Building the temples of postmodern India: Economic constructions of national identity

Contemporary South Asia

Volumn 14, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 465-480

  Wyatt, Andrew ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

NATIONAL ECONOMY; NATIONAL IDENTITY; POST-MODERNISM;

EID: 33748188523     PISSN: 09584935     EISSN: 1469364X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09584930600839180     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (82)

1. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1991). Satish Deshpande and George Crane have variously expanded on this theme.
2. See Satish Deshpande, 'Imagined economies: Styles of nationbuilding in twentieth century India', Journal of Arts and Ideas, Vol 25-26, 1993, pp 5-35
3. and George Crane, 'Imagining the economic nation: Globalisation in China', New Political Economy, Vol 4, No 2, 1999, pp 215-232.
4. Sarvepalli Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: An Anthology (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1980), p 214.
5. Elements of this narrative can be found in Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1981). Another useful source are the five volumes of Nehru's letters to Chief Ministers (also published by Oxford University in the 1980s).
6. James C. Scott, Seeing Like A State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (Yale: Yale University Press, 1998), pp 90-93.
7. The practice of economic policy was, of course, less rigorously modernist than the rhetoric that was used to justify planned development. For example, the limited influence of Gandhian ideas is fairly easy to discern. For a postmodern critique of modernist planning, see Ronald Inden, 'Embodying God: From imperial progress to national progress in India', Economy and Society, Vol 24, No 2, 1995, p 265.
8. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990).
9. Andrew Wyatt, '(Re)imagining India's (inter)national economy', New Political Economy, Vol 10, No 2, 2005, pp 163-179.
10. This should not be taken as a suggestion that economic activity is free from antagonism. Schemes of economic nationalism, as Peter Burnell observes, are often criticised for their class bias. See Peter Burnell, Economic Nationalism in the Third World (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1986).
11. Deshpande, op cit, Ref 1, p 27.
12. Crane, op cit, Ref 1, p 216.
13. I am grateful to Ronald Inden for encouraging me to emphasise the distinction between an economic model and the narrative of an imagined economy.
14. Jutta Weldes, 'High politics and low data: Globalization discourses and popular culture', in D. Yanow and P. Schwartz-Shea (eds), Interpretive Research Methods: The 'Interpretive Turn' and Empirical Analysis (New York: ME Sharpe, 2005), pp 6-8.
15. IBEF, Annual Report Year 2003 (Gurgaon: IBEF, 2003) at http://www.ibef.org/Attachment/IBEF-AA.pdf (accessed 20 June 2005).
16. Mark Bevir and R.A.W. Rhodes, 'Interpretative theory', in David Marsh and Gary Stoker (eds), Theory and Methods in Political Science (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002, 2nd ed), p 136.
17. Manu Goswami, Producing India: From Colonial Economy to National Space (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).
18. See Inden, op cit, Ref 5
19. Deshpande, op cit, Ref 1.
20. Hart, 1956, cited in Albert Hirschman, Development Projects Observed (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1995), p 97.
21. Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India (London: Penguin, 1998), p 110.
22. Srirupa Roy, 'Elsewhere: Urban space, national time, and postcolonial difference - the steel towns of India', in Thomas Bender and Alev Cinar (eds), Locating the City: Urban imaginaries and practices of modernity, Forthcoming.
23. Ibid.
24. As Roy comments 'steel was more than mere industrial substance'; producing steel was esteemed as nation building service in the 1950s.
25. Ibid.
26. Gurcharan Das, India Unbound (Delhi: Viking, 2000), p 366.
27. A.K. Roy, 'Closure of Sindri fertilisers: A political decision', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol 38, No 10, 2003, p 934.
28. Foreign technical assistance and aid were used to help fulfil the targets of the early 5-year plans. However, the ideological orientation of Indian's economic model constrained external involvement. The United States and the World Bank converged in their unwillingness to support public sector enterprises such as the Bokaro and Rourkela steel projects. See Mitu Sengupta, 'The politics of market reform in India - the fragile basis of paradigm shift' (Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of Toronto, 2004), pp 226-227.
29. Roy, op cit, Ref 23, p 7.
30. James Heitzman, Network City: Planning the Information Society in Bangalore (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp 110-112.
31. Narendar Pani, 'Icons and reform politics in India: The case of SM Krishna', Asian Survey, 2006, Vol 46, No. 2, pp 247-250. The objectives of the Bangalore Agenda Task Force are rather opaquely set out on their website; see http://www.batf.org/Feedback/FAQ.html (accessed 20 June 2005).
32. IBEF, Infrastructure: Why SE Asian Firms are Flooding India's Real Estate Market (Gurgaon: IBEF, 2004), p 2, at http://www.iesingapore.gov.sg/bizcontacts/upload/docs/sea_infrastruct.pdf (accessed 29 June 2005).
33. Rob Jenkins, Democratic Politics and Economic Reform in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
