Indian Film Stars: New Critical Perspectives (Bloomsbury/BFI), 2020
As instances from Hollywood, John Wayne with the western, Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck in... more As instances from Hollywood, John Wayne with the western, Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck in noir, Gene Kelly with the musical, Bette Davis in a category called 'drama' and Marilyn Monroe in comedy. 2 Female stars have never dominated any language cinema in India in the same way. This may be attributed to the action in each film narrative revolving largely around the male protagonist and the female lead dominating only in exceptional cases, as in films like the Hindi Andaz (Style, Mehboob Khan, 1949), which had Nargis in the most important role, or the Kannada film Belli Moda (Puttanna Kanagal, 1967), which had Kalpana. For a star to dominate a cinema he/she needs to be constantly fed key roles over a significant period and this has not happened with female stars. 3 They also serve their respective diasporas as, for instance, Tamil cinema, which is consumed by Tamils in Malaysia; but this is not a factor of importance to the Kannada film because Kannada speakers do not constitute a significant part of the Indian diaspora abroad.
WTO allows an RTA if the RTA has a "significant trade coverage". This essentially means that the ... more WTO allows an RTA if the RTA has a "significant trade coverage". This essentially means that the exclusion list in an RTA cannot be very large and the products in the exclusion list should not account for a high percentage of total bilateral trade. 5 The HS tariff lines which have zero base MFN rate but under EL are: 1001.90.31, 1001.90.39, 1005.90.00 and 9031.90.00. 6 The AIFTA Agreement, p 22. 7 Here ASEAN is treated as the group of 10 coun tries with which India has signed the AIFTA.
the crackdown on smuggling in the period and the enactment of a special law (COFEPOSA), Pfleidere... more the crackdown on smuggling in the period and the enactment of a special law (COFEPOSA), Pfleiderer suggests that smuggling is associated with "western behaviour" because smugglers cross the boundaries between east and west.
This number in cludes killings during protest demonstrations against the alleged desecration of t... more This number in cludes killings during protest demonstrations against the alleged desecration of the Quran in the United States of America. While 17 people were killed on 14 September in Kashmir, three people were killed in Mendhar in the Jammu re gion on 15 September 2010. Most of those killed in Kashmir are youth under the age of 25.
Since the thrust of this inquiry will partly depend on the differences between Kannada and Hindi ... more Since the thrust of this inquiry will partly depend on the differences between Kannada and Hindi cinema, it is also necessary to acknowledge that Mysore was a Hindu kingdom which was ruled autocratically. Hinduism was more orthodox and the position of the Brahmin caste and the priests more elevated although Veerashaivism developed here as a system of protest against Brahmin domination. It is also to be noted that the fact of the state being governed by Muslim rulers from 1761 to 1799 did not change this Hindu characteristic as far as structure was concerned-although in terms of personnel Brahmins and Veerashaivas were largely replaced by Muslims in this period. 21 The fact that the Mysore regime was virtually created by the colonial power does not mean that it did not strive for autonomy. In fact the struggle for autonomy became the dominant interest of the Mysore Government and the maharaja even designated his country as a 'nation within a nation'. 22 It has even been noted that (p.xviii) when the threat to autonomy came, it came from the Congress rather than the British. 23 Administration, Social Composition, and Conflict The administrative structure mirrored the one in British India, with each district presided over by a deputy commissioner. Under him, at the taluk level was the amuldar, usually an educated young man from one of the towns/cities. These two officials were representatives of the centralized power but the small size of the police made it difficult for the amuldar to extend his influence at the local level. Under the amuldar was the sheikdar, usually a person of low education, not part of the gazetted cadres of government service and poorly paid. Given the fact that the rulers were unable to exert influence at the local level, the amuldar was also powerless to prevent the sheikdar from arriving at arrangements locally and this naturally led to high degree of corruption at the lowest official level. 24 The local board policy in Mysore was devised to follow the example of the Madras Presidency. Since the boards did not exercise significant power and officials were able to maintain strict control over the boards, there was little interest among non-officials even to contest elections. A representative assembly had been created quite early by the rulers but although a provision was made for the election of members in 1891, the position prevailing in the boards also prevailed here. The assembly was given the right to pass resolutions on the general principles of all legislation (including taxation), but none of the resolutions were binding on the government. In 1907, a legislative council was also created with limited powers to vote on proposed legislation submitted to it by the government but the council contained an overwhelming majority of government officials and nominees. Mysore state was governed autocratically-a benevolent autocracy, perhaps-with the rulers ruling largely through their personal authority and declining to share power through institutions. At the literate as against 32.6 per cent of Veerashaivas and 15.2 per cent of Vokkaligas. 