Papers by Roshni Sengupta
Quarterly Review of Film and Video
The paper seeks to provide an exhaustive narrative history of Hindi-language cinema’s (Bombay cin... more The paper seeks to provide an exhaustive narrative history of Hindi-language cinema’s (Bombay cinema) engagement with the question of marginality and the representation of marginal peoples and communities in Hindi film. Here we focus on two categories of marginality and its representation – caste (Dalit) and religious community (Muslim). One of the objectives of this paper is the consideration of the cinematic space as a field of dominance, control, struggle and resistance as well as of presentation and representation. It also attempts to engage with the teleology of “contested marginality” in Hindi cinema; the politics of exclusion; notions of power and negotiated marginality in the popular cinematic space; and the subaltern imaginary in cinema. While the paper seeks to unpack the notion of ‘marginality’ by examining cinematic representation in Hindi cinema, it attempts to locate excluded, marginalized, and minority communities and groups (religious, caste, and gender) within the larger discursive sphere of media as a public sphere and as a canvas of dominance and resistance.
Journal of Intercultural Studies
Twice-migrant and descended from the colonial labour diaspora, the Dutch Hindustanis in the Nethe... more Twice-migrant and descended from the colonial labour diaspora, the Dutch Hindustanis in the Netherlands are one of the most assimilated, socially integrated and upwardly mobile minority diaspora groups in the Netherlands. The group also remains the repository of the early vestiges of Hindi film music as well as traditional music from the Northern Indian plains, thereby making it a fascinating case study for cultural preservation. This paper undertakes to take a close look at the modes and methods employed by the Dutch Hindustanis to preserve their musical heritage and argues that it has emerged as one of the primary nodes of diasporic identity formation for the group.
Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 2023
The paper seeks to provide an exhaustive narrative history of Hindi-language cinema’s (Bombay cin... more The paper seeks to provide an exhaustive narrative history of Hindi-language cinema’s (Bombay cinema) engagement with the question of marginality and the representation of marginal peoples and communities in Hindi film. Here we focus on two categories of marginality and its representation – caste (Dalit) and religious community (Muslim). One of the objectives of this paper is the consideration of the cinematic space as a field of dominance, control, struggle and resistance as well as of presentation and representation. It also attempts to engage with the teleology of “contested marginality” in Hindi cinema; the politics of exclusion; notions of power and negotiated marginality in the popular cinematic space; and the subaltern imaginary in cinema. While the paper seeks to unpack the notion of ‘marginality’ by examining cinematic representation in Hindi cinema, it attempts to locate excluded, marginalized, and minority communities and groups (religious, caste, and gender) within the larger discursive sphere of media as a public sphere and as a canvas of dominance and resistance.
Journal of Intercultural Studies, 2023
Twice-migrant and descended from the colonial labour diaspora, the Dutch Hindustanis in the Nethe... more Twice-migrant and descended from the colonial labour diaspora, the Dutch Hindustanis in the Netherlands are one of the most assimilated, socially integrated and upwardly mobile minority diaspora groups in the Netherlands. The group also remains the repository of the early vestiges of Hindi film music as well as traditional music from the Northern Indian plains, thereby making it a fascinating case study for cultural preservation. This paper undertakes to take a close look at the modes and methods employed by the Dutch Hindustanis to preserve their musical heritage and argues that it has emerged as one of the primary nodes of diasporic identity formation for the group.
Diaspora Studies, 2022
Diaspora groups across the world have been known for adopting and inventing processes and forms o... more Diaspora groups across the world have been known for adopting and inventing processes and forms of 'homemaking' in their host lands. This article brings into focus the methods of homemaking assumed by the Indo-Surinamese Hindustani diaspora in the Netherlands, which owes its origin to colonial dispersal. Considering their status as a 'twice-migrant' diaspora, the process may appear to be distinctly difficult for the Hindustanis, a position this article seeks to examine. The article interrogates the notion of homemaking in the case of the Hindustanis through ethnographic conversational interviews of Indo-Surinamese interlocutors-a unique perspective based on personal histories and everyday experiences.
Journal of Hindu Studies, Mar 17, 2023
The chapter examines the redefinition of the transnational Indian as the Hindu designer diaspora,... more The chapter examines the redefinition of the transnational Indian as the Hindu designer diaspora, keen on providing moral and financial support to the rising tide of Hindu nationalism in India. It does so through an aesthetic exploration of the fetishization of the role of the ideal Hindu woman in the schemata of creating a larger Hindu nation. Ubiquitous in Bollywood productions remains the festival of karwa chauth and as this chapter seeks to explicate, the ritual observance of the festival has emerged as one of the primary markers of the idealization of the on-screen Hindu woman leading to the imagination of the diasporic Indian woman - observing the ritual - as ideal. The chapter also argues that the "Hindutvization" of the diaspora - particularly visible on social media platforms - remains a key epistemic response to and result of Bollywood cinematic content to which they have been continuously exposed. Based on visual analysis of selected Bollywood films such as Dilw...
