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

403 Pages·2001·1.57 MB·English

by  Arvind Rajagopal

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POLITICS AFTER TELEVISION
ReligiousNationalismandtheReshapingoftheIndianPublic
InJanuary1987,theIndianstate-runtelevisionbeganbroadcasting
aHinduepicinserialform,theRamayan,tonationwideaudien-
ces,violatingadecades-oldtabooonreligiouspartisanship.What
resulted was the largest political campaign in post-independence
times,aroundthesymbolofLordRam,ledbyHindunationalists.
ThecomplexionofIndianpoliticswasirrevocablychangedthere-
after.Thisbookexaminesthisextraordinaryseriesofevents.While
audiences may have thought they were harking back to an epic
golden age, Hindu nationalist leaders were embracing the pros-
pectsofneoliberalismandglobalization.Televisionwasthedevice
thathingedthesemovementstogether,symbolizingthenewpossi-
bilitiesofpolitics,atoncemoreinclusiveandauthoritarian.Simul-
taneously,thisstudyexamineshowthelargerhistoricalcontextwas
wovenintoandchangedthecharacterofHindunationalism.
arvind rajagopalisAssociateProfessorintheDepartmentof
Culture and Communication, New York University. He was a
Member of the School of Social Sciences, at the Institute for
AdvancedStudy,Princeton,in1998–99.
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POLITICS AFTER
TELEVISION
Religious Nationalism and the Reshaping of the Indian Public
ARVIND RAJAGOPAL
         