34. Government of Andhra Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh Vision 2020, at http://www.aponline.gov.in/quick%20links/vision2020/vision2020.html (accesssed 20 June 2005).
35. 'PM lists five priorities to tackle poverty', The Hindu, 19 December 1999. http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/1999/12/19/stories/ 01190002.htm (accessed 20 December).
36. Government of India, Report of the Committee on India Vision 2020 (Delhi: Planning Commission, 2002), p 8.
37. The Finance Ministry commissioned the 'information and investment promotion' campaign 'in discharge of the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance to manage the country's economy and to encourage investment' at http://finmin.nic.in/press_room/2003/oct_details.htm (accesssed 20 June 2005).
38. Mukund Padmanabhan, 'Theme 2004', The Hindu, 21 March 2004. http://www.hindu.com/mag/2004/03/21/stories/2004032100100100.htm (accessed 20 June 2005).
39. The Economist, 21 February 2004, p S2.
40. Jalal Alamgir, 'Managing openness in India: The social construction of a globalist narrative', in Linda Weiss (ed), States in the Global Economy: Bringing Domestic Institutions Back In (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p 226.
41. Jaswant Singh, Budget Speech, 3 February 2004, at http://indiabudget.nic.in/ub2004-05(I)/bs/speecha.htm (accesssed 16 June 2005).
42. Palaniappan Chidambaram, Budget Speech, 8 July 2004, at http://indiabudget.nic.in/ub2004-05/bs/speecha.htm (accessed 16 June 2005).
43. Pavan K. Varma, Being Indian: Why the Twenty-First Century Will Be India's (Delhi: Penguin, 2004).
44. 'A vote for BJP will make India a superpower: Advani', The Hindu, 11 March 2004, at http://www.hindu.com/2004/03/11/stories/ 2004031107510100.htm (accesssed 20 June 2005).
45. Angus Deaton and Jean Dreze, 'Poverty and inequality in India: A re-examination', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol 37, No 36, 2002, pp 3740, 3742.
46. K.C. Suri, 'Democracy, economic reforms and election results in India', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol 39, No 51, 2004, p 5407.
47. Positive reviews of Gurcharan Das, India Unbound (Delhi: Viking, 2001) include.
48. See Varma, op cit, Ref 39
49. and Sandipan Deb, The IITians: The Story of a Remarkable Indian Institution and How Its alumni are Reshaping the World (Delhi: Penguin, 2004).
50. India Today, 14 March 2005, pp 59-61.
51. Ibid, pp 62-63.
52. 'India's young population promises a profitable future', The Times, 7 May 2005, p M 11.
53. Chidambaram, op cit, Ref 38.
54. Palaniappan Chidambaram, Budget Speech, 28 February 2005, at http://indiabudget.nic.in/ub2005-06/bs/speecha.htm) (accessed 29 March 2005).
55. IBEF, 2003, op cit, Ref 13, p 3.
56. IBEF, Who's Worried About Monsoons? (Gurgaon: IBEF, 2005), p 5, at http://www.ibef.org/attachdisplay.aspx?cat_id=55&art_id=6419 (accessed 15 June 2005).
57. NASSCOM, Indian IT - ITES Industry (National Association of Software and Service Companies) at http://www.nasscom.org/artdisplay.asp?cat_id=790 (accessed 23 September 2005).
58. 'Busy Signals', The Economist, 8 September 2005.
59. Rumy M. Narayan, 'Consuming the retail boom', in Sharif D. Rangnekar (ed), Realizing Brand India: The Changing Face of Contemporary India (Delhi: Rupa, 2005), p 138.
60. Harvey, op cit, Ref 6, p 196.
61. For an extended treatment of patterns of accumulation in India's informal economy, see Barbara Harriss-White, India Working: Essays on Society and Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
62. As cited in Harvey, op cit, Ref 6, p 287.
63. Nigel Thrift, 'Perspectives on new political economy: Chasing capitalism', New Political Economy, Vol 6, No 3, 2001, p 378.
64. Harvey, op cit, Ref 6, p 285.
65. See Christopher Pinney, Photos of the Gods: The Printed Image and Political Struggle in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004)
66. and Patricia Uberoi, 'Chicks, kids and couples: The nation in calendar art', in G. Sen (ed), India: A National Culture? (Delhi: Sage Publications, 2003).
67. Ronald Inden, 'Transnational class, erotic arcadia, and commercial utopia in Hindi films', in Christiane Broesius and Melissa Butcher (eds), Image Journeys: Audio-Visual Media and Cultural Change in India (Delhi: Sage Publications, 1999), p 50.
68. Sudhanva Deshpande, 'Hindi films: The rise of the consumable hero', Himal, August 2001, at http://www.himalmag.com/august2001/essay.html (accessed 29 March 2005).
69. Deshpande, op cit, Ref 1, pp 26-27.
70. Ibid, p 28.
71. Narayan, op cit, Ref 53, pp 138-141.
72. Santosh Desai, 'The creative Indian', in Sharif D. Rangnekar (ed), Realizing Brand India: The Changing Face of Contemporary India (Delhi: Rupa, 2005), pp 130-136.
73. Ibid, p 131.
74. Naomi Klein, No Logo (London: Flamingo, 2000), p 20.
75. I am grateful to Arnab Ray Chaudhuri (University of Bristol) for translating this jingle.
76. Srirupa Roy, 'Nation and institution: Commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Indian independence', Interventions, Vol 3, No 2, 2003, pp 252-253.
77. Ibid, p 254.
78. I am grateful to Suruchi Thapar-Bjorkert (University of Bristol) for translating this jingle.
79. Suri, op cit, Ref 42, p 5410.
80. For a detailed exploration of status-differentiated patterns of consumption, see Filippo Osella and Caroline Osella, 'From transience to immanence: Consumption, life-cycle and social mobility in Kerala, South India', Modern Asian Studies, Vol 33, No 4, 1999, pp 989-1020.
81. I am grateful to MSS Pandian for sharing this insight from his ongoing research into the configuration of urban space in Chennai.
82. Desai, op cit, Ref 66, pp 130-131.