Book talk: Audacious Hope by Prof Indrajit Roy (13/03/2025)

About the book:

As the pillars of democracy crumble across the globe, big and small actions of resistance prop up hope and keep alive a way to rebuild. In the past few decades, ordinary folk in India have stood up to repressive state authority over and over again. Their vital acts of hope preserve the collective spirit of resistance and unwavering resilience necessary to continue the fight for democracy. Audacious Hope is a careful, rigorous archive of these struggles, including the protests that united farmers across state borders in 2020 and the national outcry following the controversial CAA legislation. From the myriad ways people came to the aid of their fellow citizens during the pandemic to the testing of free-speech boundaries by cultural activists, This book undertakes the task of documenting resistance in its many forms.

Roy (pictured below) challenges the reader with his account of how proud people are battling to save their beloved democracy. The question is, how can we, through individual and collective action, resist authoritarianism, casteism and majoritarianism? The answer is, of course, through the audacity of hope.

About the speaker:

Prof Indrajit Roy (DPhil, Oxford) is Professor of Global Development Politics at the University of York. He specialises on the global politics of hope, at the core of which lies an appreciation of the contentious connections between democracy and development. He investigates the social foundations of democratic deepening, erosion and renewal; the demands for development as a democratic practice; and the circulation of ideas about democracy and development between national and global contexts. Indrajit is a Trustee of the Political Studies Association (PSA) and British Association of South Asian Studies (BASAS), Executive Member of the International Political Studies Association (IPSA), and Councillor of Development Studies Association (DSA).

About the discussants:

Dr Fran Amery is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Bath. Her research addresses contemporary struggles around gender and LGBTQ+ equality. Her current research addresses, firstly, organised transphobia, particularly the ‘gender-critical’ movement in the UK, but also its international linkages. Secondly, her research addresses menstrual justice and injustice globally in the context of activism, politics and policy. She is the author of Beyond Pro-Life and Pro-Choice: The Changing Politics of Abortion in Britain.

Vibhor Mathur is a researcher, social entrepreneur and activist, working in the fields of social policy, development and politics in the UK and India. His current work primarily focusses on the politics and psychosocial experiences of welfare policy. Vibhor is involved in the mixed-methods evaluations of the WorkFREE UBI Pilot in India and the Welsh Basic Income Pilot for Care Leavers. His previous work has focussed on issues of civic action, social justice and democratic backsliding in India. As a social entrepreneur Vibhor has established two civil society organisations, and worked with over 10,000 children, women and young people across urban slums and tribal belts in India.

Dr Noaman G. Ali is Lecturer in International Development at the University of Bath (UK). His research concerns underdevelopment and dependency, with a focus on agrarian political economy, political ecology, social movements, and radical theory in Pakistan and South Asia. Noaman’s academic work has been published in the Journal of Agrarian Change, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and Rethinking Marxism. He has also written for the Boston Review, Discourse, Jamhoor, Tanqeed, and BASICS Community News Service. He also hosted the Introduction to Political Economy podcast. He tweets at @noamangali.

About the chair:

Dr Oliver Walton is a Reader in International Development specialising in the political economy of war-to-peace transitions, NGO politics, aid policy, conflict, and peacebuilding. His research has focuses on the political economy of war to peace transitions, civil society, NGOs and NGO legitimacy. Recent work has examined the role of borderlands and brokers in post-war transitions in Nepal and Sri Lanka, the relationship between conflict and social welfare, and the role of alcohol in conflict-affected regions.