Images of war, military coups, and violence tend to be heartbreaking. Such as the images coming out of India’s neighbourhood related to the recent coup in Bangladesh. The biggest brunt of the violence has been borne by Hindu minorities, most among them poor and marginalized, whose family members have been murdered, and who are fearing for their lives and that of their children.
Scores of temples have been destroyed. Buddhists, Christians, and Ahmadiyas have also been targeted. Homes and small businesses have been torched.
Women report being harassed, and another worrying image was of men who mobbed the ex-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s residence, wearing and filming her undergarments for public consumption. It was called a vastraharan in sections of the Indian media, alluding to the episode from the Mahabharata, and one is relieved that there was no literal disrobing – or assassination – due largely to New Delhi’s assistance in providing her refuge, at least for now. The publicly shared images of the ex-Prime Minister’s undergarments reminded me of another image from some years ago, during American ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign against ex-President and current Republican contender Donald Trump.
A ‘satirical’ media outlet had published a morphed nude image of Clinton. I was teaching at an American university. International relations and area studies scholars who draw from postcolonial frameworks are often critical of dominant w.