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In contemporary India, Hindutva chauvinists, self-labelled as 'gau-rakshaks' (cow protectors) actively create misinformation campaigns through WhatsApp to set up mob attacks against alleged 'gau-taskars' ('cow smugglers'), who are often from minority communities – Dalits and Muslims. Such communal incidents of mob behavior are on many occasions viewed as 'flare-ups' triggered by rumors, and yet for the triggering rumor to have the consequential effect it does, there has to be a regular build-up of communal atmosphere. The easy camera recording technologies of today's mobile phones and the cheap circulatory affordances of WhatsApp make acts of cow vigilantism seem like performative rituals, very much ready and available for 'mobile witnessing'. Such witnessing from members of their own community is crucial for the aspirations of the majoritarian Hindutva boys today who are recording and circulating the videos because they want their acts to be recognized so as to gain stature within their community. Many cow-vigilante outfits maintain multiple WhatsApp groups where enthused Hindu men are exhorted to converge on particular locations on interstate highways to catch alleged cow smugglers. Instead of focusing exclusively on Indian cultural divisions and governmental failure or affixing responsibility solely to WhatsApp for the epidemic of fake news and mob lynchings, I look closely at the coupling of religious ideology and media habits. I understand the media practices of cow vigilantes – that is, their use of Facebook and WhatsApp – as being part of their habitual micro-actions and social practices (including their performances of manliness). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For popular Hindi cinema's aficionados, the cinematic idiom's male protagonist, the Hindi film hero, is perceived as emblematic of the nation's travails and aspirations. Subsequently, this magnifies the role of the Bollywood male star who with his hyper-virile masculinity, is often employed to the task of articulating questions of national and cultural identity. As the seventies' iconic 'Angry Young Man,' Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan echoed the frustration of a nation battling political ineptitude, corruption and the demise of Nehruvian socialism. However, with the recent reinvention of his star persona, from the erstwhile 'Angry Young Man' to what I term as the 'Benevolent Patriarch,' Bachchan signifies millennial India's avowed espousal of neo-liberalism. Employing a detailed analysis of Amitabh Bachchan's star text, not only as a cinematic icon, but also, his recent avatar as a television host, consummate brand endorser and social media personality, I examine how the shift in his star discourse underlines issues of gender, class and national identity, particularly in the context of the shift from socialist ideals to consumerist aspirations. In doing so, I also contextualize the changing dynamics of contemporary Indian mediascape, with increasing synergy between film, television and digital media, thus engendering in the process, the transformation of the Bollywood star from a movie idol to a transmedia celebrity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers some of the novels of towering modern Hindi language detective novelists Ved Prakash Sharma and Surender Mohan Pathak. The articulation of masculinity that each novelist proffers through their plots and characters is considered within a nuanced context of popular detective novel traditions in other languages in India as well as the various paratexts of the novels themselves (covers, authors' notes etc.) This article ultimately argues that both Sharma and Pathak reveal nuanced iterations of vernacular masculinity. Sharma plays with stereotypical notions of male heroism and villainy within a localized context of nationalist discourse, while Pathak features antihero protagonists in the roles of modern Indian 'everymen.' The idea of a vernacular gendered aesthetic here thus refers to a pointedly localized–as opposed to global–approach to language, theme, literary style, circulation, and audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the representation of pravasam (gulf migration) and pravasi (gulf migrant) in two "home films" from Malabar, South India, and identifies the shift in the representation of the Gulf in mainstream Malayalam popular culture with the arrival of "home films" in the 2000s. Most of the home films in the early period had the gulf migration as the central theme and the migrant as the central character. Most of these films were also made by gulf migrants themselves, making them self-representations to an extent. The article also examines the various connotations the term pravasi (migrant) acquires at various phases such as when the migrant lives in the gulf, visits the homeland on leave, and finally returns home forever. This article argues that while religion, society, and profession pose challenges to the migrant's expected, imagined and practiced identity, his/her struggle to (re)-fit into the societal frame reflects on his/her self and family, and explores how home films address these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Caste has been an integral part of the Hindu socio-cultural and ritualistic structure. Predominantly Indian society is divided into caste hierarchies which more often than not, manifests in everyday lives. Hindi cinema is