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Book Reviews
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activism, literature and thought exists in Telugu; however, there has been
a dearth of good translations into Telugu of feminist scholarship that is
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being produced in the English language. This has meant that Telugu
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feminists and students of feminism who do not have access to the English
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material or whose level of familiarity with the English language does
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not equip them to tackle complex academic writing have not been able
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to draw upon and engage with issues and debates from other contexts
even within India. By providing a rich and varied selection of feminist
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essays from the 1990s that range from topics such as land, livelihood
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law and feminism, the editors have made available a wonderful collection
of essays for the first time in Telugu. The nine essays chosen for transla-
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tion include the writings of some of the best scholars working today on
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and women. A. Suneetha and Vasudha Nagaraj’s thoughtful essay focuses
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on the new Bill on domestic violence and the limitations of such legal
interventions. They argue that attempts to translate the complexity of
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women’s negotiations with family, community and the question of vio-
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lence into the parameters of law will not always be successful. All of
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with the social reformist and nationalist movements, the rise of the inde-
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pendent women’s movement in the 1970s and the debates and dilemmas
of the 1990s that brought the questions of caste and community to the
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too. However, one wish there was a greater focus in the introduction on
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for example, are addressed by individual essays but a serious and sustained
reflection on these and their implications for feminist politics would have
made the introduction far richer and relevant.
Further, as is inevitable in a collection of this kind, there are several
other key essays one can think of that ought to have featured here. Tharu
and Niranjana’s ‘Problems for a Contemporary Theory of Gender’, Uma
Chakravarti’s ‘Whatever Happened to the Vedic Dasi’, the essays by
Sharmila Rege on Dalit women and feminism, and the growing body of
feminist work on homosexuality and sexual politics immediately
come to my mind. To be fair, the editors themselves acknowledge to this
point. Nevertheless, a section in the introduction that broadly discusses
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such essays that had to be left out and the larger debates that they are
part of would have been invaluable in providing an overview of the field
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to Telugu readers. A detailed bibliography of such essays and books too
would have been very useful.
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By virtue of being a pioneer in its field, this collection makes all the
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more apparent the need for many other such works and the possibilities
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feminist theory, which is not exactly a favourite field with Telugu pub-
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lishers. Let us hope that this book will encourage both the publication of
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many such translations from English and original works in Telugu too.
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her blurb to the book: ‘This book will become a basic textbook for all
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cepts from different disciplines that will not only aid further research in
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Telugu but will also provoke and challenge it to pursue new directions.’
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and
For over three decades, Verne Dusenbery has been studying the Sikhs, a
community with an almost paradigmatic transnational presence, and Sikhs
at Large consists of twelve of his articles and book chapters written
between 1981 and 2008 (with three post-2000 contributions). In accord-
ance with his research interests, he divided the book into two closely
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related parts: ‘Sikh Ethnosociology’ (Part I) concerns ‘Sikh under-
standings of their social world and their place in it, as reflected in what
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Sikhs say and what Sikhs do as they live their lives, interacting with
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other Sikhs and with non-Sikhs’; and ‘Sikhs and the State’ (Part II) deals
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with Sikh minority identity politics in various multiculturalist states in
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the era of globalisation (p. 1). On the whole, Dusenbery discusses Sikhism
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Yogi Bhajan. The first two chapters of Sikhs at Large deal with the
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figure of Yogi Bhajan, ‘a good deal of the frustration that once existed on
both sides has gone out of the relationship’ (p. 44). In the same way,
I suggest, it can be argued that the subject of the third chapter, the trans-
lation of the sacred word and music of the Guru Granth Sahib, that is,
the Sikh holy scripture and the world’s largest original collection of sacred
hymns, has become less controversial over time. For example, Orientalist
theories about ‘the sacredness of sound central to the classical Indian
traditions’ (p. 73) seem to be increasingly seen as outdated against the
widespread current use of modern media such as DVDs, CDs and the
internet.
