Nationalism Refigured: Contemporary South Indian Cinema and the Subject of Feminism Nationalism is a concept which is widely discussed

and analysed for a very long time and by various strands of people. In that row, the essay by Tejaswini Niranjana published in the year 2000, in the Subaltern Studies XI, gives a new perspective about nationalism through analyzing some of the films that came in the 1990s. The present essay is talking about a new kind of nationalism which is suffused with romantic love. This kind of nationalism is different from that of the Nehruvian era. And, woman is the central figure in this nationalism. Unlike caste and community, gender can be modernized and this idea was followed by the new nationalists. Caste and community are considered to be the opposite of the

modern. In order to study the role of woman in the new nationalism, the author is looking at some of the films that came during the 1990s. The reason for choosing films, the author explains, is that it was the only popular medium, until the introduction of television, through which new identities were publicly displayed. Geetanjali, Roja and Bombay are the films chosen by the author. All three of them were directed by Maniratnam. The two major questions that the essay is trying to answer is 1) how they feed into and endorse the new Indian nationalism; 2) how

the post-independence feminist subject is imbricated in the fashioning of this new nationalism. Some of the vocabularies used in the discourse of this new nationalism such as modernism and secularism are not very different from that of the discourse of the nationalism during the 1950s, but the idea in which these words are used is different. So, the author prefers to call this new nationalism as post-nationalmodern. The national-modern (the modernism which came immediately after the 1950s) was challenged by the assertion of political identities based on caste and community. The role of gender during the national-modern period and the postnational-modern period is entirely different. The author tries to explain this point by discussing each film separately. In order to understand the India of the 1990s we have to start from the period immediately after independence. started its official government. With the drafting of the constitution India Secularism and democracy were the major

concepts based on which the Indian constitution operates. Jawaharlal Nehru who became the first Prime Minister of India tried to achieve these goals. As

mentioned by Sudipta Kaviraj (Kaviraj, 2011), the economic and social plans executed by Nehru were a success to some extent. The socialist ideology, the five year plans, and the plan to focus on the industrial revolution based on a future success were all a great step towards a bright future of India. I agree with

Kavirajs argument that only the later politicians who focused on the short term benefits couldnt continue what was initiated by Nehru. The independence and the freedom achieved by the Indian people were very much new to the Indian population and they looked forward for great leaders to lead them into the new path. That is the reason why they believed in Nehru and elected him as Prime Minister thrice in a row. Based on the examples of various developed countries across the world Nehru chose a mixture of developmental plans from those countries and implemented them in India. Keeping the future in mind Nehru invested in major projects like the dams, heavy industries, transportation, etc. Even though he didnt do much to the agricultural sector which is one of the major industry in the country, his other plans helped in the development of the country. When Nehru passed away and other leaders came into power, they couldnt continue the idea initiated by Nehru. Instead they focused on short term benefits and made their plans accordingly. When Indira Gandhi contested in the election (1967), in order to win the election she gave a lot of promises which were impossible to be realized. Some of her ideas such as the nationalization of the banks, abolishing the Privy Purses, were revolutionary and she was successful in implementing them. But apart from that she couldnt do much to the country still she achieved her goal by coming to power again with a vast majority. Soon after

that other politicians also started following the same principle. So, people started to get disappointed with the governmental policies and the government itself. When Rajiv Gandhi came to power (1982) people expected a lot from him because he was the youngest Prime Minister ever in the history of India and people were very much disappointed with the senior politicians. Accordingly, he did many things which include the expansion of telecommunications industry and space programmes. Even his political career ended with a lot of corruptions and allegations (Bofors scandal). In this manner, whoever came to power, more than satisfying the people they disappointed them. Along with developments, there were corruptions and scandals on the raise. One of the major and equally controversial things that happened during the independence was the idea of separate electorates and reservation for the Depressed Classes. Though this idea was in practice before independence, many of the national leaders didnt want this to be continued even after independence. But B.R. Ambedkar was the person who insisted on the continuation of this policy and with some changes he made the other national leaders to accept this policy. Even though it was accepted to follow this policy only for 10 years initially, it is still followed even today.