27 The Brahmin caste therefore dominated the administrative services of the Mysore government. Sixty-five per cent of the gazetted appointments were held by Brahmins, while Veerashaivas and Vokkaligas had less than 2 per cent each. 28 Caste/sect being a crucial way in which ties were created and maintained, the largest arena within which sustained social interaction occurred was the area across which people from one caste group or sect had established marriage alliances with other families. The endogamous marriage networks extended over a radius of ten to thirty miles-not more that a day's journey away. Being of the same caste/sect was not enough and families sought out links with families of comparable status, some of these ties reinforced by second and third generation alliances. The marriage networks overlapped with one another so that over a range of eighty or hundred miles an entire endogamous unit would be knitted together. At the state level, the dominant groups later formed associations through the efforts of those from the city, like merchants and civil servants, belonging to the particular caste or sect. While class status-and other factorswere important in (p.xx) contacting marriage ties with other families from the same caste group, people of the same caste/sect could still band together across class barriers through the state level associations. 29 Although the earliest kind of group conflict witnessed in Mysore after the fall of Tipu Sultan was between the 'Madrasis'-those Brahmins brought in from the Madras Presidency and considered more sophisticated and capable by the British-and those Brahmins who were from Mysore, this conflict was entirely within the administration. 30 The first Mysorean dewan was P.N. Krishnamurthi (1901-6) and the next one was Sir M. Visveswaraiya (1912-18), who was perhaps the greatest of the dewans. A wider conflict-which eventually led to Visveswaraiya's resignation-was the one between the Brahmins and the non-Brahmins for representation in the administration. The 'non-Brahmin movement' was perhaps inspired by the similar movement in the Madras Presidency. As a consequence of this movement, a non-Brahmin dewan (the maharaja's own uncle) was installed in 1919 and a committee under a British jurist, Sir Leslie Miller, was instituted to look into the issue of a quota for non-Brahmins in the administration. The enquiry produced a report that called for a quota-system to favour non-Brahmins in the civil service. The dissatisfaction of the non-Brahmins found itself reflected in the creation and the growth of the Praja Mitra Mandali, a political party that (renamed later as the People's Federation) merged with the Congress prior to Independence. The Praja Mitra Mandali was dominated by Veerashaivas and Muslims (then classified as 'non-Brahmins') with the Vokkaligas becoming more powerful after 1927. As regards the possible conflict between the dominant communities-the Veerashaivas and the Vokkaligasthere is no evidence of it before 1947. 31 While it is difficult to assert that these socio-political factors are all pertinent, some of them appear to influence Kannada cinema's conventions-those that set it apart from the Hindi film. Form and Convention in Kannada Cinema Film convention and form are not static but actually change in cinema; still, it is necessary to examine the earliest available Kannada films to understand how the later conventions come about. The prints of only a handful of films from the 1940s and early 1950s are still in existence, and the films chosen here are (p.xxi) R. Nagendra Rao's Harishchandra (1943) and H.L.N. Simha's Gunasagari (1953). The films are separated by ten years and common to them may be features generally characteristic of early Kannada cinema. Another early film Ramaiyer and Shirur's Vasanthasena (1941) will also be touched upon. Formally, Kannada language cinema of the 1940s and 1950s is akin to the Hindi cinema of the same period. The differences, when they arise, are largely in the areas of motifs and generic conventions. To reiterate what was said earlier, I will try to establish the form/conventions in the early Kannada film through a comparison with those of mainstream Hindi cinema, which have been studied. 32 While Hindi cinema has employed them to narrativize the historical experience of the nation, my purpose here is to examine Kannada cinema's codes and conventions in order to understand how Kannada cinema deals with two overlapping narratives, a local one pertaining to the immediate milieu and another pertaining to the nation-or, rather, attempts to negotiate the space The Domestic Melodrama and Mythological Film Like Hindi cinema, Kannada films were, without exception, melodramas in the earlier years, but they also incorporated large chunks of mythology. The mythological in Indian cinema has been understood as an element in the agenda of anti-colonial nationalism. As Partha Chatterjee proposes, anti-colonial nationalism created its own domain of sovereignty within colonial society long before it began its political battle with the imperial power-(p.xxv) credited in history text books with the founding of the INC in 1885. Anti-colonial nationalism did this by dividing the world of social institutions and practices into two domains-the material and the spiritual. The material is the domain of the 'outside', of the economy and of statecraft, of science and technology, a domain them as completely realized intent, there is a later Hindi film also based on the Harishchandra legend, V. Shantaram's Ayodhya Ka Raja (1932), that may be helpful in our understanding the Kannada Harishchandra as a mythological film. One difference between the two Harishchandra films is that the Hindi film appears much more lavish, with its emphasis on the princely life sacrificed by the protagonist. A closer look at both films shows that while Ayodhya Ka Raja uses the long shot even in the palace sequences to convey a sense of indoor space-commensurate with the life of a great king-the medium shot dominates in Nagendra Rao's Kannada film. While Shantaram's film may only be following the precedent followed by Raja Ravi Verma who painted scenes of splendour from the puranas as an expression of nationalist pride, the Kannada Harishchandra is only preoccupied with conveying a pertinent message-the devotion of the queen and the prince to the king, and the king conducting himself in accordance with dharma to deserve it. This is supported by scenes of domesticity in the household into which the queen and prince are sold, and which are filmed as in a 'social'-as domestic melodrama. While Ayodhya Ka Raja never loses sight of the grandeur of the legend, Harishchandra is less intended to 'bring alive the legend' than to deliver a contemporary message. When we examine Gunasagari, which came ten years later,...