Book Reviews / 285
The first six chapters of the book (Part I) make clear how, for a long
time, and sometimes even today, both Sikhs and scholars of Sikhism
wrestle(d) with the issue of ‘authentic tradition’ as well as the master
narratives of ‘nation’, ‘world religion’ and, for diasporan Sikhs, the an-
cestral and spiritual ‘homeland’ of the Punjab. Rightly so, Dusenbery
questions the existence of an authentic tradition and the appropriate-
ness of the mentioned master narratives. Yet, from a contemporary global
historical perspective, identity politics remains the predominant mode
of Sikh visibility and, accordingly, the second Part of Sikhs at Large
concerns the politics of recognition vis-à-vis Sikhs in the US, Canada,
Australia and South-East Asia (Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia). Here,
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he makes the interesting comparative point that, in Singapore, fronting
their ‘fellow Asian’ status, Sikhs have been able to play the politics of
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recognition inherent to modern multiculturalist states far more efficaci-
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ously than in Canada, even while, unlike their Canadian co-religionists,
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‘Singaporean Sikhs have not always been free to challenge existing legal
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and social conventions’ (p. 252). However, the success of the latter has
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(p. 291).
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(p. xiii). Following this, SDP is approached ‘from the Punjab ground’
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(Section II) and through ‘a transnational lens’ (Section III). The final
section, again with respective chapters by Tatla and Dusenbery, discusses
the ‘lessons learned’, whereby Dusenbery also sums up recommendations,
generated by the participants at the workshop, to all people and institu-
tions involved in SDP: philanthropists, the government, media, scholars,
religious leaders, intended beneficiaries and so on. On the whole, the
twelve chapters make clear how since the late 19th century, initially in
particular through such movements as the Chief Khalsa Diwan and the
Ghadar Party, and especially after Operation Blue Star (1984), diasporan
Sikhs have sought links to Punjab through philanthropic activities.
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of bhangra from a ‘Punjabi men’s macho dance into a full-fledged pop
industry’ (p. 243), none of the authors in Sikh Diaspora Philanthropy
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discuss the relationship between the Sikh diaspora, if not SDP, and the
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modern developments in Sikh kirtan, that is, the singing or listening to
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the hymns of the Guru Granth Sahib, which lies at the heart of Sikhism.
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No doubt, this theme would be an important matter for analysis within
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Overall, Sikhs at Large and Sikh Diaspora Philanthropy bring out the
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showing how Sikh studies have travelled well beyond an essentialist ap-
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proach focused on tradition. If only for these reasons, these books deserve
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and empire. For instance, Dusenbery could have paid more attention to
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The Netherlands
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Vinay Lal (ed.), Political Hinduism: The Religious Imagination in Public
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Spheres. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009. vii + 287 pp.
Plates, notes, references, index. `650 (hardback).
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DOI: 10.1177/006996671104500209
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Sampraday, edited by Anthony Copley (OUP, 2003). Its interest lies not
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this is not attempted, but in the essays that comprise it. Some of these do
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indeed explore the notion, but others do not, leaving it to the readers to
draw their own conclusions. Actually, Ron Inden’s essay, placed last,
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show us a situation in which the people of the nation have neither mar-
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ginalised religions nor have they Hinduized the nation’ (p. 253).
