Politics After Television: Hindu Nationalism and the Reshaping of the Public in India (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780521648394)

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.

Author: Arvind Rajagopal
ISBN-10: 0521648394
ISBN-13: 9780521648394
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 01/25/2001
Pages: 404
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.30lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.90d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 11/01/2001 pg. 588