Res(s)ent(i)ment and Nonaffirmative Creativity: Hindu Minorities in Pakistan as Conceptual Personae

In recent years, the concepts of resentment and ressentiment have experienced a resurgence within journalistic and academic spheres. Events such as Brexit, the Trump presidency, and the rise of right-wing governments in Europe have reignited discourse on these and similar emotions, often as tools to interpret diverse forms of behavior. Both terms have largely been framed through Euro- and US-centric model cases. Whereas resentment tends to address issues arising predominantly within (Western) liberal contexts, Nietzsche's notion of ressentiment appears more applicable to many illiberal environments of the global South. Engaging with ressentiment, the author explores what unfolds when we dismantle the conceptual hierarchy between ethnography and philosophy, allowing empirical case studies from illiberal settings to confront the cultural history of ressentiment by generating new problematics. Drawing from his extensive work with marginalized Hindu communities in Pakistan, the author argues that survival, rather than spite or rancor, is the principal catalyst for opportunistic creative expressions of ressentiment. The author shifts the focus—both Nietzsche's and his later readers’—from the “priest's” role in cultivating rancor to exploring what it means to be creative within the context of cultural and political dependence on a dominant elite.