Broadly speaking, we have here studies of aspects of Hindu nation-
alism from the late 19th century to the present day. The contemporary
contexts that make the book relevant are, besides Hindutva, the arrival
of global Hinduism, and what Lal calls ‘the exhaustion associated with
the ideology of secularism’ (p. 5). Copley had concluded his introductory
essay with the observation that ‘the very character of Hindutva itself is
difficult to define’ (ibid.: 28). As for ‘Political Hinduism’, the justification
for it, according to Lal, lies in ‘the sinister singularity in which one speaks
of Political Islam’, and in the fact that ‘Hinduism is just as susceptible as
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which Bankim ‘iconized’ the land as the ‘Mother’, and stresses that ‘the
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symbolism of the song was unapologetically Hindu’ (p. 108). It thus
aroused Muslim hostility, but became embedded in mainstream, nation-
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alist consciousness. Although only the first two stanzas, which have no
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religious referents, were adopted as the national song, the controversy
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has not died down. The bone of contention is the word ‘vande’: does it
imply worship or is it only an expression of veneration? It could mean
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religious pluralism, and even New Age movements’ (p. 127). Today,
Hindutva, and broadly Hinduism also, are both inward looking and ex-
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and politics is the centrepiece of this volume. He finds Gandhi’s advocacy
of religious politics alongside his endorsement of the secular state ‘para-
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doxical’. I wonder why, for politics and the state are separate conceptual
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categories, with distinct institutional embodiments.Apart from this, I find
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myself generally in agreement with almost everything that Skaria says,
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but not always with the way he says it: the writing is unnecessarily turgid,
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not syncretic but pluralist. I too have said this in more than one place
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and for some years now. He rightly places dayā, compassion, at the very
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equality and pluralism; without the former the latter implies hierarchy,
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his own, p…r parā… jārné re. Rather surprisingly, neither this hymn nor
the instrumentality of sevā is mentioned by Skaria.
Paula Richman’s engaging essay on Rajagopalachari as a scholar-
author highlights the fact that this broad-minded, cultured and pragmatic
Congress stalwart had a problem shared by every reasonably rooted
Hindu. How does one separate culture from religion within the Hindu
tradition? ‘Rajagopalachari believed that the central government could
not represent the “nation” unless its citizens perceived themselves as
bound by shared culture’ (p. 242). This shared culture has evolved over
time and is multi-faceted but not exclusively Hindu, even though the
epics occupy a crucial place in it. It is a kind of razor’s edge that one has
to tread on: one may retain a catholic perspective, as Rajagopalachari
did, or embrace exclusivism as K.M. Munshi did.
Roby Rajan (an economist) and J. Raghu seek to reinterpret the sig-
nificance of the well-known ‘ethico-political intervention in Kerala’ by
Narayana Guru in the mid-1920s. Having spread beyond Narayan Guru’s
Ezhava community, we are told, the movement is usually robbed of its
significance through reductionist or ‘normalising’ interpretations, which
locate it within either a Brahmanical, traditionalist or a reformist nation-
alist framework. They advocate a radical view of it, using terms such as
‘continuity of discontinuity’, ‘gracious uprooting’ and ‘caused causes’,
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and assert that the significance of the movement lies in its original (not
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mimetic) universalism. The essay suffers from what can only be called
pedantry, and is not at all easy to read.
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Finally, a comment on authorial responsibility. Both Lal and Sharma
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say that Vivekananda exhorted Hindus to eat beef, develop their biceps
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and read the Bhagavad Gita (pp. 8, 152), but provide no textual references.
Presumably, their authority is Ashis Nandy (The Intimate Enemy, OUP,
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1983: 47), but he too does not cite any source. Meat, perhaps, but beef?
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Delhi
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DOI: 10.1177/006996671104500210
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I remember reading the first drafts of this book several years ago with a
thrill of disbelief that it was indeed possible to imagine a post-Hindu
India! I felt grateful that Ilaiah imagined this possibility in the endless
cacophony about the wonders of Hinduism/Hindutva. I write this review
to urge academic readers to think about such an imagination, as a horizon
for solutions to the problems our society and culture face at the beginning
of the 21st century.
Criticism is the birth of knowledge, of a new episteme; it can be the
rumblings of a civil war. It is only in the red-hot embrace of a passionate
Book Reviews / 291
civil war that a reluctant culture will transform itself. Such powerful
beginnings are inevitably straitjacketed by the framework they set out to
destroy and Ilaiah’s book is no exception. And yet, the rich fruit of his
meditations begin to appear as avenues of exploration, new perspectives
and revolutionary ways of thinking about our past, present and future
that go beyond the glaring limitations of the book when measured against
normative social science paradigms of ‘truth’, ‘accuracy’ and ‘brevity’.
