer a clue, as does the sombre poetry of Parul Khakhar (Tripathi 2021). India is a land pockmarked with a million fires.

The COVID-19 crisis has come as a shock to many middle-class Indians. Yet, to India's Dalits, Adivasis, women, and other marginalized groups, haunted by centuries of oppression, this crisis is yet another in a long list of historical and ongoing crises. For example, the coalfields of Jharia in Jharkhand have been burning for over a century now. As a result, at least 130,000 families have, quite literally, lived through a century-long trial by fire (Rahi 2019). Since 1995, the state-owned Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) has claimed to have a ‘master plan’, which is possibly gathering dust in some almirah of the coal ministry (S. Kumar 2021). One would imagine that a pandemic like COVID-19 might scare the minister whose job includes ensuring the welfare of the 3.6 million people who work in mines with a less than adequate supply of fresh air. Yet, in 2020, India's coal minister valorized coal workers as ‘our coal warriors who are toiling day and night to keep the lights on even during the corona pandemic’ (Press Information Bureau 2020). They toiled very hard indeed.

A year later, as India struggled to confront the monstrous second wave of the pandemic, Central Coalfields Limited (CCL), a subsidiary of Coal India Limited (CIL), recorded the highest-ever single-day coal dispatch of 80 railway rakes (PNS 2021).

In this chapter, we examine whether traditional family role orientations systematically hinder women’s emergence in the political sphere. We begin by considering how potential candidates’ early political socialization relates to their political ambition as adults. The majority of the chapter then turns to gender dynamics in respondents’ current households. Our findings reveal that even among the youngest generation of potential candidates, women are less likely than men to have grown up in politicized households, more likely to be responsible for the majority of household tasks and childcare, and less likely to be encouraged to run by those closest to them. But, somewhat surprisingly, the traditional division of labor doesn’t affect interest in running for office. Although women continue to struggle balancing family with professional responsibilities, traditional gender roles don’t impede their interest in running for office in the way many might expect.

Introduction

The Bhagavadgita is an 18-chapter philosophical dialogue between Arjuna, the despondent warrior hero reluctant to raise arms against his kin, and his divine charioteer, Krishna, who exhorts him to wage war with detachment as an instrument of divine will. It is set on the battlefield in the Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata, moments before the beginning of a war. The Bhagavadgita (henceforth Gita), as Richard H. Davis elucidates in his ‘short biography’ of the text, intrigued scholars with its ‘doubleness’ – ‘its historical specificity and its continuing, even eternal, life’. Its ambiguities and accommodation of multiple theological currents made it possible (and continues to do so) for the text to appeal to diverse groups of readers and commentators in medieval, pre-colonial, and colonial India and beyond. It gained a transnational community of readers in Europe and America, as colonial commentators, Christian missionaries, Romantic philosophers, and Indologists popularized it as a Hindu philosophical text at par with the Quran and the Bible. By the early twentieth century, it came to provide a wide range of Indian political thinkers, from Aurobindo Ghose to Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who were occupied in anti-colonial struggle with an opportunity to ‘rethink politics in a novel language of action without consequence’. Among such engagements, M. K. Gandhi's approach to the Gita as a guide to moral action in the realm of politics has attracted maximum scholarly attention. Such works have accorded due focus to the genealogies of (mostly Western) political and religious thought that informed his readings and the innovative agency of Gandhi himself.

This chapter, however, shifts the optic from Gandhi to the Gandhian(s) to draw attention to the hermeneutics of reading the Gita through the prism of non-violence (ahimsa) that Gandhi introduces in Indian sociopolitical thought and constructs an intellectual history of such hermeneutical exercises. Through this, I wish to move beyond the individual centricity that has characterized the global intellectual history of Gandhian thought.

This short chapter focusses on general concepts involved in Remove-based analyses: conflicting structure assignments, short life cycle effects, and displacement without movement. In addition, it illustrates how the new approach may ultimately reconcile the seemingly incompatible trends towards simpler syntactic representations, on the one hand, and highly complex cartographic representations, on the other.

In this concluding chapter, we turn to the persistence of the gender gap in political ambition. Why hasn’t it begun to close? How can we reconcile its intractable nature with women’s steadily increasing numeric representation? What do women and men in the candidate eligibility pool believe contributes to the static gap? After providing a brief summary of the book’s central findings, these are the questions to which this chapter turns. Ultimately, we conclude that despite women’s significantly greater – and growing – presence in politics, women continue to be less likely than men to see themselves as candidates for elective office. They also continue to be less likely than men to be seen by others as candidates for elective office. There’s no question that “it takes a candidate” to achieve gender parity in US political institutions. But when it comes to breaking down long-standing beliefs about politics and the very nature of the political domain, this book makes it clear that it takes more than a candidate.