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"Sircar, Ajanta"
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Framing the nation : languages of 'modernity' in India
\"As films like Slumdog Millionaire attest, India on film is quickly growing beyond the images of Bollywood that used to come to mind. In the 1980s the idea of film theory arrived in the Indian scholarly community, stirring a new fascination with popular cinema, especially that of Bombay, that went beyond previous Bollywood-oriented discussions focused on cinematic styles and genres alone. Ajanta Sircar's Framing the Nation grew out of that new engagement with cinema in India, a transition marked by a move from cinephilia to film theory. In Framing the Nation, Sircar maps the distance that film theory has traveled in the Anglo-American academy and India in the past decades, inviting questions such as: How do we make sense of this new academic interest in popular Indian cinemas? How should we begin to understand Indian popular culture as a result? Sircar's work is founded not only in a scholarly fascination with the growth and transition of films, but in a real passion for the movies, resulting in a book that will appeal not just to scholars of film history and theory, but to those intrigued by Indian cinema in general.\"--Publisher's description.
Book
Family as Center of Neoliberal Nightmares: Re-reading the Depictions of Neoliberalism in Ghachar Ghochar
This article investigates the authority-defined discourses of family in a postcolonial city and attempts to understand the conjecture of governmentality and neoliberalism and their inroads into the functioning of a family in the novel Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag. The valorization of the metropolis and the predicament brought forth by its promise of progress and civilization is inscribed in the poignant politics of the modern self. In the postcolonial world, cities are centers of globalization; hence, shifting to cities does not only mean social upliftment but also escape from the rigidities of traditional social structures. A middle-class family in a city is a site of contradictions. It embodies the benefits and pitfalls of modernization. Different contours of colonial and neoliberal governmentality play a role in not only making the present-day heterosexual middle-class family but also consolidating it as a productive force of the nation-state. Linking notions of precarity to rootlessness experienced by individuals in cities, the paper examines family in shaping up alternative notions of modernization.
Journal Article
Cinematic Reforms in the Malayalam Film Industry: Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) as a Social Movement
This study positions itself within the revolutionary formulation of a women’s collective in Malayalam cinema. The necessitating condition for the collectivization had been the violent patriarchal framework of the film industry revealed through the sexual assault of a famous Malayalam actress in 2017. The perennial realization about gender precarity in cinema became so apparent in the events that followed that a group of women actors, filmmakers, and technicians mobilized together in retaliation. The patrifocal mechanism of Malayalam cinema has been threatened by the collective sisterhood espoused by Women in Cinema Collective (WCC), as evidenced by the trivialization of women and the collective in daily discussions on the ontology of women’s collective. In the midst of mass-marketed false narratives of utopian working structures by certain industry segments, the collective strives for gender parity. Despite this, WCC has been successful in bringing about practical changes in the Malayalam film industry by organizing and pursuing reasonable policy changes and holding responsible parties, such as the government. The study would use the working mechanism of WCC as a social movement to understand the concerns of gendered precarity in a technologized framework, arguing that the digital involvement of the members can be considered an archive for constructing women’s film history. Further, an attempt to contextualize it in the broader history of the British women’s cinema movement and global women’s predicament will also be made to question the circularity and non-temporality of women’s issues in a bid to theorize the revolutionary potential of collectivization in present time.
Journal Article
Unveiling the Voices: Zadie Smith and the New Generation of BAME Writers in Britain
The literary landscape in Britain has been enriched by the works of Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) writers who have brought diverse voices and perspectives to the forefront. These writers have brought attention to important social issues such as race, justice, and creativity through their unique perspectives and cultural experiences. Their artistic expression has served as a powerful tool for resisting injustice and challenging traditional narratives. Three prominent Afro-British writers, Bernardine Evaristo, Andrea Levy, and Caryl Phillips have made significant contributions to this tradition. Zadie Smith is widely regarded as one of the foremost BAME literary voices, acclaimed for her incisive narratives and contemplative insights. This paper examines the selected works of four BAME authors: Zadie Smith, Andrea Levy, Bernardine Evaristo, and Caryl Phillips. The objective is to unveil the richness and diversity inherent in BAME literature and to comprehend the issues and experiences encapsulated within their writings. The analysis also explores how language, character development, and narrative structure combine to shape Zadie Smith's distinctive voice, firmly establishing her as one of the most astonishing contemporary literary talents. This paper discusses Smith's unique approach to carving out a niche for herself among other BAME writers in Britain, offering new and exciting perspectives on problems of race, identity, and culture in the modern era.
Journal Article
“One-Dimensional” Being: Indian Youth Culture and Cyberspace Nationalism
A deep understanding of the cultural and political dynamics of Indian youth is a matter of critical concern today. This article theoretically analyzes the relationship of Indian youth to the nationalistic discourse in the digital age through the lens of Herbert Marcuse and his persuasive concept of “one-dimensionality.” It is noticeable that among youth in the nation today, apart from a few dissenting voices, critique in the political sphere seems minimal. Moreover, such a trend is not confined to India. Rather, this new turn in youth culture has to be understood in a much wider context and seen alongside the emergence of a toxic technological society and new cyberspace. Marcuse’s concept of “one-dimensional man” is therefore extremely relevant to the study of youth culture in India today. This article delves into the Marcusian concept of “mechanics of conformity” and tries to analyze how Indian youth lose their traits of critical rationality as modern capitalism and technology develop in the Indian context. Finally, this article asserts by showing how the Marcusian concept of “negative thinking” can become a mechanism for Indian youth to overcome insuperable one-dimensionality.
Journal Article
Of ‘Metaphorical’ Politics: Bombay Films and Indian Society
Having followed Modern Asian Studies for some time now as being among the major journals to have sustained a high degree of sophistication on debates relating to the historical and cultural developments of modern South Asia, one was greatly distressed to read Akbar S. Ahmed's article ‘Bombay Films: The Cinema as Metaphor for Indian Society and Politics’. Practices of representation always implicate positions of enunciation. In what follows, I wish to re-read Ahmed's article to show that his representations of Indian society derive their legitimacy not from their engagement with the many-layered sociocultural formation of the present-day Indian nation, but from a perspective which reinforces the continuing relations of dominance between metropolis and former colony. As an academician of and for present-day India, to challenge such a perspective is not merely an attempt to radicalize academic frameworks but, as I wish to show, expressive of a larger social need to create spaces where one is able to transform present reality. It is to identify marginality as much more than a site of deprivation. It is to identify marginality as a space of resistance, as a site of radical possibility.
Journal Article
Production of Authenticity: The Indo-Anglian Critical Tradition
This paper argues that by marginalising particular kinds of readings, the institutionalised Indo-Anglian literary critical tradition has actively aided the consolidation of bourgeois hegemony in India. Examining definitions of 'India' and 'Indianness' by the institutionalised Indo-Anglian literary critical tradition the paper contends that the 'India' produced by the dominant literary critical tradition is not an 'authentic', politically neutral entity, but one based on a systematic suppression of the identities of various underprivileged sections. The contention is sought to be established through a re-reading of representative essays by major Indo-Anglian literary critics with a view to establishing the underlying ideological biases.
Journal Article