Abstract
Abstract This article investigates the formations of ‘Brand Modi’ and ‘Brand Bollywood’ and their strategic and overlapping foray into the United Arab Emirates, considering it a pivotal moment in contemporary transregional media production. Two branding campaigns form the basis of my analysis: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s highly mediatized 2015–2018 U.A.E. visits and Shah Rukh Khan’s 2016–2019 ‘#BeMyGuest’ campaign for Visit Dubai (the Emirate’s official tourism brand). Attending to questions of branding techniques, diasporic identity and historical imagination, I examine how these campaigns play on notions of the common man or aam aadmi and the upwardly-mobile and cosmopolitan ‘New Indian’ through the celebrity personas of Modi and Khan. I argue that this creation of a ‘New India’ for the Arab world seeks to efface down class connotations of India and Indians in Arab imaginaries by re-framing India as a key diplomatic and cultural-infrastructural partner of the Emirates.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
