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-national-

modern’. 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 post-

national-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. With the drafting of the constitution India

started its official government. 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

Kaviraj’s argument that only the later politicians who focused on the short term

benefits couldn’t 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 didn’t 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 couldn’t

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 couldn’t 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 didn’t 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

people’s 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 Nehru’s 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 doesn’t matter. She is

considered to be secular and therefore modern but at the same time doesn’t 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 one’s 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 doesn’t 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 wouldn’t 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

didn’t 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 didn’t 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

Ravikumar’s 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 Maniratnam’s 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 Niranaja’s 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.