Allegories of Alienation and Politics of Bargaining
Minority Subjectivities in Mani Ratnam's Dil Se
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12713695 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ananya Jahanara Kabir (0000-0003-1895-8412, University of Leeds, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2003 |
| Volume | 1 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 141-159 |
| Publication date | 2003-10-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | South Asian Popular Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1474-6689 • E-ISSN: 1474-6697 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/1474668032000132724 |
| OpenAlex | W2050560964 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 12 |
This article examines Mani Ratnam's film Dil Se (India, 1998, Tamil and Hindi), as an allegory of the relationship between dominant and dominated groups within the Indian nation-state. By reading its narrative of doomed love against its counter-narratives of cinematography and soundtrack, I argue that Dil Se exposes the libidinal economy of the federal democratic framework, urging groups currently alienated within that framework to work towards a successful politics of bargaining in order to claim their rightful place within the nation, and initiates processes of mourning for cultural losses sustained through homogenising majoritarian discourses, including those of Bollywood itself. By invoking Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's theory of ‘minor literatures’, I reveal the minority subjectivities of those involved in the film's making as the key unlocking the therapeutic, even redemptive potential of its radical political messages, that, despite the film's commercial failure, circulate subliminally through its popular soundtrack
Aesthetics · Alienation · Allegory · Art · Democracy · Hindi · Linguistics · Literature · Media studies · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · Tamil · Cinema and Media Studies · Gender Studies · Law · Philosophy · South Asian Cinema and Culture
Nipped in the Bud
Dil Se and Gulaab Gang — “Me-Too” by the Women at the Margins
Bollywood in the neoliberal era
The Unending Frontier
The Kashmiri as Muslim in Bollywood's ‘New Kashmir films’
Lines of the Nation
Explorations in History, Films and the Nation
Grooving on at Seventy-Five
Wandering Dervish of Laila Majnu
Terror as cinematic desire
The pyrotechnics of gender and terrorism in Mani Ratnam’s Dil Se
Islamicdeshbhakti
| Citations per year | 0.57 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2005 - 2024 (20) |
| Highly cited | No |