Gandhi Meets Primetime: Globalization and Nationalism in Indian Television

Introduction: Unimaginable Communities

  ฀ Introduction:฀Unimaginable฀Communities we฀live฀in฀a฀dynamic฀world of electronic capitalism where traditional definitions of nationality, community, and identity are always in flux. We are only beginning to understand the significance of transnational networks such as CNN, MTV, and STAR TV, which can bypass national governments and can connect with television viewers with the click of a remote-control button. We have scarcely recognized the growing influence of translocal media networks such as Eenadu TV, Sun TV, and Zee TV, which can strategically use linguistic appeal to affiliate with the vernacular interests of domestic viewers and diasporic communities. We are witnessing the digital convergence of traditionally distinct telecommunication technologies such as satellites, cable television, telephones, computers, and fiber optics, which has enabled media networks to at once broadcast globally, narrowcast locally, and simulcast for multiple viewership. With the growing trend toward international migration and intercultural mobility, the conventional equation of “communities” with national boundaries is becoming increasingly contentious. The location of culture is being constantly recon figured on and off television through alternative imaginations of time, space, history, geography, identity, and difference. In this book, I argue that the rapid transformations of electronic capitalism in general and the growing competition among television networks in particular have necessitated radical reimaginations of nationalism in postcolonial India. I frame the problematic of nationalist imagination in Indian television in relation to the cultural thematics of identity and difference 00.Intro.1-22.Kumar.indd฀฀฀1 10/18/05฀฀฀11:32:18฀AM 2฀ introduction outlined by Partha Chatterjee in his critique of Benedict Anderson’s formulation of nations as “imagined communities.”1 According to Chatterjee, the cultural elites in colonial India imagined the nation into existence not in an identity with but rather in a difference from the British colonizers. However , in the postcolonial context, I argue that the colonial distinctions of print-capitalism—such as the colonized and the colonizer,inside and outside, us and them—have been blurred by the rapid growth of electronic capitalism , and a new generation of media elites have mobilized television to articulate (i.e.,link) hybrid imaginations of identity and difference to idealized notions of Indian nationalism. Even a cursory glance at the changing landscape of Indian television reveals that the meteoric rise of satellite and cable channels in the 1990s has disrupted the hegemony of the state-sponsored network, Doordarshan, in unparalleled ways. Although government monopoly still dominates terrestrial broadcasting through the airwaves in India, the emergence of foreign and domestic networks since 1991 brings into focus a series of very important questions about the role that television plays in articulating diverse imaginations of the nation as a community.When viewers across the country tuned in to Ramayan and Mahabharat, television productions of the great epics, in the late 1980s, it was perhaps possible to argue that Doordarshan had a hegemonic hold over representations of nationalism in Indian television.2 However, even in the pre–satellite television era, Doordarshan always had to contend with the popularity of commercial cinema and the vernacular diversity of print media. Therefore, I argue that the recent influx of satellite and cable channels has further contributed to the vigorous contestation of Doordarshan’s hegemonic status as the national network in India. In this heterogeneous terrain of the mass media, I seek to critically interrogate diverse imaginations of nationalist identity and cultural differences in broadcasting , satellite, and cable television in India. In the first section of this introduction, I discuss how the emergence of transnational networks, such as STAR TV, and translocal networks, such as Zee TV, Sun TV, and ETV, has led to the creation of hybrid electronic vernaculars that seek to cater to the globalist aspirations, the nationalist inspirations , and the regionalist affiliations of the media elites in India. In the second section, I outline a theoretical framework to address the changing relationship between electronic capitalism and postcolonial nationalism in Indian television.In the third section,I describe the overall objectives of this study and summarize the rest of the book. 00.Intro.1-22.Kumar.indd฀฀฀2 10/18/05฀฀฀11:32:18฀AM introduction฀ 3 STAR฀on฀the฀Horizon In January 1991, when an international alliance of forces led by the United States attacked Iraq in response to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the American cable news network CNN was on scene in Baghdad to...