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This paper examines the interplay between memory, history, nationalism, and visual cultures by focussing on a framed photograph of a revolver gifted to Kamala Dasgupta's family by the Calcutta (Now Kolkata) police after Indian independence. Once used in an attempted assassination during the anti-colonial struggle, the revolver has become an anomaly in the nation's collective memory – a 'floating signifier' with an unfixed meaning. Analysing the photograph as a media spectacle and a symbol within national myths, I argue that it disrupts linear narratives of progress that dominate nationalist historiography. The article shows how Kamala's act of procuring the revolver has been overshadowed by her comrade Bina Das's violent act. Drawing on theories of the spectacle, national temporality, and subaltern studies, I illustrate the selective commemoration of revolutionary violence in India. The research in this paper demonstrates how precarious and subaltern histories such as Kamala's can destabilise established national narratives and pluralise temporal orders of the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article focuses on the agricultural knowledge preservation in the indigenous Adivasi (tribal) communities in India, and on the connection between nature, society and culture within these communities. Our research is a survey realized in four villages belonging to two districts of the Odisha State of India, Koraput and Rayagada, with an interest in understanding the indigenous agriculture practices, their connection to their local beliefs and festivals, and also the way this kind of knowledge reflects in the language and community life. In these districts, agriculture is the main source of income, as in most villages, the communities still forage, collecting plants from the nearby forests, and we were interested in how they recognize, collect and cook roots and tubers, while many Adivasis maintain a tradition of selling their produce (vegetables and fruit) in local markets. The methodology comprises field data collection (a field research journal, visual documentation), participative and non-participative observation, and knowledge sharing from the local people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this special issue is to take stock of graphic narrative creation in English, produced and distributed from within India over the last 20 years. With this focus, the Special Issue engages with theoretical as well as aesthetic considerations, thinking through what 'the 21st century canon of Indian graphic narratives' looks like, what its predominant themes and preoccupations have been to date, as well as the forms in which Indian graphic narratives in English have appeared post millennium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This essay seeks to explore the significance of mimetic actions in making the knowledge reserve of the early modern kalamkari textile makers of the Coromandel region, southern India. A shared pool of visuals found in these textiles, south Indian murals, Deccani architecture, and artifacts allow us to assess the histories of the artisans who engaged with cross-cultural and intermedial mobilities. Images on these textiles were mediated, often supplied by their patrons. This compelled the artisans to explore the fullest possibilities of their knowledge employing mimetic actions, which are generally misunderstood as 'copying' or 'imitation'. Contemporary woodblock making in Pedana, Andhra Pradesh, present examples to reflect on these actions as the knowledge practice of early modern textile makers. The layered actions of mediating and reproducing images are deeply informed by artisanal decision-making and thus offer insights to potentially retrieve their histories. I propose the reciprocity of mimetic flow in the early modern Deccani visual culture is a result of artisanal decision – a controlled act informed by artisanal resistance enabling transmission of visual knowledge. Further, I will elaborate on the relevance of the idea of 'copying' in terms of synthesizing and developing repositories of artisanal knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary motif of this article is to present a theoretical focus on the problematic of women's participation in the Indian media industry. This article includes a critique of capitalism and its influence on the space afforded to women in the field of visual media in India. Through citing relevant examples from the recent past in the television news media industry, the author has investigated theoretically and aesthetically the image and perception of the woman on the screen and behind the screen. The article deals with the spectator-spectacle dynamics, and has sought to locate dissent and establish that there is always possible a reversal in the setting; the spectator may be as challenged into "seeing" as the spectacle is in "showing." There is a focus on the phenomenon of becoming, self-becoming and reclaiming the screen. Finally, the article seeks to discuss the malleable nature of technology that may not only oppress women but may also beused by women to frame alternate relations to visuality and narration. The article argues how the dominant politics in India curates ideologies most divorced from rationality and equality to undermine the cause of women and artistic advent of visual feminism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will explore how the ideology of advertising converts the value-system of a "constructed" social life into "natural reality" and also how the hyperreal "ad world" seemingly