Construction Of Indian Identity Research Articles

Indian structures, Sikkimese processes: on being unprepared for the (Indian) nation

ABSTRACT In this article I draw on Robb”s insights (“The Colonial State and Constructions of Indian Identity” Modern Asian Studies, 1997), in discussing how during the British period (1888 to 1918), Indian structures were introduced and established in Sikkim closely following models used in British India. In areas such as law and justice, health, education, taxation and communication systems, Sikkim was structurally aligned with India. In contrast, however, the colonial era processes of national identity construction in Sikkim entirely excluded identification with an Indian Nation. Under the British, Sikkimese identity was constructed as a Tibetan Buddhist state comprising “indigenous” Bhutia-Lepcha citizens. That identity excluded immigrants whose origins were in the Gurkha kingdom. As a result of the social processes that imagined Sikkim as an (independent) Buddhist Nation, none of the ethnic communities in Sikkim identified themselves as “Indian”, leaving Sikkim structurally equipped but socially unprepared for membership of an Indian Nation.

Indian ConsumerKaun Hai? The Class-Based Grammar of Indian Advertising

Advertising proves to be a particularly useful source of images, stories, and vocabulary, to study the globalization of the Indian economy and the construction of Indian identity. The authors analyze how advertising executives and other cultural producers, such as magazine editors, try to answer the question “Indian consumer kaun hai?” (Who is the Indian consumer?) while trying to develop narratives that can represent Indian ways of living. In a country as diverse as India, this is an extremely difficult task. Drawing from a content analysis of the Hindi and English versions of India Today as well as interviews with Indian advertising executives, the authors detail how cultural producers imagine Indian consumers. This work illuminates the striking differences, between the imagined cultural world of the English speaking elite, and their vernacular counterparts. By showing the importance of the English language, and Western cultural references in indexing the “modern Indian,” this work contributes to macromarketing efforts to study globalization and its effects.

Acting Inca: The Parameters of National Belonging in Early Twentieth-Century Bolivia

Abstract This article focuses on the connection between Aymara indigenous communities, Liberal intellectuals, and the nation-building process in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Bolivia. The Liberal intellectuals’ designs of nation in early twentieth-century Bolivia were shaped in part by the actions and political initiatives of the very “Indians” the intellectuals sought to categorize, define, and contain. Somewhat paradoxically, the national intellectuals and the local Aymara elite unwittingly collaborated in the construction of a preferred Indian identity, the Inca, to create a noble and progressive past for the nation and to marginalize the undesirable, non-elite Aymara indigenous population in the wake of the 1899 Civil War between Liberals and Conservatives. The process of narrating the native past was of importance to national intellectuals as well as to native peoples. Several types of sources inform these late nineteenth and early twentieth-century discourses of nation building, including judicial court cases, archival documentation, and theatrical performance. The narrative of the indigenous past and the role of the actual Indian population within the Bolivian nation in the early twentieth century was a site of negotiation located at the center of national politics, establishing the foundation for a nation that would maintain differentiated constructions of Indian identity at its core.

Beyond Representation: Colonial and Postcolonial Constructions of Indian Identity

Beyond Representation: Colonial and Postcolonial Constructions of Indian Identity

Book Review: Beyond Representation: Colonial and Post Colonial Construction of Indian Identity

Book Review: Beyond Representation: Colonial and Post Colonial Construction of Indian Identity

Dreaming the Nation: Domestic dramas in Hindi films post-1990

Hindi cinema has functioned as a site for the production and exploration of national identities and ideologies in the popular imagination. An examination of some of the most successful films of the 1990s (Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, Pardes, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, etc.) reveals the emergence of the domestic drama as a highly popular genre wherein a troubling new construction of Indian identity emerges. This new construction is one that considerably narrows the diversity, multiplicity and secular constructions of Indian identities in previous decades. We argue that this trend in Hindi cinema post-1990 reflects the significant socio-political (rise of the Hindutva movement) and economic changes (liberalising of the economy) that have taken place in India during this time. Domestic Hindi film dramas post-1990 display a remarkably consistent pattern in producing a monolithic Indian identity that is Hindu, wealthy and patriarchal in nature. We find that the terrain of who gets included in the signifier ‘Indian’ has shifted significantly. The wealthy among the diasporic Indian community now find a prominent place within that signifier provided they conform to a particular articulation of Indian identity and traditions. Consequently, certain minorities like Muslims and Christians find themselves excluded and increasingly erased from this terrain. We argue that this cultural conflation (of Indian with Hindu and wealthy), the product of particular socio-political and economic trends (Hindutva, global capital flows and regressive gender politics), further marginalises and often erases the experiences of religious minorities and the poor who do not fit this constructed norm, a trend that is indicative of the restricting of the national imaginary.

The Colonial State and Constructions of Indian Identity: An Example on the Northeast Frontier in the 1880s

This is an essay about the establishment and expanding roles of the colonial state in India, and their probable correlation with developments of Indian identity. As I have argued elsewhere, identities are always multiple, contingent and continuously constructed, so that traditions, also continually reinvented, are shared and reiterated practices and beliefs which reflect the collective memories of previous constructions. There is no analytical contradiction therefore between long-term civilizational continuities and emerging forms of ‘constructed’ identity. This paper is about a particular form of identity that is currently associated with concepts of public space and rights, and with the nation-state, or at least political and territorial units. For convenience I refer to it as ‘modern Indian identity’ because it has been defined and been growing in significance in the modern era; but no inference should be drawn that I consider it to be the only form in India.