... There are four of them initially - DJ (Aamir Khan) who is a Sikh, Karan whose father is an ar... more ... There are four of them initially - DJ (Aamir Khan) who is a Sikh, Karan whose father is an arms contractor, Aslam and Sukhi. Another of Sonia's friends - who later becomes engaged to her - Js Ajay Rathod, a flight lieutenant in the air force. ...
La gouvernance juridique et fiscale des organisations La gouvernance des organisations constitue ... more La gouvernance juridique et fiscale des organisations La gouvernance des organisations constitue un thème majeur porté en permanence par l'actualité. La notion même d'organisation est l'un des objets déterminants sur lesquels droit et gestion se focalisent. Riche d'implications, l' ...
Popular Culture in a Globalised India, Jan 1, 2008
16 MK Raghavendra that Kannada cinema addresses. This is expected to help problematize some issue... more 16 MK Raghavendra that Kannada cinema addresses. This is expected to help problematize some issues aboutBangalore thathave notyetreceivedwidespreadnotice. Of course its 'global importance'is only one aspect of Bangalore but this role has seen the city being ...
Indian literature is produced in a wealth of languages but there is an asymmetry in the exposure ... more Indian literature is produced in a wealth of languages but there is an asymmetry in the exposure the writing gets, which owes partly to the politics of translation into English. This book represents the first comprehensive political scrutiny of the concerns and attitudes of Indian language literature after 1947 to cover such a wide range, including voices from the cultural margins of the nation like Kashmiri and Manipuri, that of women alongside those of minority and marginalised communities. In examining the politics of the writing especially in relation to concerns like nationhood, caste, tradition and modernity, postcoloniality, gender issues and religious conflict, the book goes beyond the declared ideology of each writer to get at covert significations pointing to widely shared but often unacknowledged biases. The book is deeply analytical but lucid and jargon-free and, to those unfamiliar with the writers, it introduces a new keenness into Indian literary criticism to make its objects exciting.
Indian Film Stars: New Critical Perspectives (Bloomsbury/BFI), 2020
As instances from Hollywood, John Wayne with the western, Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck in... more As instances from Hollywood, John Wayne with the western, Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck in noir, Gene Kelly with the musical, Bette Davis in a category called 'drama' and Marilyn Monroe in comedy. 2 Female stars have never dominated any language cinema in India in the same way. This may be attributed to the action in each film narrative revolving largely around the male protagonist and the female lead dominating only in exceptional cases, as in films like the Hindi Andaz (Style, Mehboob Khan, 1949), which had Nargis in the most important role, or the Kannada film Belli Moda (Puttanna Kanagal, 1967), which had Kalpana. For a star to dominate a cinema he/she needs to be constantly fed key roles over a significant period and this has not happened with female stars. 3 They also serve their respective diasporas as, for instance, Tamil cinema, which is consumed by Tamils in Malaysia; but this is not a factor of importance to the Kannada film because Kannada speakers do not constitute a significant part of the Indian diaspora abroad.
