Hindutva intervisuality: Videos and the politics of representation

Abstract

This article analyses the ways in which new audiovisual technologies may organise and challenge patterns of seeing for purposes of political mobilisation and ideological indoctrination. The context is that of the Hindu Right, with particular reference to the Ayodhya controversy. Focusing on God manifests Himself, a video produced by Jain Studios in New Delhi (1989/1990), the complex question of representation is discussed with reference to two key principles that inform the audiovisual rhetoric of Hindu nationalism. First, the video demonstrates that the Hindutva politics of representation is based on the technique of ‘intervisuality’, whereby meaning emerges from the dynamic interplay of aesthetic and symbolic spaces and social practices. Second, Hindutva rhetoric relies on the use of ‘wish-images’, through which imaginary ‘think-spaces’ are opened that enable its ideologues to generate ideas of a crisis-ridden imagined community of Hindu nationals against the backdrop of a Golden Age and a utopian future. This includes the stereotypical fixation of the ‘Muslim Other’. The article investigates the role of popular culture and religio-political practices as well as stylistic aspects of docu-drama, montage and special effects.

‘Welcome to selfiestan’: identity and the networked gaze in Indian mobile media

“…In the past 20 years, there has emerged a significant body of work on the cultural influence of darshan in the development of modern visual media in India. This scholarship spans from the popularity of 19th-century calendar illustrations of Hindu gods (Pinney, 2004) to the depictions of gods, celebrities, and social hierarchies in 20th- and 21st-century cinema (Dwyer, 2006; Dwyer and Patel, 2002; Kapur, 2000; Prasad, 1998; Sinha, 2013; Taylor, 2003; Vasudevan, 2011), television (Mankekar, 1999), and video (Brosius, 2003). Madhava Prasad (1998) notes, for example, a transposition of the mechanics of darshan from the temple to the movie theater in his examination of the ‘organization of the look’ (p. 74) in the feudal family romance genre of Hindi cinema from the 1940s to 1960s.…”

“…These overlaps and affinities between the interfaces of selfie making and darshan may explain not only the appeal of smartphones in India as primarily selfie devices but also the power of the selfie in Hindutva politics based on Hinduism as a unifying and essential cultural foundation of Indian identity. Christiane Brosius (2003) has argued that the mechanics of darshan have long been at play in Hindutva media, noting the movement’s reliance on shots of popular devotional images in its propaganda videos of the 1990s. She identifies a Hindutva ‘intervisuality’ that places religious imagery within differing social spaces and media texts, ‘changing their meaning over time and according to the context’, to forge a bond between political discourse and religious rhetoric (p. 270).…”

Political elites and journalistic practices in India: A case of institutionalized heteronomy

“…Content analyses of television programming indicate disproportionate coverage of the BJP leader Modi in the elections (Mudgal, 2015). The use of the media has been central to BJP’s historical project of political mobilization based on the construction of an imagined community defined by Hindu nationalism (Brosius, 2002; Rajagopal, 1999). As such, media has been far more integral to BJP’s politics than to Congress.…”

Hindutva: Formative Assertions

“…32, 2, 63–71). Brosius’ analyses of political videos make a far more direct connection between re‐organized ways of seeing and “political mobilization and ideological indoctrination”: video technologies are simply effective means by which to appropriate both traditional and popular ideas and icons and, by means of fetishized visions and hyperbolic spectacles, to monitor, control, “fix and standardize ways of seeing” (2002, p. 268; 2005, p. 4; cf. also Davis 1996).…”