A Politics-in-the-Pub in-person event.  Registration details will be sent to CIC Victoria members on Friday, 24 March.

India figures prominently in Canada’s recently unveiled Indo-Pacific strategy. But why does India matter and why is the world actively embracing it? Among the world’s ten largest economies, India is currently the fastest growing economy and, due to its demographic dividend, likely to sustain significantly faster growth than the others over the longer term, including China and the US. India’s altered relationship with China after the violent clashes in a 2020 stand-off on the western sector of the Sino-Indian border has allowed it to align more easily with the West and enter into plurilateral agreements such as the QUAD. However, since 2014, its rise as a global power has been accompanied by an era of ethnic majoritarianism and masculine nationalism that tend to erase differences, stifle dissent and curb the rights of minorities. Uniformity has now become the defining feature of the Indian state, replacing its former carefully constructed federal asymmetry and multicultural democracy.

To explore all of the issues noted above we are delighted that Reeta Tremblay will speak at our next Politics-in-the-Pub event.  Reeta is Professor Emerita of Comparative Politics and former Provost and Vice-President Academic at the University of Victoria. She is also Past President of the Canadian Political Science Association and Canadian Asian Studies. Her major areas of research are secessionist movements (Kashmir) in South Asia, the politics of subaltern resistance and accommodation in post-colonial societies, democracy and governance, and comparative federalism. She has authored or co-authored several books, articles, and reviews. Her work has been widely reviewed and cited, in particular, her writings on Kashmir and India-Pakistan relations, a subject on which she is widely considered as the leading North American expert. Two of her recent books are: Religion and Politics in Jammu and Kashmir (2020) and Modi’s Foreign Policy (2017).