CSCS Culture and Democracy Lecture Series: M. Madhava Prasad

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'Culture and Democracy', a flagship course at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), has served as an exploration of how the connections between culture and democracy may be theorised. An integral part of this course is a guest lecture series by CSCS faculty and visiting scholars, in which they reflect on their own work.

In 2007, these lectures were opened to the public and documented on video.The course was anchored by S. V. Srinivas and invited speakers included Ashish Rajadhyaksha, M. Madhava Prasad, Kakarala Sitharamam, Vivek Dhareshwar and S. V. Srinivas.

M. Madhava Prasad teaches at the Department of Cultural Studies, School of Inter-Disciplinary Studies, English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU). He is also one of the founding members of CSCS and taught there for some years. In his lecture, 'Enthusiasm and Indian Politics: Problems in the Analysis of Aural Culture', which was second in the series, Prasad delves into this most recent work on South Indian cinema stars and, in particular, fan devotion, voice in Indian cinema and sovereignty.

For more on CSCS, see http://www.cscsarchive.org/
For more on EFLU, see http://www.efluniversity.ac.in/

critical theory
Bangalore
cine politics
culture
democracy

Bangalore
Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr S.V. Srinivas (SV)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP): his bibliography
CIEFL - http://www.ciefl.ac.in/
The Image Trap
M. G. Ramachandran.

Cine Politics - Madhav's essay.
SV : CSCS, Culture and Democracy lecture series, 2007, 2nd lecture.

As quite a few of you know, Madhav was one of the founding members of - he continues to be a founding member except, he is still not in CSCS - of CSCS. He left for CIEFL, Hyderabad some years ago, where he's now a Professor at The Center for European Studies, and he is also the Dean of Research at CIEFL.

The reason why Madhav is here, is to talk about the linkage between culture and democracy - again, the central concern of the lecture series is to explore this linkage - and Madhav will reflect on this linkage based on his very, very recent work - some of it has not even been published and we've been privileged to read to it - in that sort of form. Madhav's work on the Hindi cinema i.e. the book is now a part of many, many syllabuses in universities across the world, 'Ideology of the Hindi Film.'

Madhav's work here, however, as some of you must have read the material circulated, is more... (It) is less related to his work on Hindi cinema than his subsequent work on South Indian cinema. This essay on Cine Politics with the extremely important starting point from his new work that... I mean, the subsequent work Madhav has gone on to do on South Indian stars, as well as, the topic of today's lecture, which is enthusiasm and sovereignty.

The importance of Madhav - if you had to continue from Ashish's lecture in the last (previous) lecture of the series - Madhav's work, I think, in his own career you can see a recent shift between what you may call, a sort of 90's, a set of 1990's concerns; and if you were to identify one particular set as being, you know, a Gramscian analysis of popular culture, which was in some ways negotiating with an older form of ideology criticism, but nevertheless, identifiable in terms of its very strong critique, component of critique. We, of course, ensured that it still had a foot in ideology criticism, and if in some ways Pandian's is an imperfect point, M. S. S. Pandian's 'The Image Trap' is an imperfect example. Imperfect, I would say, because what is Gramscian about it is really not very clear; it remains a very, very strong ideological critique of M.G. Ramachandran's career, both cinematic and political.

Madhav's ideology of the Hindi film, in some ways, is the finest example of what that Version 1 of 'Cultural Studies in India', could have a accomplished, did indeed accomplish. As the title of the book says, it was an ideology, critique, and a fairly substantial historical analysis of the Hindi film on the scale that had hitherto not been undertaken.

His later work, although there are many continuities between ideologies of the Hindi film, in terms of his interest in stars, in film forms, in genres and questions like that, as well as, you know, theories of spectator-ship. (His) later work is not asking, or rather not - I may be corrected by Madhav - he's not immediately concerned with the aspect of critique, whether it is in terms of ideology criticism, or a much more sophisticated critique, or an analysis, of the dominant culture or hegemonic culture on its own. It's a series beginning with an interesting starting point just to say that, "here is what we have." And (says) how do we make sense of it, how do we understand it, and how do we understand cinema as a way of understanding politics. And for my own sake, that is, in relation to my own work, I'm very glad that Madhav has extended his late 90's essay on Cine Politics into substantially new work, both in terms of engagement with much more recent material, but also, I think, with much more recent work on Indian politics, as well as Indian cinema.

So, I'll leave that to Madhav to make his case for support and sovereignty. But before that I'd just like to once again draw attention to the continuity between the last lecture and today's lecture i.e. Ashish's and Madhav's lectures, both of which have not only dealt with the cinema, celluloid film and democracy in a context, but also have, in fact, so historically used the study of the cinema as the starting point for an analysis of political systems or political practice in the Indian context.

I think, at the end of Madhav's lecture, I have something more to say about this. But Madhav, you have about an hour to make your presentation, followed by a discussion.

Thank you.

MP : Thanks.
CIEFL
M. G. Ramachandran
Pandian

SV Srinvas introduces the speaker.

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
MP: Thanks to all of you. So, SV's brief, in his correspondence with me, was to talk about culture and democracy as the broad framework in which this lecture series is being held, but also to talk about cultural studies as a discipline, and to set up some basic definitions and maybe questions about culture studies. So, yeah, as he sort of pointed out...

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
MP: What I have done is to... Let me say, I increasingly feel that certain infrastructural work, as our nation also undertakes the infrastructural work that is all around us; that's the basic of work that's going on, as we all experience everyday. And I think that's maybe also necessary - the plumbing, and the roads, and so on - kind of things. In a thing for further cultural analysis, it seems somewhat inadequate because we have a post-colonial situation, predicament or whatever you may call it, where the theoretical work has always been in a piecemeal; we have drawn from whatever has been available, depending on whether we studied it, which continent we studied it, which particular theoretical interest our teachers might have had, etc, in a very fragmented scattered kind of way. And while that kind of thing is to some extent unavoidable, there is also a sense that descriptions of our contemporary situation are very inadequate. In fact, CSCS, in its founding statements, was all about trying to do that, trying to produce adequate descriptions. Mainly because - for instance, if you take the existing of paradigms, you tend to have an anthropological or an indological description of Indian reality, reacting with certain theories of the modern, which may be democracy, which may be capitalism, which may be some maternity, and so on. And so there is this always this, the work that we all do always seems to somehow have to find ways to link them, or to question the links, or to uphold the some links while questioning others and so on. I think if you scan the literature with this point in mind, you see that most of it, most of the time, that's what we're trying to do.
post-colonial
realism

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
MP: And what happens then is that the disciplinary spread being what it is - we have certain disciplines which tell us - say, for instance, when we take culture and democracy; democracy is, of course, defined by certain, you know, political science. Democracy is a certain set of features which constitute democracy. And then, as cultural analysts, we would ideally like to be in a position were we can take that for granted, so that cultural work is not about defining democracy; democracy is in place. But the fact that we do have such groupings in our midst is a sign, is a symptom of the fact that it's not really, that it (democracy) is not to be taken for granted; that it remains a question.

