Indias of the mind: responses to cultural nationalism in Indian popular culture post-Hindutva

2017-07-24This project examines the artistic reactions to the religious violence and anti-secular discourse in India following the destruction of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. In Limiting Secularism, Priya Kumar argues that art can provide an avenue for creating and examining new modes of minority belonging in India, and she examines both Indo-English literature and parallel cinema as sites for illustrating potential solutions to the failures of state secularism. I argue that though Indian-English writers like Salman Rushdie, Rohinton Mistry and Vikram Chandra rightly reproach Hindutva forces for their hateful rhetoric and genocidal actions, these authors’ own cosmopolitan backgrounds and world views prevent them from successfully offering an authentic portrayal of the Hindutva mindset or of minority belonging in India. Instead, the answer to Kumar’s problem may lie with popular Indian film: I examine the role of recent Bollywood films in integrating the Muslim figure into the national imaginary, in contrast to the industry’s displacement of Muslims to the edges of the national narrative in the immediate aftermath of the Babri Masjid’s destruction, and argue why Bollywood may be more successful in illustrating minority belonging and broadening the perception of Indianness than fiction