Fresh Faculty: Gilles Verniers

Q: What courses do you teach here at Amherst?

A: I’ve taught a course on democratic erosion in India, but my more regular courses are “Political Violence” and “Histories of the Far Right,” which I co-teach with a historian, [Associate Professor of History Adi Gordon], at the moment.

Q: What led you to work here at Amherst?

A: I was invited by [Chair of Sexuality, Women’s and Gender Studies] Amrita Basu to spend a semester at Amherst. It just so happened that my situation in India became somewhat complicated, which led to the college extending its invitation on several occasions … to the point that what was going to be a semester [at Amherst] is now becoming two years.

Q: Would you mind talking a little bit about your previous position in India and the work you did there?

A: I was a professor of political science at a liberal arts university recently created in Northern India, outside of Delhi, called Ashoka University. This university was created in 2014, and I joined before it actually existed. It defines itself as a liberal arts college; in terms of curriculum, structure, and pedagogy, it is somewhat similar to Amherst, but its course content focuses more on India and South Asia. I was one of the founding faculty, and I co-created the Political Science Department. I also founded a research center, the Trivedi Centre for Political Data that, for the first time in India, created an open access data set on Indian elections and politics.

My position in India was fairly public because of the work that we did at the center. Me and my collaborators published a lot of election analysis, but also fed election commentary in India, particularly done by the media, with raw material, evidence, data, charts, graphics and so forth. The challenge was doing that — both building a liberal arts institution and within it a research center dedicated to elections and the study of democracy — in an environment that, ever since the creation of the university, became more and more illiberal. 2014 is a relevant date because it’s not just the year we founded [Ashoka] University, but it’s also the year Hindu nationalists came to power [in India] … and what we have seen [since] is an acceleration of democratic decline, which has translated into increased pressure on centers of knowledge, universities, research institutions, and civil society organizations at large. Anyone working in the field of human rights, development, or any form of political engagement that is perceived to be remotely critical of the government came under intense scrutiny.

Q: You mentioned the importance of having the data you created at Ashoka University be made publicly available. What impact do you hope this data will have on Indian society?

A: The impact that we hoped to have was to inject public conversations and debate with more evidence, to not reserve the domain of election interpretations to partisan opinion, but to at least ground this work in empirical evidence. I remember when I started, people were telling me you’ll be fine, you’ll be safe, because you’re dealing with facts. It turns out that in an illiberal regime, [that is] precisely what gets you at the end of the day. Authoritarian regimes nurture complex relationships with lucent notions such as truth and facts and data, especially when [they] make large claims about the effectiveness of their governance, while at the same time, they tend not to subject themselves to the usual role of democratic accountability.

One way [they] achieve that is to go after those who produce autonomous evidence, on anything. It doesn’t necessarily need to be data on elections or democracy, but it can be data on population, malnutrition, or poverty, for instance. So what we’ve seen in India is a slow dismantling … of the entire public data architecture that used to be the pride of the country. It used to hold a decade of census data that contained a wealth of information, which is really the backbone for policy making in India. A lot of these sources of public information have either dried up or have been politicized. Inconvenient data does not get released anymore ... There has been a concerted effort from the part of the Hindu nationalist government and its affiliates to go after independent centers of data production. And so research organizations and NGOs that produce evidence on all manners of political questions have been targeted — you can think of Amnesty International, which has been banned from India … I have a colleague, again at Ashoka, who published [a] paper [that] for the first time established suggestive evidence of electoral manipulation in the national election. He was also pushed out from the university under external pressure.

Q: Have you been able to continue this work, or similar work since arriving at Amherst? If so, what difficulties have you encountered in doing so?

A: I have continued this work. I’ve been maintaining data sets, updating them. I’ve been working on the recent election, in particular, the general election that took place [in India] last April. The challenge, of course, is that I no longer have the resources that I used to have. I used to run a … small army of research assistants [that] have not been able to [continue] anymore. Being in the US also, of course, cuts you from the field. A lot of the raw material, the primary material, that we collected was actually collected through fieldwork. It’s not public information … And so, of course, it’s a challenge to do that kind of work at a distance, but this work was always collaborative. I still have a … network of scholars and colleagues who are helping me sustain and continue this work. But being cut from the field is obviously a major hindrance.