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom
  
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
Ruiz de Alarcón 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain
Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa
http://www.cambridge.org
©Arvind Rajagopal 2004
First published in printed format 2001
ISBN 0-511-03618-3 eBook (Adobe Reader)
ISBN 0-521-64053-9 hardback
ISBN 0-521-64839-4 paperback
Contents
Acknowledgments pagevii
Introduction 1
Television’spower:theoreticalpremises 3
TheRamTemplemovement,theBJP,andaWssuredpublic 12
Varietiesofnationalism 20
Overview 24
1 HindunationalismandtheculturalformsofIndianpolitics 30
Inthethroesofeconomiccrisis:liberalization/‘‘Hinduization’’ 35
Passiverevolutionandtheunravelingofafragileconsensus 43
TheHindunationalistcombine 51
Thenon-committedvoterandtheretailingofHinduidentity 63
2 Primetimereligion 72
Statesponsorshipinthecommerceofimages 75
Situatingcontemporaryusesofanepictradition 86
Televisingalostutopia:ancientscience,benignoppression,
andaproto-modernstate 99
Oldsymbolsinanewlanguageofpolitics 117
3 Thecommunicatingthinganditspublic 121
Televisionandtherestructuringofpopularanddomesticspace 123
Televisionandthetransformationofthecontextofpolitics 135
Narrativesofcommunity:theeVectsofgoingpublic 147
4 A‘‘splitpublic’’inthemakingandunmakingoftheRam
Janmabhumimovement 151
TheIndianpress:government,language,andpolitics 156
Ahallofmirrors:theBJP’sprintmediastrategy 171
TheRamJanmabhumicampaignasamanagedevent 187
Language-dividedprintmediaasastrategicresource 208
v
vi Contents
5 Organization,performance,andsymbol 212
Performingthemovement 216
Yokingsymbolsandpropaganda 224
6 Hindutvagoesglobal 237
TheWgureofthe‘‘NRI’’ 239
SyndicatedHinduism:craftingidentityacrossdiversity 244
Self-makingandimmigrantculturesintheU.S. 254
ExpatriatenostalgiaandHindunationalism 263
Conclusion 271
HowhastelevisionchangedthecontextofpoliticsinIndia? 277
Appendix:BackgroundtotheBabriMasjiddispute 284
Notes 292
Selectbibliography 372
Index 390
Acknowledgments
ToddGitlin,RobertBellah,andRobertGoldmanhavebeencriticalfor
theirmentorshipandcounsel.LindaHessplantedtheseedthatgrewinto
thisbook.ToArjunAppadurai,NicholasDirks,andSusanneRudolphI
expressmythanksfortheircriticalencouragement.MythankstoJanaki
Bakhle, Tanya Fernando, John Foran, Akhil Gupta, Daniel Hallin, B.
Kailasam, Aisha Karim, Riyad Koya, Philip Lutgendorf, Purnima
Mankekar, Manjunath Pendakur, Steven Pierce, Philip Schlesinger,
Anand Swamy, and Jyotika Virdi, who have generously helped in
variouswaysduringdiVerentstagesofthiswork.IoweRajeswariSunder
Rajanmorethanmost,forherinspirationandsupport.CarinMcCor-
mack’seyeforthearchitectureofanargumenthasleftitsmarkonthis
book.
IamextremelygratefultoK.Narayananforhisencouragementand
help.VenkiteshRamakrishnanoVeredvaluableinformation,andmuch
assistance in meeting people in Uttar Pradesh (U.P.), as did Radhika
Ramaseshan.GeetaBakshiwasenormouslyencouraginginmyattempts
togaininsightintotheworkingsofDoordarsham.AmarKanwar,Rahul
Roy,andSabaDewan,aswellasSabinaGadihokeandSabinaKidwai
and the other members of the Media Storm collective, graciously
allowed me to view Wlm footage. Thanks to Amar Singh Sachan,
Anupama Chandra, Jyoti Mudgal, Kewal Kapoor, Natasha, Niti
Anand, Sanjay Kumar, Shahana Bhattacharya, and Usha Bharadwaj
for their help with transcription and translation. S. Ravindran helped
withtheinterviewingprocessinU.P.My appreciationagainto Sanjay
Kumar for his companionship and quiet encouragement while I was
writing.CaraLandryhasgivenmemorethanIcaneasilyacknowledge.
E. Deenadayalan and Nirmala Karunan provided a home away from
home when I needed it most, as did Ravi and Srilakshmi Rajagopal,
Priya and Asha Jain, and Radha Kumar, and M. K. Srinivasan.
Dr. D. L. Prasanna Rao and Manjula Rao dealt cheerfully with the
vii
viii Acknowledgments
conversionof their basement into an utterly chaoticworkspace during
theclosingstagesofthisproject.ForthatandmuchmoreIamgrateful.
Mygratitudetothescoresofpeoplewhoallowedmyrepeatedintrusions
intotheirlives,andunselWshlygaveoftheirtimeandfriendship.
Robert P. Goldman granted me the opportunity to give a senior
seminarat Berkeley,wheresomeoftheearlyideasin thisprojectwere
Wrstformulated.Forthetitleoftheseminar,whichappearshereasthe
title of chapter two, I thank Satish Deshpande. I am indebted to
Thomas Adler, William Shafer, Charles Stewart, and most of all to
Cynthia Stohl for their help in securing leave while I was engaged in
writingthisbook;tomycolleagueswhoborethebruntoftheteaching
inmyabsence,Ioweafurtherdebtofgratitude.
Portionsofthisbookwerepresented,inearlierversions,atAalochana,
Pune, the 1995 American Ethnological Society meetings in Austin,
Texas,the1995AmericanSociologicalAssociationmeetingsinWashing-
ton,DC,theUniversityof Chicago,CornellUniversity,theUniversity
of Hyderabad, the University of Iowa, the Nehru Memorial Museum
andLibraryinNewDelhi,andtheUniversityofWisconsin,Madison.
My gratitude to my parents for their never-failing aVection and
support.
And,Wnally,thisbookisforAnupamaRao,whohassustainedmein
numerous ways throughout this project, with inspiration, Werce criti-
cism, and unending challenges. She has been just the reader I could
havehopedfor,imaginative,generous,quick,andinsightful,andmore
thanthefriendIeverdeserved.Withouthernurturance,thewritingof
thisbookwouldhavebeenfarmorediYcultandpainful,andindeedit
mightnothaveoccurredatall.
Thisbookhasdevelopedoverthecourseofseveralyears,andsomeof
myearlieressaysforeshadowedsomeoftheargumentsinit.Portionsof
thisbookappearedinearlierversionsin‘‘RamJanmabhumi,Consumer
IdentityandImage-basedPolitics,’’EconomicandPoliticalWeekly,vol.29,
no. 27, 1994, pp. 1659–1668, and ‘‘Communalismand the Consuming
Subject,’’ in the Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 31, no. 6, 1996, pp.
341–348 (chapter one); ‘‘Mediating Modernity: Theorizing Reception
in a Non-Western Society,’’ Communication Review, vol. 1, no. 4, 1996,
pp.441–469(chaptertwo); ‘‘CommunitiesImaginedand Unimagined:
ContemporaryIndianVariationsonthe PublicSphere,’’Discourse,vol.
21,no.2,1998,pp.48–84(chapterthree);andin‘‘HinduImmigrantsin
theU.S.:ImaginingDiVerentCommunities?’’Bulletinof ConcernedAsian
Scholars(Oakland,Calif.),1997,pp.51–65(chaptersix).