The book is an arrangement of essays in cultural understanding that
make a hierarchical ascent from the ontologically productive base in tri-
bal communities, the Madigas (Mochis), Malas (Mahars), Chakalis
(Dhobis), Mangalis (Naayis) and other OBC cultures, to the rarefied,
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life-leaching culture of the upper castes like the Bania, Kshatriya and
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Brahmin communities. Ilaiah’s continuing argument here, as throughout
all his work, is that the ‘lower castes’ carry the ethical and political founda-
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tions of society’s growth. The upper castes are parasitic superstructural
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forms, depending on Hinduism and its hegemony to hold Indian society
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endless repetition of the ‘same’ theme. What is Ilaiah really up to? Simply
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with dignity and self-respect about its past, in order to state its philo-
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with, and yet removes with surgical precision, the doubt and insecur-
ity in my mind about the importance of my caste—indeed it restores my
erased history. It gives me an intellectual home I can inhabit with dignity
in an upper-caste world that is blind to my worth.
The next question is that of ‘accuracy’, which is a key norm of social
science description. Ilaiah’s descriptions are wildly inaccurate, enough
in fact to condemn his work as irresponsible. The far more important
question however: what does the inaccuracy and irresponsibility aim to
achieve? Social science paradigms, their frameworks of realism and
norms of accuracy ensure a mode of writing that is aligned to the statist
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insult that are the cement of reactionary hegemony. On the other hand,
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social scientific accuracy and its twin, political neutrality, cannot result in
a text that can convey to the audience the lesson Ilaiah wants to teach
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in pursuit of social ‘transformation’: that it is necessary to be outrageous
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in word and deed to summon the courage to speak with irreverence to
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strated time and again in the battle against Brahminism, is the best weapon
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against a bigotry that crushes you. Ilaiah tries to communicate this crucial
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communities that the existing hierarchy is the best state of affairs. Against
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this, Ilaiah argues for a progressive civil war (war of manoeuvre) chal-
lenging the status quo. By speaking ‘untruths’, Ilaiah is able to propose
a progressive counter-hegemonic strategy. This strategy Ilaiah calls a
‘war of nerves’. It is by ceaselessly bombarding the truths of upper caste
hegemony that the war of nerves brings about a counter-hegemony that
will ultimately lead to a (civil) war of manoeuvre with progressive
consequences.
When Ilaiah speaks of Dalit Bahujan political unity, he speaks of the
possible, not actual, truth. It is an argument to break the caste–ideological
barriers that separate the two community groups, in the belief that the
Book Reviews / 293
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Everyday Life in a Prison by Mahuya Bandyopadhyay offers an ethno-
graphic account based on fieldwork done in a central prison (whose name
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is not divulged) in Kolkata in the late 1990s. Since very little is actually
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known about what happens inside prisons, the significance of the book
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lies in the author’s ability to make visible the nature of life behind high
walls, offer an account of how prisoners make sense of their lives and
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and power, the book offers a critique of Goffman’s idea of ‘total insti-
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fixed and rule bound’ (p. 61). The study advances this critique mainly
through the participant observation method by offering an account based
on interviews with prison personnel, inmates and some families. The
‘everyday social world’ of the prison enabled the author to seek sites and
spaces that helped avert the gaze of the authorities (as both researcher
and respondents were subjected to surveillance); the interview sessions,
according to the author, often became ‘desirable subversive sites’ (p. 49).
Thus, the book usefully documents how constraining circumstances can
be deployed towards productive research. Also, the deliberate use of
Bengali terms enhances its immediate specificity.
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and after incarceration. The life narratives (jibon kahini, Chapter 6) are
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meant to show how the presumed freedom of para (neighbourhood)
life is actually characterised by danger and violence that exert a con-
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straining influence on the individual, while prison activities offers possi-
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bilities of strong assertion of self.
