Performative Politics And The Cultures Of Hinduism

by Kaur, Raminder

• ISBN13: 9781843311393
• ISBN10: 1843311399
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-05-30
• Publisher: Anthem Pr

Summary

Performative Politics and the Cultures of Hinduismfocuses on one of the major festivals of western India, the Ganapati Utsava, dedicated to the elephant-headed god. Raminder Kaur uses this occasion as the central anthropological and historiographical site within which to examine the dynamic relationship between spectacle, religion and nationalist politics. In contemporary India, this kaleidoscopic event is of interest to various bodies, including political parties such as the Shiv Sena, the BJP and the Congress, media conglomerates which sponsor competitions associated with religious rituals and the police and regulating organizations of the state which strive to keep religious festivity 'clean' of criminality and excessive political manipulation. At the level of community life and everyday bhakti (religious devotion), Kaur shows that the audiovisual aspects of the festival are today crucial to its enduring appeal among large sectors of urban India's populace. Deploying a single major cultural and religious event to study the variety and cultures of contemporary Hinduism and their complex histories, this book is an outstanding work that will interest every serious student of Indian politics, cultural history and anthropology.

Author Biography

Raminder Kaur is a Lecturer at the University of Manchester. She completed her PhD at SOAS, University of London, in 1998. She is also co-editor of Travel Worlds: Journeys in Contemporary Cultural Politics (Zed Books, 1999), and co-author of Liquid Notions: Critical Reflections on Diaspora and Hybridity (Sage, forthcoming).

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations and Maps	viii
Preface	xiii
1 The Promise of Performative Politics	1	(30)
Mobilised Efficacy	4	(7)
Festive Moments	11	(2)
The Public Field	13	(5)
A Multifaceted Festival	18	(7)
Slippery Performers	25	(6)
2 'Seething with Sedition'	31	(39)
Recasting Tilak's Interventions	35	(6)
Martial Murti	41	(10)
Fire in the Belly of the Gods	51	(8)
A Festival in Ferment	59	(4)
A Whirlpool of Movements	63	(7)
3 The Spectacle of Drama and The Drama of Spectacle	70	(27)
Creative Patriotism	72	(4)
A Long Train of Etceteras	76	(5)
Fractured Publics	81	(7)
Moving Scenes	88	(5)
Mandap Types	93	(2)
Spectacular Politics	95	(2)
4 Ganesh Chaturthi: Festival as Praxis	97	(30)
'An Antidote to Vague Despair'	99	(1)
Engaging with Mandap Tableaux	100	(5)
Synaesthesia	105	(2)
Pleasure-Principles	107	(2)
Society of the Spectator	109	(6)
Vitality	115	(2)
The Immersion Procession	117	(5)
The 'Saffronisation' of Public Space	122	(5)
5 Mandal, Media, and the Market	127	(27)
Gods and Goods	129	(3)
The Business of Religion	132	(5)
Marking the Event	137	(3)
Overview of the Three Rounds	140	(9)
Assessing the Competition	149	(5)
6 Open Secrets	154	(36)
Contemporary Political Culture in Maharashtra	158	(4)
The Eye of the Tiger	162	(5)
Street Poetics	167	(2)
Sainik Spectacles	169	(8)
An Art of Stage-craft or State-craft?	177	(3)
Variant Versionings of the Nation	180	(6)
Spectacles and Spectators	186	(4)
7 Nuclear Reactions	190	(32)
Bombs and the Nation	194	(3)
Gods, Bombs and the Social Imaginary	197	(5)
Explosive Scenes	202	(18)
The Destroyer of Worlds	220	(2)
8 A Nation of Magic Mirrors	222	(48)
National or Natural?	223	(2)
Envisaging the Nation	225	(40)
HEROIC FIGURES	227	(5)
ICONIC EVENTS	232	(7)
SPACE AND TERRITORY	239	(5)
GENDERED TROPES OF THE NATION	244	(5)
PERCEPTIONS OF THE OTHER	249	(8)
FUTURE HORIZONS	257	(4)
MODERN TOTEMS AND METAPHORS	261	(4)
Homing In	265	(5)
9 An Imperfect Osmosis	270	(4)
Glossary and Abbreviations	274	(3)
Bibliography	277	(22)
Index	299