Sociology

As elsewhere, economic reforms in India went hand in hand with important changes in the media sector. Besides forcing a review of India media law, the introduction of new media technologies like cable and satellite television has rede ned existing communicative, economic and political networks, both at the macro and local levels. Starting as an urban cottage industry, within less than a decade the new media networks in India show strong signs of consolidation. As a starting point, this article brie y examines how current changes in Indian media law have substantially recast debates on media autonomy. It then analyses recent shifts in the distribution sector with respect to Mumbai, examining how the entry of transnational/ 'indigenous' media rms has signi cantly affected both the pace of developments within the industry, as well as the ground-level equations between big enterprise, political bosses, local networks and the underworld. With revenues directly tied to the reach of the cable networks, increasingly the right to control 'distribution territories' has emerged as a key issue. The extensive volatility within the industry is thus an outcome of an ideological climate where media deregulation in India has sought to reinforce belief in the ef cacy of the market and the elimination of competition.

About the Book

The bilingual relationship between English and the Indian vernaculars  was  crucial to the construction of colonial ideology, as well as top the remaking of cultural and political hierarchies. Print was vital for colonial literacy to initiate a shift in the relation between ‘high’ and ‘low’ languages. Looking  additionally at its unintended consequences, this book looks at the relationship between linguistic hierarchies, textual practices and power in colonial western India. Whereas most studies of colonialism focus on India’s ‘high’ literary culture, this work looks at how regional  intellectuals explored their ‘middling’ position through initiatives to establish newspapers and influential channels of  communication.

How was the  regional intelligentsia able to achieve a position of ideological influence? This book shows that, despite their minority position and the bilingual division, such people negotiated the arenas of education policy, the press, and voluntary associations to advance their interests as a social class. In doing this it illuminates the Indian intelligentsia’s self-definitions before anti-colonial thinking articulated its hegemonic claims as nationalistic discourse.

The introduction of English as 'high' language and the designs to reshape the 'native vernaculars' under its influence through colonial educational policy altered the universe of communicative and cultural practices on the subcontinent. Colonial bilingualism also introduced hierachical and ideological divisions between the newly-educated and 'illiterate', 'English-knowing' and 'vernacular-speaking' sections of native society. On the basis of an analysis of the possibilities for a laicised literate order opened up through the severely elitist project of colonial education, the thesis proposes an argument about the structural links between these crucial cultural shifts and the strategies adopted by the colonial intelligentsia in western India to achieve a hegemonic position. The main argument of my thesis is set against a discussion of the relations between linguistic hierarchies, textual practices and power in precolonial western India. My thes...

We live in a world of military metaphors. Military images, symbols, and technologies have invaded all aspects of public life and consumption practices. War-time terminology such as "collateral damage" and "engage the enemy" have entered popular jargon (Van Dongen 2015). 1 Security technologies such as surveillance cameras and metal detectors are now used by prisons as well as schools, shopping malls, and the tourist industry. Popular culture plays on military-themed entertainment and patriotic images (Weaver 2011: 684; Schepher-Hughes 2014: 645).

It is now common to see borderlands as spaces that transcend the territorial logic of nation states. Yet, in particular instances of conflict, in territories disputed between two states, national borders tend to become reified or larger than life. In this chapter, I show how the "disputed border" introduces nuances in the general understanding of borderlands as spaces of flows. I do this in relation to my ethnographic experiences in a border region that has been at the center of territorial contention between two nation states -India and China. This is the western part of Arunachal Pradesh, consisting of Tawang and West Kameng districts, which is claimed by China as the southern extension of Tibet.

Selective access: or, how states make remoteness What makes a place remote? Is remoteness a factor of geography and topography, is it a construct of connect­ ivity, or is it an outcome of politics and history? For the Monpas of Arunachal Pradesh in North East India, inhabiting the Indo­ Tibetan borderlands, remote denotes multiple aspects: lack of material infrastructure and transport, improper communication and geographical isolation. Living an enclave existence far away from centres of commerce, governance and industry, Monpas consider themselves to be backward. Yet, Monyul, the traditional homeland of the Monpa communities, is of high strategic importance in the still unresolved India-China border conflict. Its present remoteness is woven into the politics of borders and frontiers. Through a focus on the particular history and politics of Monyul, I show how colonial and postcolonial policies transformed the region into a remote periphery. While infrastructure and connectivity can lead to the economic and political integration of a region, the withholding of the same makes a region appear remote. I bring the concept of selective connectivity to understand how road infrastructure is a particular form of exercising state control.