one of the most popular sources of entertainment in India and henceforth it also reflects upon socio-cultural practices, discourses, and sensibilities at large. This essay looks into representations of caste question and Dalits in selected films in post-independent India. It argues that Dalits have been stereotypically represented in line with the dominant culture. They have been represented stereotypically as meek, docile, shabby, and underconfident individuals. Popular Hindi cinema constructs, disseminate, and naturalise the stereotypes in line with caste Hindu sensibilities. On the other, the continuous struggle of Dalits against the caste oppression is usually ignored in cinematic narratives. Such representations have linkages with lager cultural politics, on the one hand, and the power discourses, on the other. I have used critical textual analysis and historical analysis to read selected films as cultural texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the interpretive framework of the documentary film, Muktir Gaan (Song of Freedom, 1995) in representing history and gender. Muktir Gaan is a feature length documentary film on the Liberation War of Bangladesh, directed by Tareque Masud and Catherine Masud. Along with pre-existing newsreel and archival footage of the war from various sources, this documentary mainly incorporates the footage of 1971 shot by an American filmmaker, Lear Levin. The film became the most popular documentary in Bangladesh on the theme of the Liberation War. It uncovers the real journey of a musical troupe during the war. Many Bangladeshis greeted the documentary film to be an objective recording of the war. The film, however, contains both fictional techniques and factuality, even when it incorporates archival moving images or found footage. I suggest the film as an audio-visual collage of alternative history. My main concern is not to find the level of truth or falsehood of the past depicted in the film. I would rather look at its interpretative framework, raising the question: how does the film incorporate pre-existing footage from various sources, including the archive, and re-enacted footage for interpreting the past? I aim to unpack the politics and aesthetics of the war documentary film, Muktir Gaan, contextualizing it as it intersects with the socio-historical context. I also probe its strategies of gender representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manufacturing dissent in the name of history, its instrumentalisation for political purposes and bloodshed over its competing versions are the hallmarks of the Hindu Muslim schism prevalent in India. A recurring feature in Indian historiography is its rupture in the form of riots leading to human casualty. In this context, through an attempt to read the 1992 Mumbai riots as a quagmire of power politics, I would like to propose that a popular film like Mani Ratnam's Bombay stabilises the secularist notion of unity in diversity amidst voices of dissent. The top down memory of trauma and hatred which percolates from the records of 'official' history is neutralised to a certain extent by the bottom up memory induced by an 'imagined' account which loiters in the popular psyche of generations. The film thus becomes a striking example of a neutraliser of memory. But a more nuanced reading shows how the director has skilfully projected the principle of equivalence from among the multiplicity of gazes to the axis of male gaze in order to conceal the play of ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the manner in which Lord Shiva and Sri Ram are represented visually on the book covers of Amish Tripathi's commercially successful Indian mythology-inspired novels. Through its focus on the 'Shiva Trilogy' book covers and the first novel in the 'Ram Chandra' series, I argue that despite the presence of the deity on each cover, the opportunity for darśan to be performed is prevented from taking place. The article makes a connection between this non-performance of darśan and the genre of mythology-inspired fiction, arguing that the latter is itself a textual portrayal of the former in that both the visual (of the book cover design) and the narrative content (of the mythology-inspired fiction) connect to and yet break from cultural and aesthetic traditions. The article considers in conclusion how such new modes of portraying deities talk to (and of) visuality and Indianness within the post-millennial Indian moment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Afrofuturism is an academic and popular discourse interrupting whitewashed imaginations about the future – a future in which racialized identities are a liability. Borrowing from Afrofuturism, desi-futurism is defined as the application of a desi lens to a futuristic artefact, and a critical perspective interrupting whitewashed imaginations of a technologized future with the experiences of the past-present to write desi versions of the past, present, and future. This essay will discuss desi-futurism in the context of the body, space, and time with Krrish 3 and other popular culture examples as artefacts. Like Afrofuturism, desi-futurism disregards post-race speculations about the future, and departs from European Modernity that created the Cartesian body, linear time, and a white dominated space. The author insists desi-futurism is a tangent to Afrofuturism and not a deviation because these ethnic and racial imaginings collectively challenge European