So, in that sense, that entire field of operations for people like us is one in which we must take care of the scaffolding, the frameworks, infrastructure, whatever we may call it, at the same time, that we choose this or that particular cultural text, or event, or anything for as such. This is not already located substantially in its political domain. For instance, to give an alternative example, Jameson, when he talks about some cultural text, there is no great question as to what is the political domain in which the events are occurring, modernism, or post-modernism, etc. Those questions are somewhat easily clarified. There may be few differences between some points of view about these things, but there isn't a fundamental doubt as to what we are inhabiting. So, this is something we should take seriously, that is, such a situation exists, and thereby that the disciplines do not have their tasks laid out for them separately. So that we proceed, but are constantly able to come back to these questions. So, I mentioned Jameson because Jameson made this scandalous remark once that all the world's literature is a national allegory, which post-colonial critiques quickly jumped on him for that. But there is something actually, that if you look at it from a different angle, that is actually what is meant by that, if you interpret it not only in relation to literature, but also in this kind of practice. What I'm saying here about the possibilities of cultural analysis (is that they) have been predicated on building for yourself a picture of the socio-political domain. He (i.e. Jameson's theory) is actually a variation of the same thing, that the allegorical becomes necessary when the instances, the economic instance, the political instance, etc, are not well defined. So that your task is always not to (define every instance), in that sense. So, that's one worry beginning, setting down for the kind of things I feel are important to do. Even if you go back to recent history, even in my book which S.V. mentioned, much of the work I think... (is related to this). One area, one kind of analysis you might have noticed, which has been somewhat popular - a lot of text can be cited - is roughly what you can call culture and state. This is one way in which this relation with the larger domain, has been posed in cultural studies. Now, this relation between culture and the state has been dealt with in different forms.
Fredric Jameson
politics
state

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
MP: Now this culture and democracy... Obviously the term is different. So I want to ask the question, "what is the difference?" What is the culture and state set, and what is the culture and democracy set? What might be the difference? The culture and state in some ways is somewhat along the lines of 'Little Red Riding Hood and the big bad wolf,' (that) kind of relation; usually, by and large, that's how it unfolds, in terms of how people who take it up treat the question. Whereas I think culture, with this set of terms - maybe there is something else that is being proposed, as a different relation. Because democracy too, is a political term, is a term about political structures. But just the shift from state to democracy might imply some slightly more 'Cinderella'-like story than the right type of story; that way it might be a more harmonious pair. At least we would like it to be a little more (harmonious), or we are seeking ways in which to find more harmonious sort of statement, but... (this may not be the case.) So, in any case, whether it's the one or the other, it seems to me that we need to then have a description of that - what is that? (i.e. the difference between culture and democracy.) And, also to take into account the fact that the change in terminology doesn't erase the other term - democracy, too, is a state form, finally. So in that sense, it's there working behind; it doesn't go away. So, you want to be able to find descriptions which might give us a way of talking about democracy, democratic culture, the culture of democracy; various reasons with which we might relate the two terms. But at all times maintaining this (consciousness), being conscious of the fact that it is also a state form, and then to find ways in which cultural text might be addressed. Now, of course, when we say that, it doesn't mean that one can separately take up the task of describing it politically and then (culturally); that we have to do it ourselves, so we do it ourselves separately. We come to culture, because, at least in my experience, what I find is that if you adopt a political approach, if you say that there is a political question to be asked about all cultural phenomenon, and if you are not confining yourself to say the... If you like the agonistics of politics, which is to say addressing adversaries, pitying cultural texts against political adversaries, etc, in the resistances model' if you're not doing that, but if you are talking more about forms, and the conditions of possibility of cultural forms, and if you ask the questions - "How does something come about? From what resources is the text like something?" - whatever you choose, generated, and so on; if you addressed yourself to cultural text in that fashion, you will soon come up against the political problem. That is to say, what I'm calling the description is not happening separately but is called for, or called up, i.e. the demand comes from the material itself. It asks for certain explanations. So, in that sense, it's not an attempt to put together something that is whole and separate theoretical work, which then will allow you to do cultural work. But, rather looking from the other side, as a culture studies practitioner, asking at what point does the search for answers to the formal questions that we have, textual questions that we have, etc, yield to, or come up against the resistance that who might be political in character; that is a political question. And political questions too, in my understanding, are questions of form. This, I suppose I would have to say that this maybe a particular way that I'm approaching the questions, and therefore, I try to always keep in mind the formal questions, whether it's textual or political, in the terms of... In the sense, I'm not looking at political events, political forces in there, in the way they are arrayed against each other in some conflictual way, etc. Those are, of course, I'm considering them to be happening within some political, formal arrangements that are available, because every conflict must have the ground, on which that conflict takes place. So, in that sense, my search is for the grounds rather than for finding the adversaries and finding the right one to allow me that, and so on. So, in that sense, for me the form question continues to (elude me) - as I might move from text to more larger domain, I'm still pursuing this question of form. Political Morphology has something to aspire for, but through this kind of symptomatic training of cultural text... (it may be in a position to be achieved.)

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
MP: So that is... (my theoretical concept.) And I find that, basically, in every text that I approach, I guess, by habit maybe, I find myself reaching some such point of having to find something that expands or opens up this analysis for political understanding. So, what I'm presenting here, I mean, (are the) two, three, four - depending on the time - instances in which I encountered such things, in which I then tried to deal with the problem. Enthusiasm is one, is a problem of looking at (film) stars, you come up against the question of devotion, fan devotion; then I deal with that problem because it raises certain problems, because you have to ask the questions - "what is this devotion as opposed to some other devotion? Is it all the same? Can we use the...?" - Well, I'll come to that, I'll go into the details later. So the problem of fan devotion brought me to a possible solution, a terminological solution, which may have political implications, which I found in what I was reading around the time; this idea of enthusiasm as a useful term.
aural

enthusiasm

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
Rajkumar - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajkumar
NTR - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nandamuri_Taraka_Rama_Rao
MGR - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MG_Ramachandran
MP: Then the second one is, this question of aurality with an AU or aural culture, as a possible way of dealing with... (voice in an Indian cinematic context.) So, for instance, this one - as I said that one was looking at stars - this one was when I was looking at the question of voice in Indian cinema context - How do you approach it? How do you understand it? And, out of the two or three different things, the one that seemed politically significant was this Aural-Visual, Oral-Literate, that set of terms. And sovereignty is the other one, which cuts across these questions of sovereignty, which again related to enthusiasm. But also separately as an issue, it's been one of the central concepts in my study of star system in the South Indian (film) star systems. You know, when I studied this first generation of superstars, that is, Rajkumar, NTR , MGR, around that time; those sovereignty questions, which again link with the political domain, which is of interest. I mean, I'll take that when I'm taking enthusiasm, sort of move into that, because I think some of it is familiar if you have read those reviews. And, another one which I'm trying to pursue recently, but in relation to more contemporary cinema, popular culture, etc, is this question of a kind of relation between capitalist rationality and democracy, and the difference. This is a difference in some ways is posed in other terms; for instance, I think Partha Chatterjee poses it as a difference between modernity and democracy, which he poses in an another context in his treatment of political society and civil society. But I think that there might be some way in which this can be approached again through the cultural textual interaction. But that's something that's still, for me, (I've) not really proceeded very far with that. So, that's something that could be discussed later, at the end of the it if there's time, or afterwards in the discussion. So that's the sort of setting.

I'll probably not read this (in its entirety) but I'll just read some parts, and explain some of the parts.
aural
literate
oral
visual

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
Hegel - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel
Marx - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx
Hegel
MP: There is also an another part which again is related to some of the terms, especially the terms like sovereignty and community. This is a term ('community') which I did not introduce, but this is important; it seems that community is a term which connects the cultural question with the political question. And this little bit about community is actually from another paper which is not on cinema but on caste and reservations, where we - a group of us who wrote this paper - dealt with this i.e. what it is, what community is about in the political sense, if you want to define it. As a problem within the Indian political domain, what we might say about it. I'll just begin with that because it's a background to the rest of it. So, the question of community is in the Indian context - If you look at political theory in Hegel, Marx, etc, they treat the state as a community. This is one of the uses of the term community which is gone out of use i.e. the term is no longer used. Somehow, you read in our time the tendency is to oppose the two, state and the community. But there is something to be said about that. To return to the task, what does it mean, the two communities - is that what the state is? Now, if you take the Indian context, one of the things we know very well about our situation is that there is a certain multiplicity of communities - This is something, there is data which is available to us i.e. you have this big divide between the Hindu and Muslim, that is there. And then other religious communities which are smaller in significance, as well as, numbers (are also included in the same.) And then, of course, cast is the other axis on which there's division; those are also communities. And interestingly, you know that in colonial terminology, in colonial governmental discourse, the word "communal," which is now used exclusively for Hindu-Muslim, Hindu-Christian conflict, was actually used to mean all relations between all communities, religions or caste, in the official discourse of colonial administration. So, looking back at reservations, and trying to go back to the founding moment when political form - there are born in constitutional democratic form - is put in place, we try to go back and to look at what is happening at that moment. And so it is Hindu-Muslim, and then the depressed classes, as it was known in those days - these are the two great challenges to the idea, the National Congress' idea of the nation that will come to be. Now, in both instances, something called 'separate electorates' was debated. See, this is where I want to point out how - if the political science discourse, which treats interests and conflict of interests and pressures, etc, and tells the stories in a particular way - it doesn't pay attention to forms. These forms are in some ways... there is a certain unconscious dimension to them; the formal pressures, the formal conceptions that we work with. Separate electorates were discussed. I don't want to go into the detail of this. There is a lot of it that would need a lot of masala, a lot of references in books to point o some of those things, but I think it's the larger stories (that I will discuss.) It is an interesting notion if you think of it formally that there should be such a thing. What you're proposing that there be a political entity within which communities will remain separate, and have political representation in some kind of... (collective separative notion.) If you can think of an organ, a set of organ pipes, they are all together but they are separate yet clustered together, a model of a political structure. Then you have a situation where, of course, Muslims took another route out of this which is... (Pakistan.) I mean, it is not a wrong step or it is, but there is the idea is that there was a solution found for this conflict of Hindu-Muslim interest, and that was, of course, the partition. Before that, the position of the depressed classes was the same; they too wanted separate electorates. But this obviously didn't result in partition. Partition as an answer, that means that separateness; partition is one way of being separate. Separate electorate is another way of being separate. Now if you look at the fact that, in post-independence Republican India, the depressed classes neither retained separate electorates, nor were partitioned. That means a third solution was found for the problem of a political form, which will accommodate these (often) tending to be separate interests. And yes, of course, reservations.
Marx

