Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Jain Studios on the Meandering Stairway to Success
- 2 Translating Metaphors of Nation-Building
- 3 Hindutva's Media Phantasmagorias
- 4 Re-mapping the Nation-Space: place and displacement
- 5 Re-making History: ‘The Truth shall not be touched!’
- 6 Mother India's Heroic Sons: a passion play of martyrdom
- Epilogue: ‘Making India a Dharmic Superpower’
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Videography
- Index
3 - Hindutva's Media Phantasmagorias
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Jain Studios on the Meandering Stairway to Success
- 2 Translating Metaphors of Nation-Building
- 3 Hindutva's Media Phantasmagorias
- 4 Re-mapping the Nation-Space: place and displacement
- 5 Re-making History: ‘The Truth shall not be touched!’
- 6 Mother India's Heroic Sons: a passion play of martyrdom
- Epilogue: ‘Making India a Dharmic Superpower’
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Videography
- Index
Summary
The introductory scene of the video God Manifests Himself (hereafter, also referred to as GMH), produced in early 1990 by Jain Studios, opens with a speech by J K Jain, who appears on screen against the backdrop of a white temple and blue skies. The temple is a model of the proposed Ram temple due to be ‘rebuilt’ at the disputed site of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya in order, according to spokespeople of the Hindu Right, to honour Lord Ram's birth and reinstall national integrity and justice to the Hindu majority. The site is particularly well known to us because of the mosque's demolition by supporters of the Hindutva movement on December 6, 1992, and because of the riots between Hindus and Muslims that swept across the subcontinent in the subsequent months. In the video, J K Jain addresses the viewers like this:
In the work of God, in the work of building the nation and reconstructing the social fabric, Jain Studios and all our workers keep doing this work—may your co-operation and blessings be with us. This is our prayer to Lord Ram. Jai Shri Ram (Victory to Lord Ram)!
There then follows a montage of different calendar prints of Lord Ram, one of the main gods of the Hindu pantheon, referred to as the beholder of supreme authority.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Empowering VisionsThe Politics of Representation in Hindu Nationalism, pp. 95 - 130Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2004