Performative politics and the cultures of Hinduism: Public uses of religion in Western India
Performative politics and the cultures of Hinduism: Public uses of religion in Western India
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表演政治和印度教文化：印度西部宗教的公共用途
DOI：
10.1080/14746681003633309
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发表时间：
2010
影响因子：
0.3
通讯作者：
Zemirah Moffat
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Zemirah Moffat
表演政治和印度教文化捕捉了印度的一个时刻，政治，核能和宗教的整洁关系，对专家和外行来说，它的范围是启示性的。基于广泛的人种学田野调查，这本综合性专著从历史、美学、印度教、商业、政治和国家立场描绘了印度最重要的印度教节日Ganapati utsava。在西部地区，马哈拉施特拉邦发现，Ganapati是Ganesh的名字：部落的主，障碍，痛苦和悲伤的推动者，幸福与和平的创造者。吸引返回到这个一年一度的utsava，为考尔的节日成为一个“说明性的晴雨表的社会政治气候的一天”（十六）。在这本书中，她通过文字和图像提出了一个问题，即如何通过奇观和表演的透镜来看待政治;这是一个有先见之明的问题，适用于马哈拉施特拉邦的民族志，那里有相当比例的人口仍然是文盲（5）。Kaur的研究贯穿了Ganapti utsava从19世纪世纪末到20世纪90年代在印度两个最重要的城市孟买和浦那的发展。在第三章中，她提出了一个问题：在上个世纪，当今的多叙事多媒体奇观是如何出现的？她认为，从一个静态展示、文化戏剧和活动的时代开始，我们现在看到的东西更类似于宝莱坞电影。她描述了自由战士巴加特·辛格和前总理拉吉夫·甘地的场景是如何与比尔·克林顿的形象和太空旅行的照片舒适地依偎在一起的。考尔接着说，这是一个有益的提醒，即下级的观点不仅限于地方或民族国家的参数。我很欣赏这本书对多功能海报、照片和场景剧照的复制，因为与她的民族志主题和她自己不同，我不了解这些场景的潜力和多种解释，包括政治和社会。我可能会认出一个警察，一头牛和一套秤在“人民的觉醒”（图6.3）中，由塔拉堡的公共Ganesh节日组织（SGM），同样地，在Sarvar Vidya的SGM展示中，核弹头，卫星天线和宇航员（图7.1），但是在Kaur的主题中有他们的习性，我感谢她的解释。例如，我了解到，“人民觉醒”是一个地方mandap（政治委员会）的展示，其目的是传达这样一个信息，即在人们开始思考印度的自由之前，人们应该首先实现“自我解放”，从殖民统治和国大党统治的“虚假意识形态”中解放出来（171）。考尔然后巧妙地描述和揭示了完成画面的投影，
Performative Politics and the Cultures of Hinduism captures a moment of India, a neat nexus of politics, nuclear power and religion, which to the specialist and uninitiated is revelatory in its scope. Based upon extended ethnographic fieldwork this comprehensive monograph depicts from historical, aesthetic, quotidian, commercial, political and national positions India’s foremost Hindu festival, the Ganapati utsava. Found in the western region, Maharashtra, Ganapati is the name for Ganesh: Lord of the Hordes, mover of obstacles, pain and sadness, and the creator of happiness and peace. Drawn to return to this annual utsava, for Kaur the festival became an ‘illustrative barometer of the sociopolitical climate of the day’ (xvi). In this book she asks through words and images how one can look at politics through the lens of the spectacle and the performative; a prescient question for an ethnography of Maharashtra where a substantial percentage of its populace remain illiterate (5). Kaur’s encompassing research traverses the Ganapti utsava’s development from the end of the nineteenth century until the 1990s in two of India’s foremost cities, Mumbai and Pune. To pick just one topic, in Chapter 3 she asks how the present day multi-narrative multi-media spectacles emerged over the last century. From a time of static displays, cultural dramas and activities, she argues that we now witness something more akin to Bollywood films. She describes how scenes of the freedom fighter Bhagat Singh and former Prime Minister Rajeev Gandhi nestle quite comfortably with images of Bill Clinton and depictions of space travel. Kaur then remarks that this is a salutary reminder that subaltern views are not just confined to that of the locality or the parameters of the nation state. I am appreciative of this book’s reproduction of polyvalent posters, photographs and tableaux stills for, unlike her ethnographic subjects and herself, I am not privy to the spectacles’ potential and multiple interpretations, both political and social. I may recognize a policeman, a cow and set of weighing scales in ‘The People’s Awakening’ (illustration 6.3), put on by the Tarabaug’s Public Ganesh Festival Organisation (SGM), and likewise a nuclear warhead, satellite dish and astronaut in Sarvar Vidya’s SGM display (illustration 7.1), but where Kaur’s subjects have their habitus I am grateful for her elucidation. For example, I learn that ‘The People’s Awakening’ is a display put on by one local mandap (political committee) whose intention was to convey the message that one should first attain ‘self-emancipation’ and be liberated from the ‘false ideologies’ of colonial and Congress rule before one can even begin to think about the freedom of India (171). Kaur then skilfully describes and discloses the accomplished tableau of projections,