Bangalore Girls: Witnessing the Rise of Nationalism in a Progressive City

• In Event: Author-meets-Critics: Bangalore Girls: Witnessing the Rise of Nationalism in a Progressive City

Proposal

The author of will present the book to the audience, and engage with three critics.

The “book examines the intersecting forces of rising nationalism, religious extremism, and misogyny” (p. 3) as seen over decades through the eyes of girls who shared schooling experiences in the 1980s and have come of age in what was the progressive city of Bangalore in India. Through their stories about “growing up in Bangalore” they explore “how the city has changed under the impact of powerful political, ideological, and social forces” (p. 3). These stories reveal their lived experience during India’s shift from a progressive environment to the right and the impact this shift has on the lives of these ordinary women. While the book is about a specific location in India, it also offers “food for thought for other countries that are experiencing a turn to the right, including Brazil, France, the Netherlands, and, of course, the United States of America” (p. 3).

The topic is relevant to the CIES community broadly in that it is about how educational experience interacts with broader socio-political forces. And, it engages the conference theme in through showing how the government has harnessed technology to move ideologies forward.

The framework that informed the research is drawn from a critical constructivist perspective, where the author recognizes the value of the lived experiences of people to be able to provide a lens through which social justice issues can be better captured. Issues of nationalism and authoritarianism are usually addressed at macro, national levels, and oftentimes from patriarchal perspectives. This book allows readers to see how the spread of nationalism and authoritarianism are viewed in micro, local spaces, and through feminist lenses. Through the use of story, and using techniques of portraiture (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997), this book tells the story of one group of women, in one city who have borne witness to a pivotal event in 1991 and the subsequent fallout that has changed the fabric of the city.

The sources of data are women who shared schooling experience in the 1980s, and have lived in Bangalore, experienced the sociopolitical changes, including, for some, managing their own children’s educational experience in a changing city. The sample was drawn from a pool of 120 students in a specific graduating class of a girls’ school. Interviews of 35 women in 2021-2022, along with informal observations and interactions with a sub-set of participants over several decades, are the core data used in this study. The research was spawned from journals written by the author since the 1980s about her experience in school and life, and how key events in society which signaled the shift in values and ideologies.

The book’s contributions are original and timely, showing how macro political and ideological changes shape lives. Changes in people’s lives affect how they make sense of the role of education, the experience of learning, and how they take charge of living their lives.

Author

• Supriya Baily, George Mason University