WTO allows an RTA if the RTA has a "significant trade coverage". This essentially means that the ... more WTO allows an RTA if the RTA has a "significant trade coverage". This essentially means that the exclusion list in an RTA cannot be very large and the products in the exclusion list should not account for a high percentage of total bilateral trade. 5 The HS tariff lines which have zero base MFN rate but under EL are: 1001.90.31, 1001.90.39, 1005.90.00 and 9031.90.00. 6 The AIFTA Agreement, p 22. 7 Here ASEAN is treated as the group of 10 coun tries with which India has signed the AIFTA.
the crackdown on smuggling in the period and the enactment of a special law (COFEPOSA), Pfleidere... more the crackdown on smuggling in the period and the enactment of a special law (COFEPOSA), Pfleiderer suggests that smuggling is associated with "western behaviour" because smugglers cross the boundaries between east and west.
This number in cludes killings during protest demonstrations against the alleged desecration of t... more This number in cludes killings during protest demonstrations against the alleged desecration of the Quran in the United States of America. While 17 people were killed on 14 September in Kashmir, three people were killed in Mendhar in the Jammu re gion on 15 September 2010. Most of those killed in Kashmir are youth under the age of 25.
Since the thrust of this inquiry will partly depend on the differences between Kannada and Hindi ... more Since the thrust of this inquiry will partly depend on the differences between Kannada and Hindi cinema, it is also necessary to acknowledge that Mysore was a Hindu kingdom which was ruled autocratically. Hinduism was more orthodox and the position of the Brahmin caste and the priests more elevated although Veerashaivism developed here as a system of protest against Brahmin domination. It is also to be noted that the fact of the state being governed by Muslim rulers from 1761 to 1799 did not change this Hindu characteristic as far as structure was concerned-although in terms of personnel Brahmins and Veerashaivas were largely replaced by Muslims in this period. 21 The fact that the Mysore regime was virtually created by the colonial power does not mean that it did not strive for autonomy. In fact the struggle for autonomy became the dominant interest of the Mysore Government and the maharaja even designated his country as a 'nation within a nation'. 22 It has even been noted that (p.xviii) when the threat to autonomy came, it came from the Congress rather than the British. 23 Administration, Social Composition, and Conflict The administrative structure mirrored the one in British India, with each district presided over by a deputy commissioner. Under him, at the taluk level was the amuldar, usually an educated young man from one of the towns/cities. These two officials were representatives of the centralized power but the small size of the police made it difficult for the amuldar to extend his influence at the local level. Under the amuldar was the sheikdar, usually a person of low education, not part of the gazetted cadres of government service and poorly paid. Given the fact that the rulers were unable to exert influence at the local level, the amuldar was also powerless to prevent the sheikdar from arriving at arrangements locally and this naturally led to high degree of corruption at the lowest official level. 24 The local board policy in Mysore was devised to follow the example of the Madras Presidency. Since the boards did not exercise significant power and officials were able to maintain strict control over the boards, there was little interest among non-officials even to contest elections. A representative assembly had been created quite early by the rulers but although a provision was made for the election of members in 1891, the position prevailing in the boards also prevailed here. The assembly was given the right to pass resolutions on the general principles of all legislation (including taxation), but none of the resolutions were binding on the government. In 1907, a legislative council was also created with limited powers to vote on proposed legislation submitted to it by the government but the council contained an overwhelming majority of government officials and nominees. Mysore state was governed autocratically-a benevolent autocracy, perhaps-with the rulers ruling largely through their personal authority and declining to share power through institutions. At the literate as against 32.6 per cent of Veerashaivas and 15.2 per cent of Vokkaligas. 27 The Brahmin caste therefore dominated the administrative services of the Mysore government. Sixty-five per cent of the gazetted appointments were held by Brahmins, while Veerashaivas and Vokkaligas had less than 2 per cent each. 28 Caste/sect being a crucial way in which ties were created and maintained, the largest arena within which sustained social interaction occurred was the area across which people from one caste group or sect had established marriage alliances with other families. The endogamous marriage networks extended over a radius of ten to thirty miles-not more that a day's journey away. Being of the same caste/sect was not enough and families sought out links with families of comparable status, some of these ties reinforced by second and third generation alliances. The marriage networks overlapped with one another so that over a range of eighty or hundred miles an entire endogamous unit would be knitted together. At the state level, the dominant groups later formed associations through the efforts of those from the city, like merchants and civil servants, belonging to the particular caste or sect. While class status-and other factorswere important in (p.xx) contacting marriage ties with other families from the same caste group, people of the same caste/sect could still band together across class barriers through the state level associations. 