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Consequently, the model focuses only on those who are able to negotiate
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with whom the author was able to develop trust and friendship. The author
mentions her constraints in interacting with undertrial prisoners but the
limiting effects of these difficulties on her method and analysis are not
discussed, suggesting that the findings may not be as inclusive as the
title indicates.
In her examination of everyday practices, the author ignores the hier-
archy between convicted and undertrial prisoners, a distinction affirmed
by her own data. For instance, in positing lesbian relations as liberating
and non-exploitative, she overlooks the question of power implicit in
such relationships. The analysis avoids the desperation and the acute
Book Reviews / 295
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such practices. Within the proffered model of the everyday, protests and
resistances can only be regarded as aberrations.
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Undoubtedly, it is an author’s prerogative to determine the agenda of
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her book. But marginalising historical and materialist inquiries (most
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evident in her analysis of para-life), the analysis of everyday practices
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as the site to understand prison-lives, seems ahistorical and impression-
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University of Delhi
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Local Governance: Field Studies from Rural India. New Delhi: Sage
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`750 (hardback).
DOI: 10.1177/006996671104500212
How far have marginalised social groups such as the Scheduled Castes
and Tribes (SC/ST) and women been ‘empowered’ in the process of local
governance, nearly two decades after the 73rd and 74th amendments of
the Indian Constitution which reserved seats and offices for SC/ST groups
proportional to their population, and a fixed percentage, specified as not
less than one-third of total seats, for women? Reflecting social and pol-
itical change of India, this important question is the main concern of this
book.
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man or woman of the local dominant caste.
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Despite the two decades of decentralisation and reservation of seats
and offices, shocking realities on the status of these marginalised groups
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emerge from these field studies. That elected representatives from
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scheduled castes (SCs)—sometimes, even the panchayat head—are not
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caste groups are also able to devise other strategies to ensure that these
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formal head. All this has meant that the presence of an SC panchayat
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a state known for its favourable showing on human and social develop-
ment indices and the awareness of its working class, ST representatives
appear passive and unable to assert their rights effectively.
On the issue of women’s inclusion, the trends are more positive and
indicate the willing participation and visibility of a large number of
women representatives in different parts of the country, some of whom
have functioned as effective and articulate local leaders. However, here
too, in many cases where women hold the position of panchayat head,
actual power is wielded by the husband or some other male members of
the family. This is widely noted especially in Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu,
Orissa and even in Karnataka, despite their longer history of effective
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decentralisation. In extreme cases, women heads remain completely in-
visible for they do not/cannot talk to male visitors. In contrast, women
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representatives in Manipur seem more capable of independent assertion.
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In Kerala, the fact that effective decision-making power at the local level
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rests with party units, combined with the lack of power accruing to women
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within party organisations of the CPM and Congress, acts as a major con-
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and women to mingle freely, even in ‘progressive’ states like Kerala and
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Vishvajit Pandya, In the Forest: Visual and Material Worlds of
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Andamanese History (1858–2006). Lanham, Maryland: University
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Press of America, 2009. ix + 427 pp. Figures, plates, notes, glossary,
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bibliography, index.
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DOI: 10.1177/006996671104500213
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the Power of Ritual based on his Ph.D. research in the islands during the
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early 1980s among the Onges. This new account is an authoritative com-
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Islands.
The book amalgamates the various strands of Pandya’s ongoing pre-
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the cultural grammar of the islanders to reveal the ways in which such
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a sign of complexity, but a display of awkward and often turgid writing
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that is urgently in need of strong editorial intervention. This would confer
more clarity to his articulation and thus make more accessible the many
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insights that the anthropologist offers within the cover of this book. As
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an accomplished ethnographer, this account of the islanders makes visible
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more accessible to the ordinary Indian, and also proximal to the other
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reach of the general reader, the book sadly misses its potential to educate
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the wider public, especially those residing in the Andaman Islands. Such
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‘to all of my friends in the forest who may some day decide to read it’.
The second more troubling problem with Pandya’s book is the fact
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is a welcome development in his recent work. But it is also a serious
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lapse in scholarship on his part to ignore the work of other scholars,
whose research also offers a different set of insights into the lives of the
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various groups of the Andaman Islanders.
