1st Edition
Engaging with a Nation Representations of India in the 21st Century
The book looks at the impact that the idea and institution of nationhood have had on the constituents of India in the contemporary postcolonial period. It provides a critical analysis through a variety of perspectives––historical, philosophical, literary, and gendered, and locates the nation and its “discontents”, along with its nationalist agenda firmly within the context of the contemporary perceived modernity. The book also engages with the colonial legacy that the ‘nation’ had to endure for two hundred years. It discusses key themes such as nationalism in the contemporary Indian context, the concept of Hindutva, Islam nationalism, and queer nationalism.
An important contribution, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of India studies, Indian politics, Third World studies, postcolonial studies, gender studies, nation studies, and history.
Introduction 1. The Anxiety of the Postcolonial Individual 2. Memory, Cultural Identity and the Construct of a Nation 3.Beyond the Bharatmata: Mother, Nation, and Home 4. Voices from the Margins: Problematizing Nation-State’s Uneasy Correspondence with Hijra-Motherhood in Arundhuti Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness 5. Imagined India: Nationalism in the Northeast and Northeast Poetry in English 6. Up-rootedness and Self: Redefining the Refugee Identities and Sub-nationalism in Siddhartha Deb’s The Point of Return 7. Belief Narratives and the Folk Tradition in Gaudiiya Vaisnavism: Marking a Grass-root level of ‘Nation’ as Community 8. Hindutva, Re-Orientalism and Historical Pasts in Bollywood: Examining the Representational Matrix of Select Recent Historical Films 9. Rind posh maal gindane draaye lo lo: The Narrative of India through Hindi Film Songs 10. Tracing the Notion of the ‘National’/’Patriotic’ through Bengali and Hindi Songs: An Enquiry Concerning the Dialectic of Tradition/Imposition 11. The Bias of the Television and Media towards the Minorities in the Age of Nationalism 12. Locating the Communal Fires in the First Monologue of Manjula Padmanabhan’s Hidden Fires 13. Sandipan Chattopadhyay’s Bharotborsho: Nationalism and Desire 14. “Mard ko Dard Nehi Hota”: Hegemonic Masculinity, Homosexuality and Aligarh 15. Women’s Writing as Anamnesia: Resisting the Nation’s Selective Amnesia 16. Surveillance and Power: Locating the Citizen-Subject in Surveillance States
Biography
Siddhartha Biswas is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of English, University of Calcutta, India. He taught in the Department of English, St Paul’s Cathedral Mission College for 17 years before joining the university. He has published several articles in reputed journals in India and abroad. His books include Theatre Theory and Performance and Looking for Home: Journey and Boundary in Postmodern Texts, among others. He has also translated several works among which are his translations of The Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night (Monfakira). His areas of interest include postmodern theatre, translation studies and popular culture.
