140206 UE From Nation Building to Nation Branding: Understanding New Nationalism in India (2019S)

What are the new vocabularies of nationalism(s) in today’s India and how have they changed since 1947?
The Indian economy witnessed a shift (starting in the late 1980s) with the introduction of the neo-liberal economic reforms of 1991, from being an import substitution economy to being a neo-liberalized, structurally adjusted one. Whereas the early postcolonial state propagated nation building through the ‘Temples of Modern India’, a phrase coined by the first Prime Minister Nehru, emphasising the importance of ‘new dams, new universities and new industries’, the post 1991 period witnesses a turn to nation branding. A plethora of channels likes nation branding campaigns, music videos produced by non-state actors, campaigns produced at the World Economic Forum etc. have attempted to capture the phenomenon of a new economically ‘Emerging’ India. These campaigns are directed at attracting foreign investors and tourists to India, however, some of them also aim to evoke patriotism and a sense of ‘Indianness’ in perceived ‘Indian’ audiences, both in and outside India.
This seminar focuses on the following main axes:
o The shifts in understanding nationalisms
o The hybrid relationship between the global and the national.
o How do nation-states respond to the challenges of open market economies and re-invent themselves?
o How is it possible to accommodate patriotism in times when the flow of capital and humans become increasingly uncontrollable and disconnected to the national?
The seminar will introduce students to the shifting tropes of nationalism(s) in the early postcolonial period up to contemporary times, the making and re-making of the “Ideal Citizen”, and the more recent vocabularies of the “anti-national”.
We will analyse images, posters and videos from the Indian Nation Branding campaign (eg. Incredible !ndia), political rhetoric of Indian politicians (campaigns like the current Prime Minister Modi’s “Make in India” and “Clean India”) and literature that portrays a “New/Emerging/Rising/Shining India” to seek answers to these questions. The seminar will thus also enable students to sharpen their methodological frameworks by analysing varied material(s).