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I first met Vish in Dugong Creek in 1992 during the final stages of my
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graph and embark on the next phase of research, which finds expression
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in a substantial section of this book. It was during the same period that
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some Onge families were involved in Jarawa ‘contact’ and visited the
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Anthropological Museum in Port Blair; it was also when a trip was made
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One of the most famous first lines in the history of literature declared,
‘Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its
own way.’ In this fascinating study of marriage practices among the Hindu
bhadralok of colonial Bengal, that line becomes a truism that begs fur-
ther dissection. Happy families were premised upon notions of familial
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togetherness, Rochona Majumdar argues, that were constructions of
colonial modernity; the pressures of marriage and the marketplace in a
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capitalist colonial economy evolved, it seems from her work, in myriad
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manifestations, each of which she has attempted to trace in this pain-
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staking and meticulous book. The thoroughness of her research, however,
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does not detract from the analytical rigour she brings to her subject matter,
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nor does it diminish in any way the delight with which she presents the
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they bring such a quality of the real into the arguments as they are
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scrutinised individually for every little detail that cannot have been
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achieved by any other means. Apart from the author’s own comments
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RSVP printed below, there is the pleasure taken from searching these
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blance the photos bear to what one has seen in family albums, or the
delight with which one greets a grandmother’s inherited earrings in the
old jewellery catalogues printed in the appendix. These ‘thick descrip-
tions’ are intercut with sensitive readings of individual case histories of
seminal events that created a storm in society in that era and led to sig-
nificant changes in both practices and law. The two case studies looked
at here are that of the suicide of a middle-class Bengali girl called
Snehalata in 1914, who burned herself to spare her father further in-
dignities in finding her a dowry and a suitable boy, and that of the scandal
created by the underage wedding of the Brahmo reformer Keshab Sen’s
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instance, began in the 19th century through the offices of ghataks (trad-
itional matchmakers) who emphasised lineage and family line over all
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else, giving way for journals of caste associations in the early 20th cen-
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tury, before metamorphosing into the current practice of pages upon pages
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of matrimonial advertisements in the national and regional newspapers.
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The specifications of ‘fair and lovely’ for the bride, and educational quali-
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fications for the son-in-law were in place in the 19th century itself, as we
see to our alarm, and no amount of castigation or reformism seems to
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have done away with such criteria. The reform of taste in the rites and
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the couple belied the fact that other marriage memorabilia such as the
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poems written and printed for these occasions show that the ‘couple’
were overwhelmingly immersed in the identity of the extended family
of the husband, whose well-being was the condition necessary for their
existence. The joint family is also the subject of the formal sphere of
national law, which debated the Hindu Code reforms in agonising detail.
The author shows how the Succession Act, which altered the laws relating
to women’s inheritance of their paternal and marital property, was con-
stitutive for women’s rights in this country in more ways than one. Once
again, the importance of the well-being of the joint family is expressed
repeatedly by politicians across party lines, and a special case is argued
Book Reviews / 303
for, much like the joint stock companies that are said to have contributed
so much to the country’s recent economic success, controlled by fathers
and brothers for the prosperity of both family and nation. The unique-
ness of the Indian modern—its frustrating complexities and multiple
dimensions—is brought to light by the traceries of such histories, contri-
buting thereby to our own self-awareness and self-knowledge as putative
actors in contemporary India.
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Sharmila Sreekumar, Scripting Lives: Narratives of ‘Dominant Women’
in Kerala. New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan, 2009. xiii + 312 pp. Notes,
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bibliography, index. `695 (hardback).
