
eBook - ePub
Remaking the Citizen for New Times
History, Pedagogy and the Amar Chitra Katha
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
About this book
An accessible cultural and literary critique of the right wing in India.
How does orthodoxy maintain its power over culture? In Remaking the Citizen for New Times, Deepa Sreenivas explores how the Amar Chitra Katha, a widely read comic series started in 1967 in India, influenced the historical and national consciousness of young readers in a conservative direction. Tacitly blaming Nehruvian welfarism of the time for the moral decline of the nation, the Amar Chitra Katha emerged as a literary articulation of the Indian right's Hindu-nationalist ideology in a modern, bourgeois guise. To renew Hindutva hegemony, the comic series gave orthodox ideas a new sheen, both in its form and content, merging Western comic styles with Indian visual storytelling traditions on the one hand, and combining mythological characters with political figureheads into harmonious narratives on the other—making it difficult to sift history from myths and legends. Sreenivas deftly argues that these mythological-political tales emphasized the instructive rather than the informative potential of history, encouraging neoliberal values such as merit and hard work while ignoring caste or class as systemic issues.
How does orthodoxy maintain its power over culture? In Remaking the Citizen for New Times, Deepa Sreenivas explores how the Amar Chitra Katha, a widely read comic series started in 1967 in India, influenced the historical and national consciousness of young readers in a conservative direction. Tacitly blaming Nehruvian welfarism of the time for the moral decline of the nation, the Amar Chitra Katha emerged as a literary articulation of the Indian right's Hindu-nationalist ideology in a modern, bourgeois guise. To renew Hindutva hegemony, the comic series gave orthodox ideas a new sheen, both in its form and content, merging Western comic styles with Indian visual storytelling traditions on the one hand, and combining mythological characters with political figureheads into harmonious narratives on the other—making it difficult to sift history from myths and legends. Sreenivas deftly argues that these mythological-political tales emphasized the instructive rather than the informative potential of history, encouraging neoliberal values such as merit and hard work while ignoring caste or class as systemic issues.
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Yes, you can access Remaking the Citizen for New Times by Deepa Sreenivas in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Indian & South Asian History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Sreenivas’s Copyright page
- THE ARGUMENT
- THE FOUNDING MYTH
- CULTURAL NEGOTIATIONS
- MERIT UNDER THREAT
- THE PAST IN THE PRESENT
- REGRESSIVE MODERNIZATION
- THE RIGHT ROUTE TO OUR ‘ROOTS’
- IMBRICATIONS
- PARTHA AND PERSONALITY
- THE CURRENT MOMENT
- CANONIZING SUCCESS
- CONCLUDING THOUGHTS