Indialogs

Graphic Novels and Traditional Art Forms: The Indian Context

Bhanupriya Rohila — 2023-04-12

The visual language of graphic novels is increasingly becoming a powerful tool of expression. Originally known as the comic books, the contemporary graphic novels are being acknowledged as a potential medium for handling serious issues. Recently, a great changeover in the thematic concerns and the art style of Indian Graphic Novels has been witnessed. This hybrid medium of text and image is addressing to the sensitive issues and questions of the contemporary modern society and also establishing a cultural identity through its artistic (visual) expression. The conventional style of comic sketching and caricaturing on paper is being replaced by the traditional art forms from different cultures and regions of India. This shift has brought about a change in the perspectives or the ways of ‘seeing’ both the Indian Graphic Novels and the Indian visual art forms. The paper purports to establish a connection between these two with a proposition that the graphic novels are a potential mode of preserving the traditional art forms of India and helping them gain recognition globally so that the Indian Graphic Novel can also create a distinguished identity in verbal-visual literature like that of Japanese Manga. The paper is an endeavour to examine how the traditional art forms are being contextualized in the contemporary times and how they are effectively registering the resistance against the stereotype and the negligence especially of women and Dalits in the Indian society itself.

Violence, Naxalbari Movement (1965-1975), and its Representation in Indian English Literature: A Re-reading of History through The Lives of Others (2014)

Pritha Sarkar — 2023-04-12

In this article, the objective is to read The Lives of Others (2014) by Neil Mukherjee as a representative text of the Naxalbari movement (1965-1975) of Bengal. The Naxalbari movement was the first peasant insurgency within twenty years of Indian independence that developed into a movement of dissent (1965-75), opposing the existing class hierarchy. The article analyses how violence became one of the chief tools in the movement dedicated to creating an egalitarian society and the state’s response to it in order to maintain the political status quo. For this purpose, the article gives a brief overview of the political movements in India, followed by the Naxalbari movement through the lens of violence. Through The Lives of Others, it shows the aporia by showing the futility of violence. Thus, the argument of the article is centred on in an interaction between the historical narrative regarding violence in the Naxalbari movement and its depiction in one of the texts of Indian Literature in English.

Culture and Ethics in Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence

Jogamaya Bayer — 2023-04-12

Salman Rushdie’s novel The Enchantress of Florence (2008) tells the story of a princess of the Mughal dynasty and how her name is effaced from history. The narrative, mixing historical facts with fiction, depicts the princess’s perilous journey across continents in her search to find a home. Following Steven Shankman’s reading of Emmanuel Levinas, in whose work the primacy of ethics over ontology requires that we take responsibility for the Other, (Shankman, 2010: 15–16), this paper traces the trajectory of Rushdie’s text that represents, through the character of Akbar, the primacy of ethics as both before and beyond culture.

Communicating in the Third Space: A Psycho-Cultural Reading of Mahesh Dattani’s Radio Play Do The Needful

Amandeep Rana — 2023-04-12

Homosexuality, gay/lesbian relationships and same-sex marriage are a few bizarre issues that still raise a lot of eyebrows in our society; these people remain marginalized and uprooted in our socio-cultural setup. Mahesh Dattani’s first radio play Do the Needful focuses explicitly on some shared spaces among men, women and the third gender people in Indian society which pre-dominantly promotes the patriarchal family setup and discourages any change that challenges the established and existing structure of it. Dattani, very cleverly through the ‘thought’ technique, brings out his characters’ subconscious thoughts and their conflict with the socially constructed hegemony. They are not what society thinks of them; they are not what they want to be; they are not what they actually are; they are the inhabitants of a different world – a third space. Not only the two lead characters, Alpesh and Lata, but all characters search for ease in a third space. The ‘otherness’ that they feel in the psycho-cultural frame brings them to a common platform – Teri bhi chup, meri bhi chup.

The present paper aims at testing Bhabha’s postcolonial concept of ‘the third space’ and ‘in-betweenness’ in the psycho-cultural sphere, by highlighting and analyzing the space created by various characters for themselves under the weight of repressed (homo)sexual desires, social structures and cultural constraints.

Interculturality, world music and management of musical heritage in musical shows: an approach to the Casa de la India Foundation in Valladolid

Marion Bastiana Debrois Castro — 2023-04-12

This paper aims to be an approach to the musical activities of the Casa de la India Foundation from a musicological perspective. To this end, four of its musical activities have been selected and studied applying theories and methodologies from disciplines such as ethnomusicology, anthropology, sociology and cultural studies and, in particular, issues related to interculturality, Studies on world music and management of musical heritage. The collection of information was carried out by conducting interviews with the directors of Casa de la India and consulting various bibliographic sources (books, manuals, scientific articles, memories of Casa de la India, official websites of this cultural center, artists and other cultural entities involved in the activities studied).

The four activities selected were: "India in Concert", a festival of concerts and performances of classical music and dance from India; "Flamenco, India", a show that combines flamenco and different classical Indian dances; "Rasa and Duende", where Indian performing arts and flamenco techniques and Lorca’s poetry are mixed; and finally, "Kijote Kathakali", a theatrical adaptation of Don Quixote to the language of dance-theater kathakali.

The Hybrid Origin of Brāhmī Script from Aramaic, Phoenician and Greek Letters

Karan Damodaram Pillai — 2023-04-12

The origins of Brāhmī script have been mired in controversy for over a century since the Semitic model was first proposed by Albrecht Weber in 1856. Although Aramaic has remained the leading candidate for the source of Brāhmī, no scholar has adequately explained a letter by letter derivation, nor accounted for the marked differences between Aramaic, Kharoṣṭhīand Brāhmī scripts. As a result, the debate is far from settled. In this article I attempt to finally answer the vexed questions that have plagued scholars for over a century, regarding the exact origins of Brāhmī, through a comparative letter by letter analysis with other Semitic origin scripts. I argue that Brāhmī was not derived from a single script, but instead was a hybrid invention by Indian scholars from Aramaic, Phoenician and Greek letters provided by a western Semitic trader.

Editorial

Felicity Hand — 2023-04-12

not required

Interpreting Nationalism in the Indian Context

Braj Mohan — 2023-04-12

This article explores the issue of nationalism in the Indian context with a particular focus on the contemporary discourse. An effort has been made to explicate the ins and outs of the concept of nationalism and its types as identified by various scholars in the area. It is imperative to note that Indian nationalism as ingrained in the Constitution of India is essentially different from the nationalism adopted in the most monolithic countries of Europe and the Middle East. The contemporary nationalistic forces seem to invest efforts to consolidate the nationalistic identity of the country through discursive means. This article disambiguates the concept of nationalism and puts the contemporary nationalistic vision in proper perspective.

Review of Historia Compartida de España y la India

Jaouad Jabri — 2023-04-12

Review of Alfonso Ojeda's Historia compartida de España y la India in which he seeks to trace parallelisms between Spain and India

Review of Avtar Brah's Decolonial Imaginings: Intersectional Conversations and Contestations (2022)

Ana María Crespo Gómez — 2023-04-12

A review of Avtar Brah’s Decolonial Imaginings: Intersectional Conversations and Contestations, a groundbreaking text in the domain of intersectionality which showcases the potential for addressing inequality and power relations in various disciplines, such as sociology

Autumnal Chords. A Marginal Place in Poetry

Basudhara Roy — 2023-04-12

This review of Jaydeep Sarangi's latest collection of poems 'letters in lower case' attempts to read the book as a collection that valorises the marginal position of poetry in the world and looks upon it as both confidante and witness of life's relentless contradictions and struggles.