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
2 - Translating Metaphors of Nation-Building
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 voice-over for a Jain Studios video entitled The Making of a Chief Minister addresses potential political clients interested in marketing themselves with confident lines such as: ‘If your target is victory, then your medium is VOW!’ Equally, in my conversations with J K Jain and other employees of Jain Studios, the BJP's victories in Parliamentary and Assembly Elections were frequently attributed to the power of the Studios’ facilities, in terms of both production and distribution.
These brief examples indicate the hopes and desires shared among several BJP representatives that political transformation could be successfully enhanced with the help of new media technologies, and that the videos produced by Jain Studios could have a strong impact on the audiences. As discussed in the previous chapter, it was in this way that the party sought to exploit new media technologies that had thus far been restricted through state monopolization. In the prologue to his work, The Rise of Network Society, Manuel Castells speaks of a similar interaction of technology, politics and society in the context of identity constitution and focuses on the question of the actual impact of media on social change.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Empowering VisionsThe Politics of Representation in Hindu Nationalism, pp. 55 - 94Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2004