Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Politics after Television
  • Cited by 587
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
September 2009
Print publication year:
2001
Online ISBN:
9780511489051
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511489051
Subjects:
Area Studies, Asian Studies, Political Sociology, Sociology
  • 58.99 (USD)
    Digital access for individuals
    (PDF download and/or read online)
    Add to cart
    Added to cart
    Digital access for individuals
    (PDF download and/or read online)
    View cart
  • Export citation
  • Buy a print copy
  • Recommend to librarian
Information

Book description

In January 1987, the Indian state-run television began broadcasting a Hindu epic in serial form, The Ramayana, to nationwide audiences, violating a decades-old taboo on religious partisanship. What resulted was the largest political campaign in post-independence times, around the symbol of Lord Ram, led by Hindu nationalists. The complexion of Indian politics was irrevocably changed thereafter. In this book, Arvind Rajagopal analyses this extraordinary series of events. While audiences may have thought they were harking back to an epic golden age, Hindu nationalist leaders were embracing the prospects of neoliberalism and globalisation. Television was the device that hinged these movements together, symbolising the new possibilities of politics, at once more inclusive and authoritarian. Simultaneously, this study examines how the larger historical context was woven into and changed the character of Hindu nationalism.

Reviews

‘This beautifully written book will surely become a classic in media and globalization studies and in the cultural sociology of contemporary India.’

Arjun Appadurai - University of Chicago

‘A theoretically rich and sophisticated contribution to the development of transnational cultural studies in which the comparisons do not always have to start from the assumed baseline of European-American cultural experience. This analysis of the heady mix of communalism, nationalism, market liberalism and consumerism in the case of recent Indian experience is replete with illuminating parallels for the study of the cultural dynamics of other sectors of the emerging global marketplace.’

David Morley - Goldsmith’s College, University of London

‘Rajagopal changes our way of thinking about the world, not only in India, but everywhere: his book is indispensable for anyone who wants to understand how globalism and localism intersect.’

Robert N. Bellah - author of Habits of the Heart

‘Politics After Television … [w]ith brilliant theoretical acuity and empirical richness … analyzes how television redefines and forms part of a new circuit of politics and public culture in India. This is a superb and stimulating contribution to the study of contemporary politics in India.’

Gyan Prakash - Princeton University

‘… essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the growing influence of television in India.’

Source: Screen

‘… a fascinating and illuminating book .’

Source: Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Contents

Contents

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.