Q: What led to your interest in South Asian politics?

A: I’m afraid there’s no short answer to that question. I went to India when I was 18, just after [high] school, before I started college, at a time where I had no idea what I wanted to study or do in my life. And in a way, the year I spent in India provided guidance on those questions. The first year I spent in India was in ’97. This was the year of a general election, a national election. India in the 90s had a national election every year … I was sort of learning about a country that I was completely ignorant about before going to. Basically, you know, I started asking questions. How do you keep a country that is so large, so populated, so unequal, with such a history of violence all together through democracy? How do you build institutions? How do you sustain them? And how do you ensure that democratic norms spread in a population that, at independence, was barely literate?

India has always been a fascinating case for students of democracy and democratization, because at independence it met none of the criteria that were thought necessary to properly democratize.  … Integrating that territory, giving it democratic institutions, and sustaining a trajectory of democracy for over 70 years is absolutely unique. When you look at the post-colonial trajectories of [most] countries, there are [few] examples of countries that democratize from the get-go and actually sustain their democracy. So all those questions were perfectly mysterious to me, and when I came back [from India] after a year, maybe I didn’t have answers, but I had the determination [to] study the subjects that [would] help me find answers to those questions. [Those subjects] were political science, political philosophy, the social sciences at large, and a little bit of international relations. But whichever course I took, I always asked for [permission] to do an assignment on India. My interest became more intellectual then, and it was very clear to me that I wanted to dedicate my life to studying this particular country.

Q: Shifting to your time at Amherst, what is your favorite part of being a professor here?

A: Many things. From the get go, I really appreciate being in a teaching-centric institution. I do love teaching, and I have been truly inspired by the commitment and dedication of my colleagues to their students and to their mission as teachers and as educators. In large research universities, teaching, especially undergraduate teaching, is often relegated as a mandatory aspect of the job that gets in the way of doing cutting edge research … I’ve spent some time in other professors’ classes to rethink how I myself teach, and I think I’ve learned a lot. I also appreciate the fact that being in a small liberal arts college grants you more freedom to pursue the kind of research you want to do. Obviously my colleagues here are amazingly productive — they publish large books, articles, and so forth, but they seem more free to determine what kind of research they want to do. As a result, people pursue whichever quirky inclination or particular niche interest they may have, be it philosophy of science or music or winemaking in the Roman Empire. So this ability, this freedom to explore, is something that I find extremely appealing.

What [also] draws me here is the fact that Amherst, in many ways, is everything that a city like Delhi isn’t. The environment, nature, and clean air, [are] things that we probably take for granted, but I deeply, deeply appreciate the ability to go on hikes and breathe without coughing. I’ve [also] been very impressed by my students in general. There’s obviously something that Amherst does very well when it selects its students. It’s not so much the formal qualities of their work, but it’s the level of drive and engagement that they display, which I’ve not necessarily found at other institutions.

Q: You mentioned going on hikes around Amherst. What are some other things you like to do for fun in the area, outside of being a professor?

A: The usual stereotypical activities, ranging from hiking reservoirs to apple picking in Vermont to the quest for the best asparagus in Hadley. This is also a region that is very rich culturally, I mean what is not to like in a region where you have bookstores everywhere! This has all contributed to a quality of life that’s quite remarkable. I like visiting farms to identify which place has the best produce and expanding my range of what I can do as a cook and a baker. And then, since I don’t want to do [those activities] on my own, I keep inviting people, so [I have] ended up having a fairly busy social life, which I really appreciate.

Q: What is one piece of advice that you would give to your students here at Amherst?

A: The range of resources [for students] here is just mind boggling. And this being a place of privilege and wealth, it constantly expands on the opportunities that it provides … I see liberal arts colleges such as Amherst as some kind of national treasure. It’s fairly exceptional to be able to learn in such a free, unconstrained environment. So yeah, one piece of advice [for my students] is to make the most of these opportunities, but not necessarily by seeking to maximize the number of activities that you do. Instead, try to find a sense of purpose in what you choose to do.