epistemologies that dictate minoritized identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over a period of time, Cinema has become an emphatic medium to introduce some major questions in society. The changing depiction of women in Indian Cinema from being labelled as weak and objectified to being shown as strong lead characters have been quite evident. Though there has been a considerable attempt to show the changing status of women in Bollywood in recent films like Piku (2015), Nil BateySannata (2016) and Anarkali of Arrah (2017) with leading female characters who are independent and move beyond the lines of gender stereotypes and patriarchal influences but the lack of complex narrative structure and the lucidity in the narrative techniques fail to make the desired critical impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article critically analyzes how historical narrative redesigns the past to serve the needs of present and construct a palimpsest that is subject to constant erasure and revision. The study chooses Jodhaa Akbar as one of the example to examine whether the cinematic representation is able to fully articulate the historiography of the past on to the postcolonial present and provide a linkage to the audience to identify and personalize the history. The findings graphically summarize the impersonation of the past on the screen by using Atlas.ti; a qualitative data analysis tool that put forth a holistic design of the History film as a mode of historical thoughts which in case of Jodhaa Akbar is attempted in the form of the nationalist narrative and as a measure bridging the communal cynicism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The enduring popularity of Bhagat Singh and his comrades of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association reveals an overriding fascination with the figure of the nationalist revolutionary in India. This abiding interest finds expression not only in the Hindi novels of the post-Premchand era but also in the mainstream representations of Bollywood cinema. This article analyses the representation of the nationalist revolutionary in three films, namely Inquilaab (1984), Krantiveer (1994) and Rang de Basanti (2006). It demonstrates how the theme of corruption, in these films, facilitates a reformist rhetoric which can nevertheless only be possible through an inaugural act of violence. The profound sense of disillusionment and scepticism vis-à-vis the post-Nehruvian state that one finds in a novel such as Raag Darbari (1968) is given an alternative orientation in these films in order to accommodate the figure of the nationalist revolutionary - a patriotic persona whose recourse to violence is invariably represented as a product of a Hobson’s choice. In the altered political landscape of post-independence India, the possibilities of revolution may have already been exhausted for the Hindi novel, but the presence of the nationalist revolutionary in Hindi cinema is constantly posited as a necessary and desirable corrective to the rampant venality of the postcolonial state and the political stupor of the masses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I will conceptualise and elucidate the idea of rupture as an alternative method with which to read the ideological shifts in the politics of Indian Parallel Cinema. For the purposes of this article, I will use the 1968 Bengali film Apanjan (Near and dear), directed by Tapan Sinha, as the basis for textual analysis. The first section will map the framework for reading rupture, identifying what I call the signifiers of rupture, including the political, iconoclasm and trauma. This will be followed with a textual analysis of Apanjan, applying the framework of rupture, focusing predominately on the iconology of the mother, trauma theory and wound culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a contemporary moment rife with cultural reciprocation and symbolized by exaggerated hyper-mobilities, Indianness in general and diasporic Indianness in particular is constantly subject to redefinition and reinvention. Even as the Bollywood song’s cinematic fate remains open to speculation, its ability to transcend barriers of space and language, and its near-universal accessibility lend it a unique cultural currency, affording diasporic audiences a space for collective identification. Whether through formal practices, such as dance and fitness classes, or more informal interactions such as wedding performances, appropriation of the song becomes, for the diasporic Indian, a convenient tool for asserting both cultural allegiance and difference even as song themes targeting the diaspora impart a vision of their own that is often grossly exaggerated. Through a combination of primary fieldwork, content analysis and secondary research, this article seeks to understand how the Bollywood song shapes a diasporic Indianness and, in turn, gets shaped by it. My emphasis is on analyzing the diaspora’s relationship with the song and the song’s potential for diasporic identity negotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orchestral scores in Hindi cinema have been virtually ignored both by fans and scholars: they have received little attention from Indian music and film critics and are only infrequently a subject for commentary. Despite the lack of respect for film scores, however, music director A.R. Rahman carefully crafted his scores to generate musical narratives that operate