In the row of the reservation policies, another milestone event took place in the form of the Mandal Commission. In the year 1980 the Mandal Commission report was submitted. According to this commission the Other Backward Classes constitute a major part of the population and separate reservation is necessary in order to uplift them from their backwardness. It took more than a decade (1993) to implement the findings of the Mandal commission, though not completely but partially. This move by the government was seen by the upper caste people as a threat and they started a large scale protest. As mentioned by Tejaswini Niranjana, most of the people who took part in this protest were upper class youth and majority of them were women. Similarly, it can be said that the 1990s was a decade when many of the major events in the history of India took place. Activities like the demolition of Babri Masjid and the communal violence that followed, and the implementation of the Mandal Commission Report and the protests that followed were some of them. In her essay Tejaswini Niranjana

repeatedly mentions that the films that she had chosen for analysis reflect the peoples rejection of the Nehruvian state and its egalitarian socialism. But I would argue that people were disappointed with the current state of government which was unable to do much during the protest and violence that took place during that decade and not with the Nehruvian state of the 1950s. As mentioned earlier my

argument is that Nehrus ideas were revolutionary but the politicians who came later made it into a corrupt one. Tejaswini Niranjana begins her essay by discussing about the film Geetanjali in the light of the anti-mandal agitation. Most of the people who took part in this agitation were upper caste youths and many of them were young women. The most prominent idea of the anti-mandal agitation was the figure of the nation and modernity. Reservation policy based on caste was considered to be backward and traditional and therefore anti-national. This movement was

legitimized by the media and they portrayed these agitators as heroes. Women coming to street and taking part in the agitations was also supported by the media as the women were considered to be pure and the task of saving the nation was entitled to women. The author considers the heroine of the film Geetanjali as similar to the anti-mandal woman because of her occupation of equal space with men, a space where caste or community difference doesnt matter. She is

considered to be secular and therefore modern but at the same time doesnt go beyond certain limits. The heroine in the film does many activities such as playing pranks with men, asking them to marry her and cheat them and many other things, but all these activities were sanctioned by her impending death. Based on the developments of the society women were given certain freedom but always within a limit. This was the situation throughout the Indian history. A good example to

illustrate this point is the essay The Voice of the Nation and the Five-Year Plan Hero by Sanjay Srivastava (Srivastava, 2006). The heroine in the films may go outside of the domestic space, but by giving her the voice of Lata Mangeshkar which is considered to be the epitome of Indian feminine; the patriarchs are keeping the heroine within their grasp. Femininity and female subjects are

considered to be the best medium through which ones tradition could be upheld. Thus, if the men went to the modern outside world, women were supposed to remain at home and help the men to maintain the balance between tradition and modernity. While talking about the Five Year Plan Hero Sanjay Srivastava says that villages are lagging behind in the development ladder and it is the Five Year Plan Hero who gives modernity to the villages. In the same way women are also considered to be a step behind in modernity and the Five Year Plan Hero should help them reach to modernity. Thus the Five Year Plan Hero who represents the nation becomes the hero by making the women and the villages as modern. So, the role of women is important in creating a Five Year Plan Hero. Similarly in the present essay Nationalism Refigured women are an integral part in creating a national hero. In the movie Bombay, the heroine doesnt want the hero to convert into her religion and by doing so the domestic space becomes truly secular and the woman plays a major role in this process.