Diaspora Studies
Diaspora groups across the world have been known for adopting and inventing processes and forms o... more Diaspora groups across the world have been known for adopting and inventing processes and forms of ‘homemaking’ in their host lands. This article brings into focus the methods of homemaking assumed by the Indo-Surinamese Hindustani diaspora in the Netherlands, which owes its origin to colonial dispersal. Considering their status as a ‘twice-migrant’ diaspora, the process may appear to be distinctly difficult for the Hindustanis, a position this article seeks to examine. The article interrogates the notion of homemaking in the case of the Hindustanis through ethnographic conversational interviews of Indo-Surinamese interlocutors—a unique perspective based on personal histories and everyday experiences.
Diaspora Studies, 2022
Diaspora groups across the world have been known for adopting and inventing processes and forms o... more Diaspora groups across the world have been known for adopting and inventing processes and forms of 'homemaking' in their host lands. This article brings into focus the methods of homemaking assumed by the Indo-Surinamese Hindustani diaspora in the Netherlands, which owes its origin to colonial dispersal. Considering their status as a 'twice-migrant' diaspora, the process may appear to be distinctly difficult for the Hindustanis, a position this article seeks to examine. The article interrogates the notion of homemaking in the case of the Hindustanis through ethnographic conversational interviews of Indo-Surinamese interlocutors-a unique perspective based on personal histories and everyday experiences.
Wiek XXI był świadkiem wzrostu potęgi Chin i Indii jako globalnych liderów. Ich światowe znaczeni... more Wiek XXI był świadkiem wzrostu potęgi Chin i Indii jako globalnych liderów. Ich światowe znaczenie obecnie pozwala prognozować, że te dwa kraje znajdą się w gronie mocarstw, kształtujących geopolitykę przez resztę stulecia. Wzrost obu krajów budzi nadzieję, jednak żywiołowy rozwój Chin i Indii stał się uzasadnieniem raczej pytań niż odpowiedzi, dotyczących sposobu i kierunku, które obiorą te dwa azjatyckie giganty - dla siebie i dla otaczającego je świata. Wszystko to przy założeniu, że każdy z nich będzie podążał przez kolejne kilka dekad ścieżką dużego wzrostu gospodarczego, na który wskazują obecne trendy. W tym kontekście dość często padają pytania: czy Indie i Chiny są swoimi sojusznikami, czy raczej rywalizują? Czy w stosunkach dwustronnych raczej współpracują, czy współzawodniczą? Jak duże jest ryzyko ich konfliktu militarnego? Z perspektywy kryzysu na płaskowyżu Doklam w 2017 r. stawka bezpośredniej konfrontacji zbrojnej wzrosła. Jakie stosunki łączą partnerów z sąsiadami - ...
Przedstawienie spójnego i zwięzłego przeglądu współczesnych trendów w gospodarce Indii wymaga wpr... more Przedstawienie spójnego i zwięzłego przeglądu współczesnych trendów w gospodarce Indii wymaga wprowadzenia, dotyczącego rozwoju gospodarczego kraju po odzyskaniu niepodległości. W niniejszym artykule uwzględnię zarówno kierunki planowania rozwoju, jak i rzeczywistą politykę gospodarczą od wczesnego okresu niepodległego państwa do początku lat dziewięćdziesiątych. To wtedy Indie osiągnęły znaczny wzrost, który nastąpił po wprowadzeniu reform gospodarczych i liberalizacji ekonomicznej. Przedstawię również szeroki, a jednocześnie uszczegółowiony obraz bieżących tendencji w polityce gospodarczej Indii, w obliczu obserwowanego spowolnienia gospodarczego, z perspektywą na przyszłość
Delhi : Primus Books, 2020
The question of how religious and sectarian identities are represented in Bollywood, which contin... more The question of how religious and sectarian identities are represented in Bollywood, which continues to be part of the psyche of Indians and South Asians the world over, has recently emerged as crucial and complex. The notion of the cinematic representation of identities, particularly of the Muslim as a cultural category, also contains within it ideas about visualities and their impact. As identities are redefined in the context of extremist ideologies, the advent of religious nationalism aids and abets such redefinitions. The contribution of cinema to such an ideological milieu is immense and Hindi cinema, through its romantic narratives and culture of myth-making as well as the capital intensive, industrial nature of its production, has emerged as one of the most powerful tools of political communication and propaganda. Reading the Muslim on Celluloid: Bollywood, Representation and Politics aims to bring some of these cinematic narratives under the analytical lens and contextualize the representation of the Muslim identity in popular Hindi cinema. It also argues that a noticeable transformation in the representation of Muslims in films through the 1990s and 2000s culminated in the emergence of a secularized portrayal which can be perceived to be problematic. Can one discern an attempt to construct a visual binary where Muslims can be categorized as 'good' and 'bad'? Does Hindi cinema perceive the Muslim through an overly simplified worldview of loyalty and nationalism? This book seeks to answer some of these difficult questions
New Delhi : Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, 2013
The monograph focuses on the transformation that took place after the events of September 11, 200... more The monograph focuses on the transformation that took place after the events of September 11, 2001 in the imagination and representation of the Muslim terrorist in Bollywood films
Dialog (Chandigarh), 2015
Film, Media, and Representation in Postcolonial South Asia, 2021
Diaspora Studies, 2020
The review article provides an in-depth look at the challenges and nuances of media consumption a... more The review article provides an in-depth look at the challenges and nuances of media consumption and production among immigrant communities in contemporary Europe
Frederic Jameson describes cinema in terms of a “geopolitical aesthetic” (Jameson, 1991)1. In say... more Frederic Jameson describes cinema in terms of a “geopolitical aesthetic” (Jameson, 1991)1. In saying this he refers to the missionary zeal of cinema to travel far and wide, creating and spawning cultures in its wake. S Brent Plate articulates this confluence as a “georeligious aesthetic” (Plate, 2003)2. In fact he proposes to understand cinema as a georeligious aesthetic which has transcended boundaries and entered the lives of millions across the world. As a georeligious aesthetic, he explains, cinema is bound to religion in more ways than one. As such, films are not simply religious because of their content but also because of their form and reception. Religion is imagistic, participatory, performative, and world-creating—and more often than not it is cinema that best provides the canvas where these activities can be carried out. It is important also to note, according to Brent Plate that media and communication—of which cinema is a part—are not merely hollow, empty receptacles th...