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
MP: And reservations interests in America - the native Americans, they live in these little nations. If you go to northern New York state, the Onondaga (a Native American reservation) nation. So, it is a little strip of land for ten square kilometres, or something like that, which is supposed to be a separate nation, and they have their own routes for entries and so on. And, in the old days they used to be called reservations. Those are Indian reservations. There is something uncannily striking in the use of the terms because inside this - this particularly is a form - it's a form within a form. There's nation supposedly; a nation under the nation.
reservation
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
the Onodanga Nation

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
MP: So, reservations in some ways was maybe a different kind of solution, but similar to - in some ways - to that (the Native American nation.) Because, addressed formally, what it means is that it is a way of creating, or at least producing, the appearance of a homogeneous people. How do you make one people out of this hierarchical domain? Reservations like this thing that, (gestures with hands) it somehow brings up and creates some idea of an equal domain; because of people, because of democratic political processes required, that you're governing the people but you are not governing different communities. Now, colonial government was the government of the communities. For them, it didn't matter; they were not out to turn Indians all into 'Indian' (a singular community) and nothing else, or any other. Because, in any case, they were ruling large tracts of land where there were huge differences; Burma was part of it, and so all kind of places will be split, parts of the world. And, of course, the north east, the ST - the SC, the ST - is the other part of the story which I'm not telling you now, but that's also part of how (it works), being together and creating a homogeneous population.
reservation

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
MP: So that kind of operation is actually a virtual operation, i.e. it's not a revolution, it's not some going down to the people and transforming, but it's creating virtual balancing, levelling moves, which create just about the minimal appearance of homogenate; create a situation in which you have responded to the challenge posed by a segment of the population which says, "we are obviously not a part of the majority community." So you account for that. I mean, you think about the fact that the Muslims who were supposed to be among the worst (off) economically, of the people of India today, and have been right through these fifty - sixty years. And, it is only today that a little measures are being conceived for reservations; then you can ask this question, that why didn't they get reservations. Because they got partition, that's the only answer. In terms of political forms, in the political conscious, that is the answer, because that's where things were being resolved as to how to proceed with constituting India.
Partition

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
MP: So, to come back to the question of community - what it means is that community, one community, the national community, the state as a community, is actually not present in any serious sense. There is a way, of course, it's there in the constitution; the constitution is an expression of the way constitute one community. But in a effect, this rule of multiple communities separately is in practice, going on and on, in every facet of life. You see it in the democratic process of elections, and you see it in administrative terms, you see it in many - in cultural (processes), etc - you see it all across. There is the persistence of separate communities. And how these communities sort-of strike pass each other in the public domain, retaining, more or less, their identities within the changing world. I mean, what's happening today is slightly different; that's why there's that last section about capitalist rationality and democracy. But until today, I think, one is telling a story in which is just over (it is the past), and not the one that is unfolding. So this question of community is very important, in the sense, one has to take into account i.e. a description would have to say that this is a land of many communities; in some fundamental way, that is the case. And, linguistic is another one (division within communities), which again I'm not going into because I already dealt with it elsewhere. Linguistic claims to separate identities, and how they are being at rest.
Linguistics
community

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
Pratap Bhanu Mehta - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratap_Bhanu_Mehta
MP: So - community, the state as community - if we are going to talk about democracy, then we have to ask question, "where are we in relation to that ideal? What is the state of affairs?" Now, if you ask it like that, immediately what happens is (that) you are taking that line, that approach, which say, Pratap Bhanu Mehta took in this little book on democracy that he wrote, or any other political scientist's take; which is to say, (gestures with his hands) "here is the ideal, and here we are, and what are the obstacles?" So, Pratap Bhanu Mehta's last chapter is about corruption. Most people's last chapter is about corruption. It is the biggest obstacle. Caste is another obstacle, (it is) considered to be something that people cling to rather than something which is the case, and so on. You get these obstacles. So there is room... Satish Agarwal is one of the earliest to do that kind of... (to use that kind of approach.) But it is really endemic. You have this gap, but in the gap is... You know, how to close the gap? And the term - it's an interesting term used - 'Democratisation.' When ever you a term which ends with 'isation', there is somebody who will do the 'isation'. So, that the governmental part of it. How democracy is subsumed under governmental processes. And then ask what it is, is democracy is really a governmental sort of thing which you can infuse, i.e. democratise the mindset of the people? Or is it a matter of today, here, now? It's saying that, "today, a democracy or not?" All other problems are a part. Democracy is that which exists in some concrete form, or it doesn't exist. So, this gap can be treated in many ways. But in what follows, what I'm suggesting is that, precisely from a cultural domain, what you can see is that this is a culture of such a gap. It is not going towards that ideal or something, but it is emerging in that. It means that there is a rift; it is not some trajectory, it is not a highway leading from one to the other, but there is a constitutional will, there is a constitutional order, which has its own effectivity. It by no means is an impotent dead letter. It does work on the ground. But there is the resistant will of the communities also, recalcitrant, resistant, whatever you may call it. And so, the space of culture is the space that this set of terms gives you, as a bone which is constituted by this surface, the co-existential of this thing.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta
Satish Agarwal

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
MP: So, therefore back to work on stars. What I'd like to do there is to see how one of those aspects (such as) this whole question of linguistics, and how in this kind of subcontinental vision of Indian nationalism, there is a certain downplaying of nationalities which have substantial intellectual, economic and political depth to it. At the same time, this particular contract disallows their expression. So, my whole thesis about the first generation of stars, who came to prominence in the fifties and continued for the next decades in the positions of supremacy in these three states. It's that in some ways, what grew up around them was a virtual state in which linguistic nationalities found some kind of supplemental alternative expression.
linguistics
nationalism

