(Ebook) The University as a Site of Resistance: Identity and Student Politics by Gaurav J Pathania ISBN 9780199093694, 9780199488414, 0199093695, 019948841X

(Ebook) The University as a Site of Resistance: Identity and Student Politics by Gaurav J Pathania ISBN 9780199093694, 9780199488414, 0199093695, 019948841X

Since the 1960s, universities have ignited new discourse as free speech movements, LGBT, feminism movements in the West. Universities not only served as centers of learning but also promoted resistance through critical thinking. The recent wave of student resistance in India has brought the role of the university to the forefront. The University as a Site of Resistance analyses massive protests that emerged in the aftermath of Rohith Vemula's death in Hyderabad Central University, as well as the Azadi Campaign started by Jawaharlal Nehru University students in Delhi in 2016. Taking Osmania University in Hyderabad as a case study, the book provides an ethnographic account of the emergence of one of India's longest student movements - the movement for Telangana statehood. Since its inception in the 1960s to its culmination in the formation of Telangana state in 2014, students at Osmania University played a decisive role. The book discusses protest strategies, methods, and networks among students. It also examines the role played by various caste and sub-caste groups and civil society in making the movement a success. The author argues that contemporary identity-based student movements are primarily cultural movements. As the traditional caste and class analysis becomes redundant to explain such contemporary collective action, the book establishes these unique resistances as New Social Movements and claim that these movements contribute to the democratization of institutional spaces. In this context, the volume provides a conceptual debate on contemporary cultural politics among university students.