Appropriating Bodies: Discourses on Nationalism in India

Abstract

Abstract: The overwhelming acceptance of neoliberal capitalist perspectives by the new Indian society, post globalization, has transformed itself and shifted away from the socialist vision of Nehru and other leaders of the earlier decades. Indian identity has been evolving, accommodating the altered social realities and in the new age of nationalistic fervour of a militant nature, the body of the citizen has emerged as the site where conflicting ideologies battle it out. Several forces are at play – economic, political, religious, cultural and of course the powers that define caste and class hierarchies as well. The shifting power centers in the new India demand from the bodies of its citizens a nationalistic fervour that often finds resistance and interestingly, voices of dissent find expression through bodily acts as well. This paper aims to trace this reshaping of national identity and the increasing methods of appropriations with regard to the corporeal selves of its citizens. Corporeality in this context includes the self-reflexive subject positions of the citizens as well as their embodied selves.

Keywords

• nationalism
• national identity
• body politics
• cultural identity
• corporeal