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
Rajnikanth - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajinikanth
Satyajit Ray - http://www.satyajitray.org/
Nayak - http://www.satyajitray.org/films/nayak.htm
MP: Now in this, more recently, looking at Rajnikanth and his films, I again went back to this question of the fan, and what is it that the fan feel for the star; this whole question. And one of the things that I came up against, that I had to think through - he used the term himself - 'bhakti' (devotion). If you go back to, say the fifties, sixties, etc, people use the word 'bhakti' to refer to their relation, whatever the affect is for the fan. 'Bhakti' is a common term. This term, I quite astonished to find that even in Bengali, that was the term - I was watching 'Nayak', Satyajit Ray's 'Nayak,' when one of the characters shows her daughter and says, "she's your bhakt (devotee.)" So then you have this problem - what is 'bhakti'? Because this is like a rendering for Indologists; you say "haan (yes), bhakti." Bhakti is continuous, it's India's. In fact, if you look at the instances of this temple building, etc, they come in after the term 'bhakti' has been effectively replaced by more classical terms like 'abhimaani' (respect) and 'rasigar,' (aficionado) and so on. And because, with the formation of fan clubs, and becoming organised, big mega entities, that term somehow goes out of respectable discourse, whereas in those days, it seems this was some kind of relation. I wanted to ask the question - what does this imply? Etymologically, you have to take into account the fact that they are related, there is nothing (to prove otherwise), you can't deny that. But practices... Do you find the same things happen, and if not, then what is the way in which you deal with it? Actually, the linguists, the lexicographers, people who do the dictionaries, they have a very sensible way of writing down the meanings of the term. They'll say (this is the) first meaning, the most common meaning, and then they'll give you all the other meanings. They do not give you essentialist gloss-on which says that, "actually, the latest meaning is related to the first meaning by some essential root that binds them together." Because the 20th century reform in linguistics, in grammar writing especially, has been a shift from normative to the descriptive; so you describe, you don't... (prescribe relations.) So you have this term and it has this meaning, and has this other meaning, and it has another meaning. Of course they are related, and it's actually maybe the scholars who do a particular work, who then want to go and find out where is the relation. You don't already assume the relation.
Nayak
Rajnikanth
Satyajit Ray
bhakti

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
MP: So, in that sense, it seemed to me that you need a theory if you are going to talk modern cultural practices; that you need to adopt an approach which frees itself from the Indological bind - where you come up against the term 'bhakti' into places, you cannot (help) but follow; there is compulsion to do so, which is operated in our midst very strongly. Now, there is one problem - you can say that the term has different significances, different references. Now, the other problem is that because we function - because one of the crucial things of cultural studies, and I think cultural studies, probably, foregrounds this problem much more than any other discipline so far has ever bothered to do - is (that) culture studies really foregrounds the problem of a discipline which functions in a language which is different from the actually operative languages on the ground. For different reasons, all the others, in different ways, all the other disciplines were able to marginalise, erase that problem. They were able to bracket it out. But I think cultural studies really comes up against it, if you really take it seriously, work on cultural studies in the Indian context. Anthropology can do it, because anthropology is anyway another culture doing something. Political Science and Economics, and so on, for them language is just a medium; for them the real is what (counts), they have a realist approach to things, they are not worried about the discursive dimensions. Even other humanities, like literary studies, you would either have divisions, where different... (discursive dimensions would act in counterpoint.) And then you have translation as a mediating thing, and you don't quite face up to this problem. But culture studies does; in culture studies you can't escape it.

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
MP: Now, how you can pay attention to it? It's not easy. And I'm not going to give you any solutions to that. It's a huge problem. But it has to be a problem dealt with in some... (actual context.) It should not be treated as some kind of existential problem, where you read it, or this Indian poet - what's his name? - Parthsarthy did. you know, one day you wake up and say that you are not going to use the English language or something. Those sorts of existential, suicidal solutions which are actually individualised, ethical stances, are more dramatic than politically productive. Because it's a problem, it's not some ethical thing for you to deal with. It's a problem of cognition, a problem of conceptual work, and so on. You know, what we are doing and so on. Reflection, it's a matter for reflection. But it seemed to me that, in immediate terms - if you are going to write in English and if you don't have to deal with this question, you need to find the problem in the English language for this kind of question, immediate practical broad question. That's the context in which I was looking around, and i was reading about enthusiasm. This is an interesting talk, it goes back to the Greeks. I have in my paper a little footnote about various references that I found with regard to it.
Parthasarthy

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
David Hume
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
David Hume - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume
Locke - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke
An Essay concerning Human Understanding
John Locke
MP: But what struck me - the little chapter from David Hume is one of the interesting instances. In that era, in the 17th, 18th century, there has been a lot of discussion of enthusiasm. And Hume's had an interesting thing, because he observes, he has this essay about superstition and enthusiasm, where he said both are false religions, but discussing them in some detail, he says, "the enthusiasts demonstrate greats independence of devotion, but the superstitious are favourable to priestly power." There is another quote is from Locke in the essay on Human Understanding, where he contrasts enthusiasm with both, revelation and reason, as a sort of irruption of the irrational: "This I take to be properly enthusiasm, which though founded neither on reason nor divine revelation, but arising from the conceits of a warmed or over-weaning brain, works yet where it once gets footing, more powerfully on the persuasions and actions of men, than either of those two, or both together, make them most forwardly obedient to the impulses they receive from themselves, and the whole man is sure to act more vigorously where the whole man is carried by a natural motion." There is some sense in this that enthusiasm is something that comes from the within, rather than something that's imposed from outside. And therefore, it arouses big passions.

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
Freud - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud
MP: Anyway, there are several instances on the use of enthusiasm in this time - 17th, 18th century's and later on. Even Freud, in his essay on crowd psychology, briefly refers to the whole debate on enthusiasm that went on in the 19th century. Of course, he's trying to contrast that with what he's going to treat as mob psychology. Now, it's a term, it has some meaning. Historically, it has religious and literary context, in which enthusiasm has been observed and defined, described, etc. And interestingly, the term has no religious connotation any more, right now. It's some excessively passionate attachment to something interesting, but the religious thing has somewhat fallen off. But, in some way it seems as if, whatever the prior entire history of it may have been, that it was referring to a kind of passion which seems not to be... (external.) Like superstition is a different thing; superstition seems to be accustomed to whatever priestly imposes upon. Enthusiasm seems come up from here, from inside the individual, or the people themselves. Then it seems that it had these dual cultural as well as religious tracts, along which some history of enthusiasm would be related.And it seems bhakti i.e. if you'd want to treat bhakti as Indian duality - as functioning in two realms, that we are now identifying with the cultural domain in the form of fan devotion, and historically as a form of religious worship, etc - that bhakti is, interestingly, community-forming affect. Then what separates bhakti from orthodox worship, is that orthodox worship takes place within already established and extraneously controlled and ruled societies, which have monarchic or other sorts of sovereign power over there. And it's usually big temples built with kingly sort of donations, priesthood sort of established, etc. Whereas in the history of bhakti, the community is formed in the process of manifesting this devotion.
Freud

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
MP: Now, it seemed that while solving a linguistic problem at one level, for analysis, where you can use the term which absolutely seems to have parallels and therefore, we might avoid some of the problems of fetishisations that arise when you use native terms, Indian terms in English - that's one of the reason why you need to come up with the problem, because the moment you mean something in a language other than the language in which you are actually doing the writing, it gets defunct, as if it's a term where a concrete set of prominent attitudes. So, that was the reason to go there, but it seemed that you can say about bhakti that there is commonality between these two, so far as there seems to be some kind of passionate attachment, which forms a community; it is not established already. Of course, once we come to organised fan clubs, it's a different; things may be changing there. Maybe they are going from enthusiasm to superstition; I'm not going into all those questions. But it's a community forming activity.

(The video cuts)

... Devotional practices. But you will still be able to see that, (gesturing to two separate sections) this is an autonomous domain of bhakti, and this is an autonomous domain of bhakti, there can be transfers of different... (aspects between them.) Just as you can put Ravi Varma's paintings in the space of worship, you can take pouring the milk (as an example of a religious practice) into this domain. So, there are obviously exchanges between them. But if you aren't paying attention to the specific autonomous set of meanings that this is generating (gesturing to one section), you are the mixing up things, falling into an ideological trap.

