Assemblages of exclusion: populist nationalism and the cultural politics of the Chalo India campaign

As an exploratory and critical study examining what seems to have been overlooked regarding the Chalo India diaspora campaign’s roots and characteristics, the article highlights the campaign’s potent formation within the populist nationalist habitus of Hindutva politics. Put it differently, the article casts light on the granularity of the ways in which the populist Hindu nationalist politics has shaped and been embedded in the campaign. It contends that the Chalo India campaign must be understood as an assemblage within the practice of the spatialization of the Hindutva narrative, a practice for which India’s tourism and cultural landscapes have recently become a key site. In doing so, the article contributes to the body of work on right-wing populism by analyzing how regimes employ diaspora, tourism, and heritage collectively to govern and manage the inclusion and exclusion of ‘others’ based on cultural, religious, and ethnic markers as part of their populist political projects. It also contributes to the literature on right-wing heritage policy that remains largely underexplored.