While talking about the film Geetanjali, because the heroine has the qualities of modernity and secular, the author compares her with the anti-mandal woman. I am not quite satisfied with the argument of the author. The women who

participated in the anti-mandal protest were voluntary individuals who came forward without any force from anybody. But the heroine of the film Geetanjali, as mentioned by the author, does many activities which are accepted only because of her impending death. So, in normal conditions she wouldnt necessarily be doing what she is doing right now. Therefore I argue that the heroine of the film Geetanjali is not similar to the anti-mandal woman. The next movie that the author is discussing is Roja. In this part the author describes the love between the hero and heroine as patriotic love and also talks about the depiction of Muslim militants and the failure of the state in rescuing the hero from the militants. The depiction of Muslims in Roja is more aggressive than in the film Bombay, but people protested for the banning of the movie Bombay but didnt even bother to respond to the film Roja. The author argues that the solution (mutual love can eradicate communal differences) that was given in the film Bombay in order to avoid communal violence is the reason for these protests. The Muslims that were portrayed in the film Roja were Pakistanis or Kashmiris who want their state to be separated from India, but in the film Bombay they were Indian Muslims. The Indian Muslims didnt bother to respond about the depiction

of Pakistani Muslims, but when in the film Bombay Indian Muslims were presented they felt a need to respond and this could have been another reason for the widespread protests that took place after the release of the film Bombay. Instead of analyzing the role of women in these movies from a feminist perspective, the author analyses the female characters from a nationalistic perspective and this gives an entirely different idea about the female characters in those movies. But if we look at this essay from the present day context we can get another perspective of the essay and the films too. Today the very concept of Nation is being questioned. Benedict Anderson in his book Imagined

Communities (Anderson, 2003) describes the nation and its people as imagined community. In order to maintain unity among the people the nationalists created this idea of imagined community and this concept is being questioned by many people. In the present essay Tejaswini Niranjana is trying to refigure the concept of the nation from a different perspective, thus doing the same job of the nationalists. The film represents a kind of utopian world where the protagonists lead a comfortable life and their comfort is disturbed when a national problem affects them. The protagonists in the film Geetanjali are from a well-to-do middle class family and it is the same case with the other two movies. Just focusing on a national problem through the protagonists, the director has blocked out all other

problems that can affect the middle class people and it also leaves out the lower class people who struggle to survive in a day-to-day basis. Here I would like to bring the argument of Ravikumar in his essay about the short film Knock-Out (Ravikumar, 2011). In this essay he criticizes the director for not focusing on some of the minor characters in the film who play a major role. The director of the film criticizes the state and the people who simply neglected the boxer who brought greatness to the country by winning a medal in the Olympics. But

Ravikumars argument is that the director is involving in the very act which he is criticizing, he neglects some other minor characters such as the fish seller woman, the grave digger and the rickshaw puller. If we look at Maniratnams films we can realize that he also does the same thing. He depicts the government as helpless and makes the middle class person responsible for eradicating the differences between people and wants them to be modern and secular. He does this not by depicting real life activities, instead by creating a utopian world where the only problem is tradition and religion. Tejaswini Niranjana too involves in a similar process and refuses to go beyond the world created by the director. Thus, we can see how the concept of nationalism and discourses around it kept changing as the country moved forward. Starting from the 1950s or even before that it has undergone many changes and in

the present context it has achieved an entirely new level. I hope my analysis of Tejaswini Niranajas essay will fit somewhere in between those arguments. Bibliography Anderson, Benedict R. O'G. Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso, 2003. Kaviraj, Sudipta. Dilemmas of Democratic Development in India. Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2011. Niranjana, Tejaswini. "Nationalism Refigured: Contemporary South Indian Cinema and the Subject of Feminism." Eds. , Partha Chatterjee and Pradeep Jeganathan. Community, Gender and Violence: Subaltern Studies XI . Delhi: Permanent Black, 2000. 138 - 166. Ravikumar. "Knoct-Out: Permanent and Impermanent Bodies." Eds. K. Satyanarayana and Tharu Susie. No Alphabet in Sight. New Delhi: Penguin, 2011. 259 - 266. Srivastava, Sanjay. "The Voice of the Nation and the Five-Year Plan Hero." Eds. Vinay Lal and Nandy Ashish. Fingerprinting Popular Culture. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006. 122 - 155.