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
MP: So I was thinking about how it might also work, because so far as all this looking at (film) stars, etc has been within this - as I said, this gap between the political structure and the communities that have remained in operation - it seemed also that, enthusiasms are generated in all kind of fields, and in this... (there is the question of sovereignties.) To now go into the question of sovereignties; sovereignties, this Thomas Brown Hanson had sent as an essay in which he talks about how India is rife with the years of sovereignties of all kinds - small, big, from biggest level to the national level - there are all kinds of sovereignties that are functioning. Lastly, all these examples have to do with those kinds of leaders, people in positions of power or royalty, even traditional situations, who then acquire this kind of sovereign power in the electoral modern context. Whereas, I think you could say that cinema is one domain where you see the production of new ones, i.e. it is also producing sovereignties, but they are new ones and they are virtual ones. They are different from the kind of sovereignties that Hanson is talking about. And he's right, it is a fragment of power. So you have the claim to sovereignty at the highest level, but you have all kinds of intermediate sovereignties, caste, groups, state level formations, regional formations, original formations, all kinds of different sizes, and so... So tentatively, I'll also propose that in some ways sovereignty is a question on the constitution of community - to go back to the earlier part - the constitution of community in such a way that whatever is the solution for the question of power is in place, secure, i.e. whether it is a monarchy or a democracy doesn't matter, but it's secure. It is established, everybody knows what their position is in a political structure. If you have a situation which is not so secure, where people reside in communities, where there are fragmented sovereignties in operation, but they are also imposed upon by larger sovereignties, claims, at the level of the nation, etc - but that one is not yet fully operated in your life, individually (i.e. the larger sovereignty )- I would say that is then, if you like, a kind of gap of history, a gap in the resolution of the question of sovereignty. And it's that gap which accounts for a speculative aspect to this analysis; it is that enthusiasms proliferate in that gap. And therefore, in some ways, it is not a gap which is dealing in ways (i.e. which is dealt with on a regular basis), but in some ways enthusiasm has become the means of playing the political game, rather than sovereign citizens who are in some ways... (based within an established power structure.) See, what is enthusiasm? It is, if you want to define it politically, it is a passion, a political passion which has been unbound from its previous structural location, but has not been rebound in a new one. That's it. So, this is why, it is always this kind of reaching, this gap is always calling forth passions. And the way it structured, of politics, it seems India has somehow become organised around such (gaps), the play of enthusiasms.
Thomas Brown Hanson

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
MP: Yeah, let me read this little bit to conclude that.

The ideology of popular sovereignty has it that in modern democracies, the monarch is divested of the sovereignty vested in him, which is then fragmented and distributed equally among the people of the republic, to constitute them as sovereign citizens. If you let assume that the Indian republic was constituted by wresting sovereignty from the imperial power, the question is - did the people receive their rightful share of the spoils of independence? Even if we take into account the insight that the sovereignty of the modern state is a factor of international relations, and not the mirror image of the collective sovereignty of the people, we are still left with the question of whether the interior has been subjected to a morphological overhaul - the constitution of new subjectivities, new modes of association, new contractual relations, etc - to bring it in line with the substantive idea of the republican polity. I think the answer to that question is no, or at best some might prefer to say that the process is underway, that the revolution is in progress. Recent essays in political theory have suggested however, that rather than being in transition to some finished state of republican constitution, India might have arrive at a qualitatively different singular state of political being, marked by an internal structural division between - to cite one influential nomenclature - civil and political society. We may regard political society as the domain of a range of cultural activities that bear witness to acts of meaning-making, of imagining political futures, utopias that may remain within the horizon of the republic, or transcended. If following this line of thinking, we treat India as a sort of inorganic, cultural compound, rather than an organic, internally homogeneous cultural formation. We are faced with the task of describing and analysing the different elements of the concrete reality that we inhabit. In particular, here, I want to point to the way popular cultural texts propose orders of sovereignty, which are at odds with the theory of sovereign citizenship, and may point us towards a better understanding of the play of political passions in contemporary day. Political commentators assume that when we vote in an election, we are exercising citizenly sovereignty. The election becomes proof of the existence of such sovereignty, rather than a consequence of it. Cultural texts, however, show that other forms of collective sovereignty continue to attract political passions, indicating that the general elections often may be a new avenue for expression of old, or non-democratic, or other forms of sovereignty.

And, I'll skip the rest of that part, and then move to this question of aurality, which is another problem. Anyway, as I said, I'm not going to solve the questions of how to deal with all of these conundrums that we are facing. But we will talk about that.
aural
sovereignty

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
Bharathiraja - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharathiraja
Karunanidhi - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Karunanidhi
DMK - [1] [2]
En Uyir Thozan (1990)
MP: Yeah. So, coming to this (i.e. aurality), this was again, as I said, another problem, another very narrow-frame theoretical kind of preoccupation, which then posed another question, and (this is) some attempt at an answer. This was a conference on sound and cinema in Calcutta, a year before; last year. So there I was presenting something on... (while) using a certain number of examples - one was on a Telgu film, a Tamil film, a Hindi film, etc.

And in the Tamil film question, which was this Bharathiraja film called En Uyir Thozhan - it was about this guy who's a devoted follower of a politician, and its a sort of thinly-veiled reference to Karunanidhi, DMK, DMK politics. And this man is so blinded by his total commitment to this, that is he is going to sacrifice himself, sort of (like) what we hear (about) DMK party members and their devotion. And one of the things that this film explores very interestingly is the question of voice. It shows you the voice reaching the ears of this follower. And, in fact, the woman who falls in love with him, she also has previously fallen in love with the voice, and then been deceived, etc. So the entire thing is a very interesting analysis of voice.

And at that conference, Kumar Shahani came and inaugurated it. And he said - first of all, he was in Calcutta, so he came, he was looking really disgusted, and he said this - "You have to, if you are doing a conference on sound in cinema, which is about beautiful things, aesthetic culture. But look at these blaring horns on the streets!" - and he was really losing it. You know, if you're in Calcutta, it really affects you, these horns, and all the highways, it's too much. But anyway, so he said that, "that before we get on to sound in cinema, we need to settle the problem of sound on the streets," which is not arguable. But it seemed to me suddenly that the interesting problem is - Why do we (use the) horn so much?

Anyway, so in trying to revise the paper, this kept on bothering me and I was trying to look at how, what it might have to do with (it)? And, this whole sound image thing... Again, when you are dealing with cinema sound, you are dealing with this creation between image and voice, and image and music, and image and dialogue, etc. So this is where I needed this, to just put this... (gestures to board with marker)
Bharathiraja
DMK
En Uyir Thozan
Karunanidhi
Kumar Shahani

Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
aural
chandamama
image
literate
oral
sound
visual
(Writes "Image x Sound" on the board)

MP: So, that's the basic relation, or contractual relation, complimentary, whatever. So, this is what we are talking about, and of course this advances into various things - dialogue, music, voice, and this (circles voice) is what I talked about, leaving the other two things.

Now, there is another way in which union, this is... Aural. (Writes "Visual ll Aural" on the board) Now, I put... I don't know how I came to do it, but I put this set of terms alongside. (Writes "Oral ll Literate") Then it seems this way, the other way. (Reverses the order of the latest set of terms) This relation is associated, right? That is, oral. When you talk about oral and literate, you're talking about skills, people's skills; whether they can read and write as opposed to only speak. And visual-aural; this has been so far as... It (aural) has to do with sound, this (visual) has to do with image, the visuality. But it seemed, if you look at what the voice is saying, it is language. So, it's language and suddenly there is a problem. So it is Aural, and it's oral. The voice seems to be there. But language is not only there. This (visual) is also language. Language is the literate. Literacy is a visual scale. You don't often think about it like that, but literacy is a visual scale, effectively. You have to look at something and then decipher what it means.

So, the image and the sound - so far as sound is voice, you are deciphering the meaning through, because it's a language that you have. If you know the language, you decipher the meaning, you decode what is being said. But, insofar as being literate is also a question of the visual skill, then it seem to pose a little problem.

Wherein in the case of the people who will not who will only head the car horn, it seems that what is the alternative is to follow a set of signs which are given to the eye, to believe. And, it seems suddenly, as we know, in an infrastructural sense - this may not be all that. I don't know if it makes sense; it may sound absurd to you - then the infrastructural sense, there are two examples I want to give. One is the town crier; beating the drum and announcing the law. If the king has a new order, it has to be announced, and when such an announcement takes place visually, in some visual representations; in Chandamama (Indian comic) type of things, you can see that the town crier making announcements, somebody is slinking away there, One doesn't want to hear it. So the voice spreads, the order, and you then have to follow it.