29 Although the earliest kind of group conflict witnessed in Mysore after the fall of Tipu Sultan was between the 'Madrasis'-those Brahmins brought in from the Madras Presidency and considered more sophisticated and capable by the British-and those Brahmins who were from Mysore, this conflict was entirely within the administration. 30 The first Mysorean dewan was P.N. Krishnamurthi (1901-6) and the next one was Sir M. Visveswaraiya (1912-18), who was perhaps the greatest of the dewans. A wider conflict-which eventually led to Visveswaraiya's resignation-was the one between the Brahmins and the non-Brahmins for representation in the administration. The 'non-Brahmin movement' was perhaps inspired by the similar movement in the Madras Presidency. As a consequence of this movement, a non-Brahmin dewan (the maharaja's own uncle) was installed in 1919 and a committee under a British jurist, Sir Leslie Miller, was instituted to look into the issue of a quota for non-Brahmins in the administration. The enquiry produced a report that called for a quota-system to favour non-Brahmins in the civil service. The dissatisfaction of the non-Brahmins found itself reflected in the creation and the growth of the Praja Mitra Mandali, a political party that (renamed later as the People's Federation) merged with the Congress prior to Independence. The Praja Mitra Mandali was dominated by Veerashaivas and Muslims (then classified as 'non-Brahmins') with the Vokkaligas becoming more powerful after 1927. As regards the possible conflict between the dominant communities-the Veerashaivas and the Vokkaligasthere is no evidence of it before 1947. 31 While it is difficult to assert that these socio-political factors are all pertinent, some of them appear to influence Kannada cinema's conventions-those that set it apart from the Hindi film. Form and Convention in Kannada Cinema Film convention and form are not static but actually change in cinema; still, it is necessary to examine the earliest available Kannada films to understand how the later conventions come about. The prints of only a handful of films from the 1940s and early 1950s are still in existence, and the films chosen here are (p.xxi) R. Nagendra Rao's Harishchandra (1943) and H.L.N. Simha's Gunasagari (1953). The films are separated by ten years and common to them may be features generally characteristic of early Kannada cinema. Another early film Ramaiyer and Shirur's Vasanthasena (1941) will also be touched upon. Formally, Kannada language cinema of the 1940s and 1950s is akin to the Hindi cinema of the same period. The differences, when they arise, are largely in the areas of motifs and generic conventions. To reiterate what was said earlier, I will try to establish the form/conventions in the early Kannada film through a comparison with those of mainstream Hindi cinema, which have been studied. 32 While Hindi cinema has employed them to narrativize the historical experience of the nation, my purpose here is to examine Kannada cinema's codes and conventions in order to understand how Kannada cinema deals with two overlapping narratives, a local one pertaining to the immediate milieu and another pertaining to the nation-or, rather, attempts to negotiate the space The Domestic Melodrama and Mythological Film Like Hindi cinema, Kannada films were, without exception, melodramas in the earlier years, but they also incorporated large chunks of mythology. The mythological in Indian cinema has been understood as an element in the agenda of anti-colonial nationalism. As Partha Chatterjee proposes, anti-colonial nationalism created its own domain of sovereignty within colonial society long before it began its political battle with the imperial power-(p.xxv) credited in history text books with the founding of the INC in 1885. Anti-colonial nationalism did this by dividing the world of social institutions and practices into two domains-the material and the spiritual. The material is the domain of the 'outside', of the economy and of statecraft, of science and technology, a domain them as completely realized intent, there is a later Hindi film also based on the Harishchandra legend, V. Shantaram's Ayodhya Ka Raja (1932), that may be helpful in our understanding the Kannada Harishchandra as a mythological film. One difference between the two Harishchandra films is that the Hindi film appears much more lavish, with its emphasis on the princely life sacrificed by the protagonist. A closer look at both films shows that while Ayodhya Ka Raja uses the long shot even in the palace sequences to convey a sense of indoor space-commensurate with the life of a great king-the medium shot dominates in Nagendra Rao's Kannada film. While Shantaram's film may only be following the precedent followed by Raja Ravi Verma who painted scenes of splendour from the puranas as an expression of nationalist pride, the Kannada Harishchandra is only preoccupied with conveying a pertinent message-the devotion of the queen and the prince to the king, and the king conducting himself in accordance with dharma to deserve it. This is supported by scenes of domesticity in the household into which the queen and prince are sold, and which are filmed as in a 'social'-as domestic melodrama. While Ayodhya Ka Raja never loses sight of the grandeur of the legend, Harishchandra is less intended to 'bring alive the legend' than to deliver a contemporary message. When we examine Gunasagari, which came ten years later,...