in tandem with film narratives. In order to illustrate how Rahman’s film scores of the late 1990s and early 2000s marked an inflection point for background music in later Indian films, this article compares the background scores of the filmsTaal(1999) andSwades(2004). The article traces the development of musical themes in these films and Rahman’s later shift in compositional approach, suggesting that later composers in mainstream andhatkecinema deployed new tactics in their film scores, such as the development of musical themes unrelated to the song melodies composed for the film. These changes in background scoring practices provide new incentives for audiences to attend to musical sound in the narrative, heralding the commercial success of multiplex films of the 2010s, even as they blurred the boundaries between film song and film score. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Popular Indian cinema theorized as a national cinema has recently undergone a ‘transnational turn’ within global cinema studies. Judging by the slew of books on ‘Bollywood’ with ‘travel’, ‘global’, ‘transnational’, and ‘border crossing’ in their titles, it would appear that the national is no longer a relevant rubric for Indian popular cinema. Despite the push to disavow the national in favor of transnational cinema studies, acknowledging other nodes connecting the expansive proliferation of films worldwide after digitization, the national cinema framework remains truculently relevant. A transnational approach might speak to a salutary universal cultural humanism in films, but it risks flattening cinematic storytelling, distinctive esthetics, and the particularity of cultural tropes integral to cinema historiography. Challenges to ‘national’ Indian cinema from regional, interregional, and regional–transnational connections strain the national rubric, but they underscore as much as they undercut the persistence of the Janus-faced concept of the nation in cinema studies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores the co-constitution of mobile phones and music consumption in India to examine the changing relationships between music, listeners, playback technologies and music markets. Drawing upon ethnographic research conducted between 2011 and 2013 and archival material from 2003 to 2013, we trace the intersections of vectors such as mobile phone technologies, the digital im/materiality of sound recordings, legal and extralegal economies, practices of listening, sharing and storage. It is the intertwined and reciprocal relationships between these vectors that we elaborate upon in our narrative. In doing so, we are concerned with the rapid emergence in this historical moment of the mobile phone as an exceptionally popular music playback device, the legal and extra-legal practices that afforded this emergence, and the shifts in music-as-commodity as well as music listening that accompany the mobile phone. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article focuses on the current phase in the Hindi Film Industry in Bombay which is characterized by a new corporate logic coming into play since 2000 that looks at a film as a product, and then goes about packaging it, branding it and presenting it to a predetermined audience. This shift is characteristic of the processes of the mainstream film industry with the onset of corporate-run Production Houses (It is a conscious decision on my part to use the term ‘Production House’ and not Studios.) that came about with the transition of the Hindi film industry from an unorganized industry to that of a corporatized body after being accorded Industry status in 1998 (‘Film Accorded Industry Status’,Business Line, October 19, 2000http://www.indiaserver.com/businessline/2000/10/19/stories/141918re.htm). I am using the term ‘Production House/s’ despite the fact that film companies use the termStudioin their nomenclature, because unlike the Studios in the early Indian cinema landscape, these are multinational corporations that have an entirely different logic of film production and labour. This logic is what I attempt to discuss in this article. The methodology I have used for arriving at my understanding of how this Production House culture works is informed by ethnographic techniques of qualitative interviews with people working in the Hindi Film Industry in different capacities, participant observation on locations and sets, and using the technique of observing a day-in-the-life of an industry professional at work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurs have generated creative ideas for many centuries, and across a range of industries. Two books have recently appeared addressing the issue of entrepreneurial creativity from different perspectives. They are compared and contrasted in this article. Historical precedents for innovation are examined in one, while contemporary examples are the focus of Tsang’s volume. Strategies used to encourage innovation in medieval and early modern towns inform on contemporary debates on the role of traditional industries in India. Experiments in new forms of production were encouraged, rather than deterred, and investment in training helped traditional crafts to retain a reputation for quality and develop regional specialisms. Both books highlight that necessity can encourage innovation, a situation which has parallels to current debates on frugal innovation in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short piece