Democratic modern political structures seem not to be able to function that way. You have to read and follow. It's seems like some kind of shift from obedience to something slightly different, maybe compliance, where the thing is not coming at you, not coming through the ear - which you can't as a film theorist writing about the image always tell you about the sound technology, you know, "you can close your eyes so that there is certain position involving in looking at something, while the ear is not protected against the production of sounds unless you deliberately do something.
Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)

Bharathiraja
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
Bharathiraja - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharathiraja
MP: It seems that in looking at voice in that kind of film, and also generally in popular cinema - if you take into account this kind of difference - it actually, in some ways, maps on to a difference where an image is presented for reading, as opposed to that which where the voice dominates in such a way that the image is not meant to be read, so much as simply followed.

And again, so to go back to the kind of problem that Bharathiraja is analysing there, in that film. He's analysing it, of course, in relation to (the) political party, etc. But he's also shows the new member of that party who becomes the key character; he is politician and a film star. So there's this one scene where the camera pretends to go around him like that (circular direction). And, as he goes from this side to the other side, on one side he looks like a politician with the mike and speaks with the demagogue, and on the other side, his painted face (is) facing the camera. So this combination is given to you as a synthetic image of a culture in which voice dominates. In the sense that it seems - you know, if you go back to the question of how communities, etc, the democratic ideal as something that is present but not realised and so on - it seems that one of the symptoms of that is the way in which the voice is still the bearer of the law, the message of... (the law.) And in some ways it also provides some way to deal with the (film) star system, the whole star question which I dealt with earlier in the sovereignty section. Because it seems there too, the voice has a certain possibility, a certain importance which we may not have given it when we... (worked on this genre) because we have, in some ways, dealt with cinema, and fans, and stars, primarily in its image context. And, so that voice in the sense of adverts, regardless of the content of what is said, and how it positions the listener, is constantly something that needs to be pursued as a... (topic of discussion.) This was the beginning of a series of such questions for me.

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
MP: Yeah, let me read a little passage from that paper.

The disciplining of the eye for purposes of social communication, the binding of vision to functions of reading, has been going on at a very slow pace in India. Here, the very nature of social power is in question. Visual communication addresses the subject who must feel empowered to read and interpret them, being able to rely on stability and meaning that is guaranteed by social mythology. This requires a participation in community, reconstituted by modern law, as well as the culture of individualism which enjoins us to be leaders, subjects of law. The voice, on the other hand, has brought messages, commands, instructions for a long time and it is in this aural dimension that even the literate, to a large extent, are able to recognise the law, that is in our context. The voice conveys despotic law and commands obedience, whereas the visual sign is the component of a law that demands compliance. The difference between obedience and compliance is that of necessity in the latter, of an act of reading, however minimum.
Yeah, so...
visual

Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
MP: Yeah. So that's really about the question of aurality, and how it might actually open up a dimension of cultural study. But also take us back to more fundamental questions about the nature of political structures, I think - how does the law function through talk? Because sometimes studies of the law itself is basically studying the roots, etc, and I think in a cultural domain,we need to understand how the law is understood in terms of its mode of reaching, mode of appearance in front of individual subjects.

Anyway, to sum it up, I think the question of sovereignty and community would seem to me to be the dominant concern in all of these explorations. Whereas, specific problems seem to give rise to specific solutions, possible solutions; like how to deal with the question of bhakti, and how to adopt the appropriate stance towards it, and how terminology questions, language questions, language of the field, as well as the language of scholarship, etc, might endanger that. That's one example, and the other one is aurality. I think those are the most concrete examples, but I think the larger set of questions which have preoccupied me, at least in this set of studies, is the question of community. The question of whether community is one or many, and what happens in the absence of any resolution of the question. And also the question of how sovereignty is to be understood. Because there is a lot of new work, you know, going back to Foucault, of course, which is the basis of the question of sovereignty. Foucault says if you keep keen attention to sovereignty and these sorts of things, you will miss out a lot, and then he points to, of course, very importantly, it's governmentality is what he draws attention to; and it's worth - this temporary bracketing out of sovereignties is worth the effort because governmentalities are startling, and its new to have them brought to our attention and that angle, pursuing questions of government... But he seems to absorb sovereignty questions into the governmental framework, saying it's all the same really. But I will say that sovereignty question is really a formal question, it's a question of political forms.

It's not about, you know, whether it's good for us or bad for us, etc; it's about possibilities of political constitution in whatever form. It can be a tribal chieftain, it can be a monarch, it can be a phylarchy, it can be a sovereign citizen, etc. But there's always a question of how the rule is in place, how community is constituted, politically speaking; and that question is always a question of sovereignty. And, the thing that the Indian situation seems to highlight for me is that, like a lot of theory - critical theory, Marxist theory, etc, that I have formulated - which treats the instances as separate and resolved - the political, economic, social, cultural, etc - that here these resolutions are... That's what I think would be the distinction of this domain. I think instead of cultural distinctions, "we are like that only" and so on, those sorts of distinctions where you try to find some essence into it. As verbal canvassing keeps eroding one by one, you say "oh, that one." Just as when Bulgaria was the last of the Eastern block nations to fall, and the previous day, this Suri of Karnataka State Ministry said, "see, Bulgaria is still holding on." And so there'll be people who'll keep on saying, "see, this part of our culture is still holding on." But that's not the point. If we want to real understand cultural specificity, I think, these coordinates are essential, where you can draw a map and follow the current goings on without either a cultural essentialism or any kind of abstract democratic political theorising, which simply imposes an amount, measures the gap.
Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Marxism
Michel Foucault
aural

Dr S.V. Srinivas (SV)
Dr Anup Dhar (AD)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
Jameson - [1] [2]
Gramsci - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Gramsci
Earnest Gellner
The Red and The Black (Le Rouge et la Noir)
Stendhal
Edward Said
Partha Chatterjee
SV: Anup, you want to...?

AD: Yeah. No, it's difficult to respond immediately. I will have to think for sometime.

MP: We can have a discussion.

AD: But... How do I begin? One question that is haunting me now, having heard it all. I would deeply respect your attempt at understanding enthusiasm or bhakti, or this moment, or the irruption of, you have used the term 'irrational,' or intense effectivity maybe. An effectivity that is so effective, an attachment that is so much of an attachment that it might produce a being in common; so you have an emergent community over there. And your effort at understanding this phenomenon, as it were. Now, I understand the resistance to collapsing this two religion which we have done, perhaps, where we saw the Vaishnava movement in Bengal as a religion, or as (a) cult, or as a religious community. But then would an understanding of this as the "political", a trend that is now emerging, somewhat, after Partha Chatterjee's 'Political Society'- type of invocation; would it help us attend this enthusiasm?

MP: Help us...?

AD: Help us attend to this enthusiasm? Just like religion would be a turning away from the phenomenon, would this use of the term 'political' for anything and everything that is somewhat like this, help us in our understanding of the phenomenon?

MP: Yeah. No, it's certainly not (good to) used the term political just like that for anything. See, the point about bhakti is not immediately that it's political, as opposed to, you know... Is it 5:30?

SV: No, it's 6:00.

MP: Oh! I took that long? I didn't know.

SV: It's okay.

MP: See 'political' - as I said, 'political' can be understood in several ways. One way of being political is, which we all need to be, which we all are in some ways or the other, is to take positions on things that affect us, to instruct this, 'you are on this side, or on that side', 'if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem,' etc. You know, there's a whole way, that's politics, that's truth. But 'political' in a formal sense, it's not unrelated; it'll somewhere featured in any struggle, I suppose. But it's not immediately a question of rendering political something, by saying, you know, it's political. For instance, the question of the formation of bhakti communities, which I'm trying to identify in the case of (film) star systems, for star and fan systems. This is not necessarily in my opinion, some kind of radical or politically good development - that's not what I'm saying. But I'm still saying that there is a political dimension, which is a dimension insofar as you understand the question of sovereignty as a question of community; and that this question is not a dispensable one, that it will assert itself. And that then a symptomatic reading, which I've not presented necessarily in these footnotes, but a symptomatic reading tells me that our situation is one of political irresolution, in that sense, as (a) community. This idea of community, political community, is now is totally in disarray; it's not a settled question, whatever people might say. I think, all the symptoms are there in all the different fields. And therefore, that cultural activism... See, what, you know what Jameson says about, you know, the class for which politics is a rifle shot in an opera or something like that. A concert. Like Stendhal's 'The Red and The Black' type of thing.