... There are four of them initially - DJ (Aamir Khan) who is a Sikh, Karan whose father is an ar... more ... There are four of them initially - DJ (Aamir Khan) who is a Sikh, Karan whose father is an arms contractor, Aslam and Sukhi. Another of Sonia's friends - who later becomes engaged to her - Js Ajay Rathod, a flight lieutenant in the air force. ...
La gouvernance juridique et fiscale des organisations La gouvernance des organisations constitue ... more La gouvernance juridique et fiscale des organisations La gouvernance des organisations constitue un thème majeur porté en permanence par l'actualité. La notion même d'organisation est l'un des objets déterminants sur lesquels droit et gestion se focalisent. Riche d'implications, l' ...
Popular Culture in a Globalised India, Jan 1, 2008
16 MK Raghavendra that Kannada cinema addresses. This is expected to help problematize some issue... more 16 MK Raghavendra that Kannada cinema addresses. This is expected to help problematize some issues aboutBangalore thathave notyetreceivedwidespreadnotice. Of course its 'global importance'is only one aspect of Bangalore but this role has seen the city being ...
Indian literature is produced in a wealth of languages but there is an asymmetry in the exposure ... more Indian literature is produced in a wealth of languages but there is an asymmetry in the exposure the writing gets, which owes partly to the politics of translation into English. This book represents the first comprehensive political scrutiny of the concerns and attitudes of Indian language literature after 1947 to cover such a wide range, including voices from the cultural margins of the nation like Kashmiri and Manipuri, that of women alongside those of minority and marginalised communities. In examining the politics of the writing especially in relation to concerns like nationhood, caste, tradition and modernity, postcoloniality, gender issues and religious conflict, the book goes beyond the declared ideology of each writer to get at covert significations pointing to widely shared but often unacknowledged biases. The book is deeply analytical but lucid and jargon-free and, to those unfamiliar with the writers, it introduces a new keenness into Indian literary criticism to make its objects exciting.
The Hindu Nation: A Reconciliation with modernity, 2021
The book begins with an introduction examining ‘nationhood’ in India and then traces the politica... more The book begins with an introduction examining ‘nationhood’ in India and then traces the political conflict to Nehruvian cultural policy after 1947. In today’s world, no religion can claim to be superior to any other. But in pursuing ‘modernity’ and inculcating the ‘scientific’ and ‘secular’ outlook, Nehruvian rationalism created an elite liberal class that was sceptical about the majority religion, but this was not extended to other religions because of a misunderstanding of ‘secularism’. In promoting Westernised education, the preserving of local knowledge was neglected and Hinduism lost respect among the educated elite born into it. The elite class became the intermediary with the West, which now dominates academic study of India. Further, prompted by the sceptical attitude of liberal Indians, Western academics and intellectuals accord Hinduism less respect than to other religions and treat it as ‘superstition’. Traditional Indians who revere Hinduism but are products of the same lop-sided system respond by attributing false value to India’s prehistory and its past. Hinduism is not a religion but a collection of practices associated with the space now called India. Author M.K. Raghavendra examines what being ‘Hindu’ means and asks whether its practices are reconcilable with global modernity and compatible with justice and egalitarianism.
The Writing of the nation by its elite: The politics of Anglophone Indian literature in the global age
This volume examines the idea of India as it emerges in the writing of its anglophone elite, post... more This volume examines the idea of India as it emerges in the writing of its anglophone elite, post-2000. Drawing on a variety of genres, including fiction, histories, non-fiction assessments-economic, political, and business-travel accounts, and so on, this book maps the explosion of English language writing in India after the economic liberalization and points to the nation's sense of its growing importance as a producer of culture. From Ramachandra Guha to William Dalrymple, from Arundhati Roy to Pankaj Mishra, from Jhumpa Lahiri to Amitav Ghosh, from Amartya Sen to Gurcharan Das, from Barkha Dutt to Tarun Tejpal, this investigation takes us from aesthetic imaginings of the nation to its fractured political fault lines, the ideological predispositions of the writers often pointing to an asymmetrically constituted India. A major intervention on how postcolonial India is written about and imagined in the anglophone world, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of cultural studies, literature, history, and South Asian studies. It will also be of interest to general readers with an inclination towards India and Indian writing.
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Books by Raghavendra Mk
Hinduism is not a religion but a collection of practices associated with the space now called India. Author M.K. Raghavendra examines what being ‘Hindu’ means and asks whether its practices are reconcilable with global modernity and compatible with justice and egalitarianism.