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Papers by Roshni Sengupta
The history of communication in India is a long and varied one. It is also multi-faceted, dynamic, and chronologically diverse. Over centuries, the Indian communication landscape has encompassed a unique philosophy covering pre-Vedic, Vedic, modern, and post-modern periods. Oral communication in India, for instance, has developed several diverse strandsfrom forms of folk art and theatre to other community communication methods. The prehistoric rock paintings of Bhimbetka and ancient paintings and sculptures of the Ajanta and Ellora caves are major examples of art-based forms of communication. Both classical and folk forms of music and dance and their adaptation of Hindu myths and legends as well as folktales and characters remain another manifestation of the multicultural history of communication. India subsequently became part of the modern communication revolution, beginning with the SITE experiment in 1975. The newspaper revolution was followed by the television boom, taking the Indian communications juggernaut further.
The history of communication in India is a long and varied one. It is also multi-faceted, dynamic, and chronologically diverse. Over centuries, the Indian communication landscape has encompassed a unique philosophy covering pre-Vedic, Vedic, modern, and post-modern periods. Oral communication in India, for instance, has developed several diverse strandsfrom forms of folk art and theatre to other community communication methods. The prehistoric rock paintings of Bhimbetka and ancient paintings and sculptures of the Ajanta and Ellora caves are major examples of art-based forms of communication. Both classical and folk forms of music and dance and their adaptation of Hindu myths and legends as well as folktales and characters remain another manifestation of the multicultural history of communication. India subsequently became part of the modern communication revolution, beginning with the SITE experiment in 1975. The newspaper revolution was followed by the television boom, taking the Indian communications juggernaut further.
The subsequent material remains an attempt to transmute traditional as well as transformative theories of justice and punishment within the narrative periphery of the television series so as to specifically assess the manner in which such representation occurs in popular culture. It would remain incumbent on the study to arrive at findings with the theoretical tradition in the foreground. The article presupposes the representation of crime and punishment within the larger realm of ‘justice as fairness’ as evidenced in the unfolding narrative of Prison Break. In this article, I argue that the depiction of retributive incarceration and the death penalty as punishment in Prison Break ultimately identifies the need for rational humans to challenge established structures of punishment and exercise agency – a principal goal of a just society. In the television series, the “breaking out” symbolizes human agency, its potential and limits.
- Engagements with gender in Bengali film
- Allure of the city in the Calcutta Trilogies
- Engaging with the Bengali underclass
- Detective fiction in Bengali cinema
- Politics and praxis in cinematic visuality
- Hindu-Muslim violence in Bengali cinema
- The politics of the Bengali ‘thriller’
- Meaning-making in Bengali film
- The ‘comedic’ and the ‘political’
Reading the Muslim on Celluloid: Bollywood, Representation and Politics aims to bring some of these cinematic narratives under the analytical lens and contextualize the representation of the Muslim identity in popular Hindi cinema. It also argues that a noticeable transformation in the representation of Muslims in films through the 1990s and 2000s culminated in the emergence of a secularized portrayal which can be perceived to be problematic. Can one discern an attempt to construct a visual binary where Muslims can be categorized as ‘good’ and ‘bad’? Does Hindi cinema perceive the Muslim through an overly simplified worldview of loyalty and nationalism? This book seeks to answer some of these difficult questions.
Through wide-ranging essays on soft power, performance, film, and television; art and visual culture; and cyber space, social media, and digital texts, the book bridges the gap in the study of the postcolonial and post-Partition developments to reimagine South Asia through a critical understanding of popular culture and media. The volume includes scholars and practitioners from the subcontinent to foster dialogue across the borders, and presents diverse and in-depth studies on film, media and representation in the region.
This book will be useful to scholars and researchers of media and film studies, postcolonial studies, visual cultures, political studies, partition history, cultural studies, mass media, popular culture, history, sociology and South Asian studies, as well as to media practitioners, journalists, writers, and activists.