It is not only a class thing. Actually, in some ways... As I said, a lot of critical theory assumes and like Edward Said assumes, for instance, these instances are there, and they have different temporalities, they work separately, they are structured in dominance; that whole theoretical thing that Said has produced, which I think is brilliant but in some ways it assumes a capitalist social order, in which politics, economics and culture, etc. have some worked-out relation of relative autonomy etc. I'm saying that if for culture studies here, that assumption is costing one - that it's not viral one - that's (then) the infrastructural question for me now. It is a situation where those things... I have not even touched the five percent of the various range of things we need to look at in order to understand, to actually set the ground for it. But I am saying that this question of the separation of politics, culture, economics, etc is not settled, and therefore, descriptions have to address that question.

See, morphological confusion, morphological overlays which are difficult to unpack, to separate out, to make sense of; and that's why, if it is at all convincing that - and the evidence is there that film stars can actually have, not when they go into elections but even before that, even in the film domain, what seems to be really indistinguishable from the political authority - you have a serious challenge in culture studies to say what is happening. So it is that; all those separations have become dysfunctional. So that means the infrastructural work of saying, "so what is the... So, will they also have?" For instance, one thing which I do not touch at all, which is a major question, which I want to elaborate (on), is the history of the movement of political forms themselves, right? I mean, for instance, the passive revolution is one way of seeing a political form that's, when it's done, is imposed upon another field. And then the form then will absorb the content or anything; that the Gramscian, sort of, roughly, crudely put, that's the model. Now, you can expand that, you can actually think of other ways in which you can pose the question that, historically, the nation-state form travels - Now, today it's no longer possible to have any other form. But, that's part of how societies function. Form is what moves, people don't necessarily move. But form does move. And form moves not by somebody saying, "okay this is good, let's have it," but by some historical compulsions, political, economic and other compulsions that we need to understand, where the order, the global order... What is the global order? This is a funny thing. Nowadays some people say, "the nation-state is gone out of (vogue) and globalisation (has come in)." Actually, what is globalisation, if not the imposition of the nation form on everybody? That's it. It's not about removing it and making it something else, but that formal uniformity, political uniformity, at some level. But there is also what somebody called the health of nations; that's also a question. That means that... So the form is devolved, colonial mediation is what brought us this form. So, those are historical factors that brought us this form. It's not about, that Nehru said, "I like democracy," or something like that. Now, in between you have this constructionist theory of nationalism, because Ernest Gellner's most extreme statement - Give me any piece of - something like that he said - any piece of land and I'll put some people, and I'll make a nation out of it. But really, you need to ask the question of what is actually a viral nation state. So there is a realist dimension to that question also. So, anyway, that's a whole different question. It will take a long (time to discuss that), another (lecture) after that I think.

But what I'm saying is, these, in some ways, are the specificities of this problem (that) have to be addressed at the level of form, but within the wider context, as well as looking at the inner symptoms. And so, I sympathise with what you are saying, this "everything is political"kind of thing which is just about putting it on the good side or the bad side of some political polarity; that's not (right). You know, I don't want to do that even if I might have done it by mistake.

AD: You haven't done it.
Earnest Gellner
Edward Said
Fredric Jameson
Gramsci
Partha Chatterjee
Stendhal

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr S.V. Srinivas (SV)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
SV: Is there any immediate question that's (waiting)? Then I'll just ask a question.

About enthusiasm, one of the... Maybe it's more to do with your presentation rather than, or even the short essay rather than the intended point, but you seem to be suggesting that there is a movement of the fairly unbroken historical kind that is happening, a continuity which is historical one, that is being carried over from the pre-independence to post-independence period, or should we say from the period where there was no democratic politics to the now; or maybe even if you see in the 1930's, when the first rumblings of democratic politics, even in terms of electoral mobilisation, began. Instead why not pose the question as follows, and that might also address some of Anup's anxieties which is - when you introduce something like enthusiasm, there is no limit to how far back you can take it. And then the usability of it all, or rather the accuracy with which you can deploy it, or its sharpness as a conceptual insight, becomes questionable. Again here the question is that if everything is not political - to rephrase Anup's question - if everything is enthusiasm, then what democratic politics is doing to that might not come across very clearly. Instead, supposing, and I say this with specific reference to some of the examples of that you've told (used) or have been working with, namely the south Indian film stars. If - let me propose a hypothesis for this - if democratic or electoral politics necessitates something, necessitates shall we say action of a certain political nature, which prior to that there was only on behalf of court marshals to be political in this fashion; simultaneously what it seems to be calling for is the manufacturing of some notion of a replacement of sovereignty. And I will go along with you that the sense that now the individual citizen is the sovereign subject; that is completely fiction. And what is being put in place is obviously something that, (is) not just in terms of the promise of the constitution, so much as the processes that it unleashes, or now that it thrusts upon everybody else. And one wonders what would have happened if it indeed was a not only a free and fair election but also a compulsory election that was suddenly now offered or made available after independence and what might that have done. And as a result what happens is that the period then when the film star politician, to take one example, but also other kinds of similar interestingly feudal in some fashion, or shall we say seemingly feudal but extremely contemporary in terms of their - they are absolute bastards in terms of - legitimate claims, whether it's family, or in terms of class, or in terms of education, anything; what is the neighbourhood and what is an Indian? The levels of distinctions you can draw from caste status, to old wealth, to elite; undeniable linkages to (this fact), links to accepting a definitive location in the elite. So, in that sense, what it is throwing up is not necessarily a caste type sovereignty, which is just as an acquired political term; which is a political science assumption, that these are basically leakages or continuities of the safe old fashion. But a constructionist argument might well be in order, precisely because these, even the caste formation are really not quite same as the kind of increase you had, say in the 20's and the 30's. Even things which seemed to be calling themselves caste organisations, or caste mobilisations, are indeed of a very different nature. And those who are capable or endowed with the ability to lead them also, are simply different. So in that sense, some clarification, I think, could not only make your argument much more persuasive, but also not distract your reader/ listener into making this (kind of mistake), having this kind of resistance, precisely of continuity, when I think your argument is not about continuity at all.

MP: No, it's not. See caste, like for instance Mayawati's, is... This is not some old caste sovereignty manifesting all over the place; it's a new phenomenon. So see, here, enthusiasm only comes insofar as - if you have traditional community in place, there's no space, there's no gap in which enthusiasm needs to be coming to. If you actually treat enthusiasm as a kind of energy, energetics of a system, of a circuitry, in which everything is not sort of connected up and so on, then it's only where that kind of organic pre-modern representation - it's not even representation - togetherness as a community; it's only when it's disrupted, can you even conceive the idea that there is some enthusiasm as it's generated as within new domains. But with enthusiasm around new figures, around new entities that come up, but obviously it's a question of new entities. You see, enthusiasm is need not necessarily refer to new entities, but it does. I mean, in this instance, by and large, there seems to be somebody always places themselves at this place where the enthusiasm is directed. People position themselves, and they become then the focus of... (the enthusiasm.) And it's as if it then binds them into sovereign communities, in some fashion. But it's entirely new, it's entirely post-republican, it's a republican situation. That's why without that, you have only colonialism. Colonial idea of community was a different thing, they rule communities. (The) Indian state is not wanting to rule communities, it is wanting to rule the Indian community as a whole, a national (community.) So in that sense, the desire and the fact that there are gaps, that's how I would describe the field in which this is supposed to be. I mean I don't know how, or where I might have suggested this, but in some ways there are things, like a genealogical way, if you think about it, nothing is totally new, there are things that you have to tract, trace back to another time, which function in a new way. So it's new but it's not absolute new-ness that we're talking about, but it is what the total configuration, the elements of this field are new. But the elements that constitute the field need not always be entirely new. Like bhakti and so on, there are this problem that goes back a long way, but here is a new circuitry which brings it/ takes it in. But it's a new thing, something which is working in a new context.

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
David Hume
Dr Shashikala Srinivasan (SS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
Freud - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud
Freud
Kant
SS: This is more related to David Hume and how it relates to your (hypothesis.)