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DOI: 10.1177/006996671104500215
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formation and second, social discourses that deal with various facets of
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the study thus brings into focus a genre of writing not frequently reckoned
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on the brink of collapse, that is, a dystopia. In contrast to writing by
women activist and development scholars that merely describes this para-
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dox, she claims to subject it to analytical scrutiny by examining the
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ideologically invested interiors of utopia and dystopia. The interiors of
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utopia and dystopia are taken up separately through specific narratives
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from the 1990s. The scholarship on Kerala’s development, promotional
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paradox, the space of domesticity is also drawn into the ambit of study
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facts’ (p. 54). She also implies that the discourse relies a great deal on
semantic mystification to produce its meaning. Hence, for the author,
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the phrase ‘distributed relatively equally’ (p. 120), used with reference
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to development indicators, is meant to coax the reader into overlooking
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gender disparities, especially as it is generally followed by observations
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about the higher life expectancy of women as compared to men in Kerala.
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While higher life expectancies are normal in the absence of acute forms
of gender discrimination (such as sex selection), notably, the author uses
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this supposed strategy to make a key analytical move, namely, to see the
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tendency to render women into ‘equal and subsidiary subjects’ (p. 121)
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narratives.
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The second problem relates to the modes by which personal and devel-
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ical insights into the uneasy intersections of caste and gender gathered
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ture. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2009. xiv + 195 pp. Notes,
bibliography, index. `295 (paperback).
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and
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Pramod K. Nayar, Packaging Life: Cultures of the Everyday. New Delhi:
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Sage Publications, 2009. xxv + 218 pp. Notes, bibliography, index.
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`595 (hardback).
DOI: 10.1177/006996671104500216
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At the outset, both books by Pramod K. Nayar fill a critical gap in studies
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Both books, in a sense, deal with ‘packaging’. The first book, on celeb-
rity culture, concentrates on how various aspects of celebrity culture in
India are ‘manufactured, packaged, and sold to adoring audiences that
are always thirsty for spectacles that pique their imagination and dazzle
their lives’. Indeed, who among us, to tell the truth, do not find celebrity
culture alluring, and often spend money buying magazines that offer us
a sneak peek into celebrity lives? Nayar’s book on celebrity culture ex-
amines the processes through which celebrities are constructed and
packaged as ‘consumer products’. Celebrities are strangers to us, but in
their construction and packaging in India today, we become familiar and
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conceptions of legitimacy, authority and credibility that are at work in
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Indian culture today.
The study of celebrity is a wide-ranging field, but has not drawn the
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kind of attention it deserves in India so far. Therefore, omissions in
Nayar’s readings like Joshua Gamson’s Claims to Fame: Celebrity in
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A Reader (Sage, 2007); Ajarn Brett Farmer’s ‘Can’t Get You Out of My
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Press, 2009) are baffling. That said, Nayar’s examination and analysis of
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The most glaring omission in this book is any reference to Michel de
Certeau’s seminal work The Practice of Everyday Life (University of
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California Press: Berkeley, 1984). De Certeau’s work deals with the uses
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consumers make of things that they purchase, for example, the uses of
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images on television. Though de Certeau’s work deals with topics ranging
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from railway journeys, differences between tours and maps, and differ-
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As acknowledged by the author, the first book is an easier read for the
lay person than the second. What makes Nayar’s works praiseworthy is
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that despite being academic works, both books are written in an easy
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narrative style, relatively free of jargon. One quibble I have with the
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books is the bad indexing. Both books would have benefited greatly with
a more systematic and detailed index section. This, however, is in no
way to deny the timely value of Nayar’s works in this field. Both books
will be of great interest to students of consumption studies and consumer
culture, media studies, celebrity studies, popular culture, and cultural
studies, and Asian studies. It adds much needed literature in these areas
where a specific focus on India is only just emerging, while also enriching
the range of available work on contemporary India.
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ledge and emphasises the need to examine what the diversity of responses
within media audiences can reveal of the participation of these consti-
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tuencies in the practice of deliberative democracy. He argues that while
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several audience studies have explored the link between interpretive
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practice and sociological categories, there is little available literature on
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the precise ways in which social context affects interpretive practice.
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addressed.
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tion and democratic participation is crucial.
