Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the Reshaping of the Public in India / Edition 1

by Arvind Rajagopal

Overview

Winner of the 2003 Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book Prize In January 1987, the Indian state-run television began broadcasting a Hindu epic in serial form, the Ramayan, to nationwide audiences, violating a decades-old taboo on religious partisanship. What resulted was the largest political campaign in post-independence times, around the symbol of Lord Ram, led by Hindu nationalists. The complexion of Indian politics was irrevocably changed thereafter. In this book, Arvind Rajagopal analyses this extraordinary series of events. While audiences may have thought they were harking back to an epic golden age, Hindu nationalist leaders were embracing the prospects of neoliberalism and globalisation. Television was the device that hinged these movements together, symbolising the new possibilities of politics, at once more inclusive and authoritarian. Simultaneously, this study examines how the larger historical context was woven into and changed the character of Hindu nationalism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521648394
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/25/2001
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	404
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.91(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. Hindu nationalism and the cultural forms of Indian politics; 2. Prime time religion; 3. The communicating thing and its public; 4. A 'Split Public' in the making and unmaking of the Ram Janmabhumi movement; 5. Organization, performance and symbol; 6. Hindutva goes global; Conclusion.

Editorial Reviews

"Rajagopal changes our way of thinking about the world, not only in India, but everywhere: his book is indispensable for anyone who wants to understand how globalism and localism intersect." Robert N. Bellah, Professor of Sociology Emeritus at the University at California, Berkeley

"This beautifully written book will surely become a classic in media and globalisation studies and in the cultural sociology of contemporary India." Arjun Appadurai, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago

"Politics After Television, with brilliant theoretical acuity and empirical richness,analyses how television redefines and forms part of a new circuit of politics and public culture in India. This is a superb and stimulating contribution to the study of contemporary politics in India" Gyan Prakash, Professor of History at Princeton University

"This book is one of the most significant of recent contributions to the literature on the history and political economy of the Hindu Right in India between the late 1980s and early 1990s, a period that saw the exponential growth of the Sangh Parivar's mass base and ideology...Rajagopal's book has provided a framework for understanding the political practice of the Sangh Parivar as it is likely ro evolve." Frontline: India's National Magazine, Volume 18, http://www.frontlineonline.com

"the book is an important contribution to the literature and will be of interest to India and media specialists." CHOICE Nov 2001

From the Publisher