From what I understood of Hume, he is using enthusiasm, and he talks sources of superstition and sources of enthusiasm. And for him the sources of enthusiasm are located more in, what he says, prosperity and luxurious wealth, pride, confidence - where the subject has a sense of worthiness, which allows him or her to directly access the divine, without the priestly class. Whereas, in your article, there is some kind of inversion, where you have the subaltern in some sense being able to practice or be "enthusiastic" in some sense. So, how would you under(stand this fact); I need some clarification with this.

MP: I mean, in the set of terms you used to describe, is prosperity also involved, included as a term?

SS: Yeah, it is. In which case, are you then suggesting there is something that makes it possible for them to transcend these conditions and yet make possible an act of devotion? But then enthusiasm becomes more problematic category.

MP: No. First of all I'm not thinking that it stems directly from Hume's description of it. There are various descriptions and they are all point to something of a surge of affect. Like for instance, Kant's use is interesting. He says, people who are not there, and who hear about it, and there is a flow of anticipation, and he says that is enthusiasm. And in the 19th century there is a lot of - like Freud in his brief mentioned, but also others talk about the great projects of 19th century were possible because of enthusiasm. So it's not just the question of people being made to work and so on. And Aristotle's thing is altogether different, it's about the ethical dimension of the human, so on and etc. But this I have to go back, because I thought Hume did say that, but I didn't remember prosperity as one of the factors mentioned. But yes, that some way in which you can actually dare to exit the orthodox structure governed by the priesthood. Obviously, that much there has to be. So, in that sense, the bhakti sort of thing involves the subaltern, but there is certain moving out, that daring to move out. So, it was in that sense, but specifically, yeah, that's interesting that he's used that term, 'prosperity.'

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
Dr Shashikala Srinivasan (SS)
Dr Anup Dhar (AD)
Dr S.V. Srinivas (SV)
MP: Yeah. Something else?

SS: To continue with Anup's question, about how perhaps the frame of political may not be able to understand this - Anup, I don't know if I'm understanding it - would it help us understand, this being in common, that he was talking about, that bhakti makes possible? I think, if you are locating this source of enthusiasm in this particular context, in our context definitely, then would I be right in understanding that you are locating it in some kind of a the realm of the psychoanalytic? - Where you talk about, anyhow you talking about the collapse of a particular kind of a monarchy which now disorders certain people, then there is this new collectivity that emerges around (this collapse.) So, when it expresses itself, are you talking about some buried (aspect of the psyche)? I was a little... (confused.)

MP: Yeah. One of the sources of this term enthusiasm was some psychoanalytic writing. There is new attention being paid to this term, and recent psychoanalytic work does get into domains of, you know, where some individual psyche is not at issue but larger processes. And they... Yeah see, I think I would say, when you mention/ talk about form, there is a degree of the unconscious to it. So these are all in some ways questions of form that I'm addressing. So yeah, in that sense you were right, and it would be, to say that apart from the conscious acts of affiliation or attachment that people might make, choices that they make; there are formal dimensions to that processes of which they would not be aware. I will assume that, I guess. That is to say, it is a presupposition at work. You were right. How would you then react to that? There's a problem?

SS: It's just that I found the framework moving into another realm in your analysis, so I was trying to understand why the shift was happening? How will you account for that particular shift? Anything that would make sense. What does it help you understand? Because, in some sense, it ends up positing the entire movement, vis-a-vis the sovereign, or the others in the society itself. And I don't know if that's what Anup meant when he said, "the frame of the political maybe not be a movement."

MP: Yeah, (is) that's what (was meant)?

AD: In a way.

MP: Who? The others means like the... what?

SS: See, I don't know, I'm just speculating.

MP: No, no, please. I'm also speculating a lot.

SS: It's just that to account for it in terms of this collapse of princely states with the monarchs giving way, and new sovereigns in the form of stars coming up, and collectivities being explained along those lines; to link it to the collapse of monarchy, was somehow not a convincing enough move for me.

MP: Okay, yeah. Now, again. Formal questions...

SV: Can I just add to that? See there is, to reiterate the issue of fictionality.That not only is this being formed around a fictional orchard, but the fictionality also lies in the fact that some of these regions which are throwing up these seemingly feudal figures were actually not governed by feudal systems of government at all. To give you an example...

MP: No, wait, let me clarify this. It's not concrete historical argument which goes straight through. The colonial state is the same for me, in terms of political forms. What we have is a secure idea of who is in power. Because it's, in that sense, at the level of form, that difference between colonial power and the princely state is different to that. So what I'm saying is, It's a question of whether political passions, are they of account or not. And there is a particular way in which democratic orders unbind, because it is a form which actually disrupts the entire idea of embodied, concrete, sovereign at the helm of a political state; it's something that continues for long time. You can say it's really... With democracy something completely different is put into place. So this unbinding which democracy then operates, and which then assumes at the formal level at the end, the idea of sovereign citizens. So the sovereignty has devolved upon others. So it doesn't matter what form of sovereignty prevailed previously. What we can say definitely about it is, they were concrete, places of power occupied by concrete people, and so on. Now this situation where... So here, there is an unbinding, but there isn't a reconstitution of this sort. That's what I'm trying to articulate here.
psychoanalysis

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr Rochelle Pinto (RP)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
RP: In some place... (The clip gets cut.) Technologies.

MP: Yeah.

RP: So, the distribution of political power, for instance, in the US and the UK, accommodates the self to a certain kind of mediation, you know, which will not happen here. So, which allows then the political image to be read in a particular way, and for it to be sort of effective. There are reasons why you can discuss whether, you know, John Kelly has more hair, and is therefore more attractive than another candidate. This works, and it does not work.

MP: Right. There is the image. There's no question that it's the image and it spreads, causing one to rely...

RP: There's also individuation. Individuation also has a political effect which allows this kind of mediation, which will not have...

MP: Yes, exactly. I think that captures one aspect, a very important aspect of difference. Where there is volume to this relationship in a way that means that there is way in which image doesn't simply become a variable for symptom in that, when its stepping out (outside the norm.) Again, the voice is not being used as the instrumental purpose of producing an argument. See, in every situation there is, you know, the parts that remain of the voice; that aspect of it always remains. That voice is never purely a message, it doesn't get exhausted. But, it's not here, it's not the question of the grain of the image, grain of the voice, which is in some ways considered to be just under, beneath the flow of the symbolic meaning, and so on. It seems like voice commands, voice reaches, has a different kind of receptivity (that) is there to the voice. But yeah, there is a basis for what Rochelle was saying.
Individuation
visual

AD: In fact, your distinction between the image and the sound - if I may put it (as) the ocular and aural, was very, very interesting. It's usable also in many senses. And I was thinking of one thing - it made me think as I was listening to you - the tradition of bhakts in Bengal at least, that is the only space I'm aware of where this happens - it may happen in other parts also - well, this bhakt, who is now in a way undecided between the fan and the devoted; the way they are brought into (a) devoted, say cult-like thing, is through the aural where they give what they call the diksha in...

MP: Yeah.

AD: In Bengal, where something is...

MP: Yeah, something is added.

AD: Artificially into the ear. And it... I don't know, your use of that film - which I haven't seen - where this auditory is circulating in the form of a command, or some attachment to that; that was very interesting, I think, the entire realm of the aural, if I may call it.

MP: Yeah.

AD: Which is very interesting.

MP: It's sort of under-explored; the voice and the question of law, especially.

SV: I'll also raise this sort of term-paper type smaller project, in terms of the narrative, etc, as being deeply insecure. Either of that cause, or overlaying of this happened, and you know that clarity emerges some sense that you can't let it be. So again your notion of the screen has been foreign, I mean the cinema has been a foreign medium. You anchor it by overlaying it in certain...
Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr Anup Dhar (AD)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
Dr S.V. Srinivas (SV)
aural
visual

Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS)
Dr S.V. Srinivas (SV)
Dr M. Madhava Prasad (MP)
SV: Any further questions, comments, clarifications to be saught? Okay.

MP: All right.

SV: Thank you very much.

MP: Thank you.
culture and democracy

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