The book is certainly a valuable contribution to the field of audience
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research, particularly reception studies. It, however, could have done
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with some conceptual clarity and careful editing. For instance, after re-
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defining Corner’s (1991) framework to replace ‘context’ to ‘social col-
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lectivities’, somewhat confusingly, the author continues to use the former
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and the subject, there surely could have been more attention to the layered
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value of the book lies in its extensive literature review, sophisticated
theorising as well as its focus on non-fiction programmes and its attempt
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to raise some very crucial questions that indicate areas which need further
research.
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Documentary Filmmaker, GARGI SEN
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REFERENCE
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Corner, J. 1991. Meaning, Genre and Context: The Problematics of ‘Public Knowledge’
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in the New Audience Studies. Paper presented at the fourth International Television
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and body describing how in particular the female body becomes the site
of contestation. In the first chapter Sunila Abeysekera provides a com-
parative description of women in the two dissimilar conflict zones of
East Timor and Sri Lanka. She captures the hardship that conflict begets
in the lives of vulnerable women of these countries. It also discusses the
interplay of patriarchal values and double standards that staunchly guard
the definition of gender roles and regulate every aspect of women’s exist-
ence. For instance, during conflict situations women are used to maintain
communication links, only to be sent back to the domains of domesti-
city once normalcy returns. In the second chapter, Gita Sen analyses
issues of reproductive rights and gender justice in the shadow of neo-
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conservative politics. It cautions us against how the nefarious collusion
of imperial powers such as the United States, religious fundamentalism
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and neo-conservative political and economic forces can impinge upon
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the space for gender justice. Rising economic disparity has led to declin-
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ing cooperation and consensus on crucial issues in the South while simul-
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taneously supplementing US hegemony and monopoly. The next chapter
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on extreme violence, only to take them far away from their true eman-
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cipation. Efforts by the Dutch state to recognise the sex market via pro-
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forced prostitution and sex trafficking are the focus of Joyce Outshoorn’s
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essay as the fourth chapter. She states that such creative policies are use-
ful in ameliorating the status of sex workers by making their domain of
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work subject to labour laws, health and safety regulations, all of which
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The second part of the book focuses on the domains of work and care.
Here, Noeleen Hayzer captures the different dimensions of trafficking in
women and children for a range of purposes including prostitution, legal
and illegal work, marriage, organ trade and bonded labour. She calls
upon a gender-responsive and human rights-based approach to trafficking.
Carla Risseeuw analyses Dutch policies to show that notwithstanding
the image of the Netherlands as a progressive welfare state, a closer ex-
amination of its legislation reveals how the government’s vision still
disables women from true citizenship entitlements through its affirmation
of traditional notions of gender with the male as breadwinner and the
Book Reviews / 313
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forward, Thanh-Dam Truong analyses the care issue in liberalisation era
Vietnam. She describes how, in the 1970s, the support for working
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mothers shifted the burden of care from women to institutions arranged
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to provide care services. However, under the current wave of liberal-
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isation and shift in economic policies, the state is trying to pull back to
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push women once again into the domain of domestic care by promoting
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Essays in Part Three focus on creative efforts that capture the concrete
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for human security. Virginia Vargas maps out the inter-linkages between
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At the same time, it has catalysed new sites of resistances, thus trans-
forming social movements at the local and global level into campaigns
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for global justice and an alternate globalisation. She also takes into
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Her study shows how new trends such as feminisation and informalisa-
tion of labour market practices have led to a further disenfranchisement
of women. Through using the metaphor of plastic, Patricia Mohammed
discusses how gender constructions are created and commercialised, and
stresses the need to rethink conventional gender categories to recognise
the achievements of women as contributing to human security and eco-
nomic freedom. Lastly, Rhoda Reddock tries to integrate gender analysis
into environmental studies to produce a critique of state policy towards
the use of agricultural resources and settlement.
Ranging across significant issues on the theme of human security from
policy and feminist perspectives, the book will be of great use to research
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scholars, students and, most importantly, policy makers.
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Miranda House PUSHPA KUMARI
University of Delhi
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