is an account of the making of the graphic novel,Kangal Malsat(/War Cry of the Beggars, Bengali, 2013), designed, written and illustrated by the author (The graphic novel was described as the ‘first’ graphic work in Bengali by the popular press, and featured on the bestseller’s list). It presents a short introduction to the primary text, a Bengali novel by Nabarun Bhattacharya who was one of the most influential and controversial authors of recent times. The plot ofKangal Malsat(2002) presents the exploits of theFyatarus/Flying Men and theChoktars/Black magicians. The article draws attention to the contexts within which the cult of Fyatarus emerged. It elaborates on the ways in which the narrative complexity and the political content of the literary text were adapted into a sequential art form, specifically, into a popular genre-like graphic novel. It focuses on the manner in which a transgressive style and three-way exchange between literary text, cinema and sequential art was achieved as Mukherjee worked in tandem with the cinematic adaption of the same text (by Suman Mukhopadhyay, in 2013). The article reflects upon such manifold transactions, and shows in what way a dense and polymorphous form may be forged by means of revisiting and reframing an existing text. In short, this piece discusses the dialogic, multifaceted and fluid structure of graphic narratives, its function within wider political-cultural debates and the fashion in which such exchanges may produce conditions for cultural negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay interrogates the question of reading graphic novels from South Asia by proposing the analysis ofDrawing from the City, the visual autobiography of Teju Behan, a contemporary artist from Rajasthan. The essay introduces the text and the author, who belongs to Jogi, a group classified as one of the ‘other backward classes’ in contemporary India. Instead of treating the book as ethnographic document or simple social testimony, this essay argues that Teju’s narrative needs to be understood in its aesthetic dimension. Teju Behan is hence shown as an artist concerned with the passage from casteised labour to artistic work, and the possibility of linking individual experience to the formation of a collective. Indeed, a striking element of Teju’s visuals is the use of artistic expression to envisage a multitude. From this point of view, the graphics are affiliated to the concept of art as ‘liberated labour’ necessary to the making of the multitude proposed by Italian philosopher Antonio Negri. In conclusion, this reading interpretsDrawing from the Cityas an intense meditation on art and the possibilities of resistance to marginality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interview with graphic artist and designer Orijit Sen is presented. Topics discussed include how long he spend on producing the posters, his previous work in which he focuses on political thought, British pop culture, and Hinduism, and what is interesting to him about the ‘in between' space of real and imaginary in the posters.

This essay focuses on the revival of Tamil comics mainly through a community of ardent fans and/or collectors during the last four years, by analyzing the blog by S. Vijayan,http://lion-muthucomics.blogspot.com, presently the editor ofLion and Muthu Comics. His father M. Soudrapandian foundedMuthu Comicsin 1971 which revolutionized the circulation of comics in Tamil Nadu and among the Tamil-speaking population in India and abroad. Most of the stories published were translations of the popular European ones, and several characters like The Spider, Tex Willer, and Lucky Luke became familiar names in Tamil households, the most popular beingIrumbukkai Mayaavior Steel Claw. However with the advent and ubiquity of cable channels and video, 1980s saw a drastic fall in the circulation of Tamil comics. This essay analyzes Vijayan’s blog along with that of his peers to explicate how the internet and social networking sites have revived interest among fans leading to the reprints of old issues and the publication of new ones on a monthly basis from Vijayan's Company in Sivakasi, a small town in South India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influences of globalization and global imagery are redefining Pakistani women’s social roles and identities. This article seeks to explore the ways in which media representations of Pakistani women are understood to represent broader international development discourses. By focusing on development narratives with regard to women’s empowerment and, their social and political positioning, and by looking at the visual and linguistic representations, images and portrayals of women, this article aims to capture the competing discourses of femininities offered on the cable television channels in Pakistan. For instance, while a drama likeUraan(Flight), shown on the most popular channel, Geo, may depict an independent career woman exercising her autonomy and freedom in decision-making, thus illustrating a clear departure from patriarchal structures, it simultaneously, offers ambivalent or competing discourses on femininities. How these images are received and interpreted is captured through focus group data of women discussing media representations. This data provides useful insights into the ongoing constructions of their selfhood and identity in relation to these media representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]