000 03413naaaa2200241uu 4500
001 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/63299
005 20220714155350.0
020 _a05.06:2020.1.2
024 7 _a10.25364/05.06:2020.1.2
_cdoi
041 0 _aEnglish
042 _adc
100 1 _aKerry San Chirico
_4auth
_91567616
245 1 0 _aDharma and the Religious Other in Hindi Popular Cinema : Journal for Religion, Film and Media
260 _bSchüren Verlag
_c2020
300 _a1 electronic resource (73-102 p.)
506 0 _aOpen Access
_2star
_fUnrestricted online access
520 _aThis essay examines common representations of religious minorities in Hindi popular cinema within the context of dominant post-Independence Indian religious and political ideologies-from a religiously pluralist secular socialist framework to a Hindu nationalist late capitalist orientation. We begin by examining the more recent turn to film as a legitimate conveyor of middle-class Indian values worthy of interpretation, and the coeval shift among Indians from embarrassment to pride in film as the industry followed the liberalizing nation-state onto the global stage. Equipped with this interpretive strategy, we turn to the dhārmik, or religious elements within the Hindi sāmājik, or social film, demonstrating concretely how particular notions of Hindu dharma (variously if imperfectly translated as "duty," "law," "cosmic order," "religion") have long undergirded Hindi popular cinema structurally and topically. Finally, and most significantly, we examine representations of religious minorities, particularly Muslms, Christians, and Sikhs, in Hindi popular cinema against the backdrop of evolving religious and cultural ideologies up to the electoral victory of Prime Minister Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP. It is argued that minority representation, like other aspects of Indian public life, can be interpreted as an index of majority concerns about the religious Other. While such representations have never been static, more current depictions present the viewer with a troubling, even ominous picture of the place (or lack thereof) of religious minorities in contemporary Indian society, revealing majoritarian chauvinism and sectarian tensions that call into question the identity of the Indian Republic as a pluralistic secular nation, as well as the easy elisions between Hindu and secular Indian nationalisms. When we now look at past films cognizant of the Hindu nationalist dispensation to come, discontinuity is not the only striking feature. Ideological inconsistencies, tensions, and contradictions have long been manifest on the silver screen, particularly with regard to the religious minorities. The present ascendance of Hindutva as a national (indeed international) religio-political ideology forces us to reconsider past films and the ideologies embedded therein.
540 _aCreative Commons
_fhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
_2cc
_4https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
546 _aEnglish
773 1 0 _0OAPEN Library ID: 46955
_tReligion and Popular Music
_7nnaa
856 4 0 _awww.oapen.org
_uhttps://jrfm.eu/index.php/ojs_jrfm/article/view/215
_70
_zDOAB: download the publication
856 4 0 _awww.oapen.org
_uhttps://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/63299
_70
_zDOAB: description of the publication
999 _c2975765
_d2975765