becomes a "reality" in its own right. It will analyse ads in their material form to see through their "false" materiality. Ideology as a term has acquired many connotations in this age of globalisation. Likewise, the semiotic world of advertisements has expanded at a phenomenal pace. Commodities in a postmodern, globalised world are ubiquitous and their multimedia ad-campaigns are well and truly omnipresent. Whether they are also omnipotent is something that the paper will explore. The ad-world in the present age creates consciousness rather than getting validated by consciousness. It creates an ideology that would turn the exchange value of a commodity into a new kind of use-value. By deconstructing a few recent TV ads made in India the paper will analyse whether in the complex relationship between ideology and advertising the former functions as a process whereby social life is converted to a natural reality. The paper will also attempt to identify fault-lines of the constructed reality of the advertisements as the makers sometimes end up deconstructing the very narratives that they construct. Thus, the present study hopefully will show the self-referential nature of advertisements which will give us clues to understand the nature of the visual culture as it thrives in the world of advertisements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines selfie culture and visual social media in India by exploring how smartphone marketing and the performativity of the user–device interface intersect with the cultural influence of the Hindu ritual of darshan and the recent political success of populist Hindu nationalism. Darshan, a long-standing, everyday Hindu practice entailing an active visual and physical exchange between worshiper and devotional image or object, bears striking overlaps with the mechanics and conditions of the networked visuality of the self. Taking a critical technology approach, this article places scholarship on selfies and their production methods in conversation with anthropological descriptions of darshan and existing theories of darshan 's impact on media in South Asia. Theoretical exploration of concepts and practices is augmented by content analysis of social media imagery related to darshan. In arguing that aspects of traditional visual regimes may endure in personal networked media use in India, this work underscores the need for balancing globalized affordances and applications, on one hand, with culturally specific meanings and ideological frames, on the other, particularly as these converge in the visual performance of networked identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the praiseworthy features of Isfahan, European travellers who visited the city throughout the seventeenth century admired the Khājū and Allāhvirdīkhān Bridges, particularly the galleries that lined their main passage and offered passers-by opportunities to rest and enjoy the breeze and expansive views of the river. Similarly, the Nūrābād Bridge and Jaunpur's Shāhī Bridge in Mughal India, with their chhatrīs located on either side, provided comparable experiences for those traversing their length. Focusing on these four bridges, built between 1568 and 1659, this paper examines the novel architectural layout of these public structures within the framework of manzar, and argues for understanding the secondary spaces of these bridges as a thematic extension of the renowned Safavid and Mughal waterfront pavilions that were purposefully designed to engage with the surrounding landscape. As elements that were previously limited to royal and elite establishments, these viewing platforms empowered a particular mode of visual and embodied engagement with the landscape, which favoured immersion in natural settings and considered nature as a reflection of God and a text to decode – practices with roots in Turco-nomadic sensibilities towards nature, and the growth and popularity of mystic knowledge and esoteric practices in the post-Mongol eastern Islamic lands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the new forms and genres of storytelling in India with an emphasis on the visual aspect of the literary narration. It begins with a remark on the literary and performing tradition of India, where stories were told with an accompaniment of visuals: single or sequential images, scroll paintings, acting etc. With time, storytellers and poets started including modern-day, contemporary themes and problems into their narratives, which not only brought changes in the repertoire of stories, but also, quite naturally, caused development in terms of genres and ways of expression. The present study is based on graphic novels by Sarnath Banerjee and Vishwajyoti Ghosh, with reference to contemporary Hindi literature and some examples from visual art. The author seeks to answer the following questions: 1) what is the "new language” of a literary work in relation to the visual, 2) how - and by which means - does the literature reflect the reality of the new generations, 3) how is a story narrated through images. In conclusion, some observations are made on mutual influences between literature and audio-visual arts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Driven by direct conversations with contemporary Indian painters, this essay engages with the struggle to pursue painting in contentious historical times, in an atmosphere of jostling camaraderie and dialogue across the Indian subcontinent. Written in 1985 for an exhibition of contemporary Indian art held at the Abby Weed Grey Gallery in New York, the essay addresses a series of productive problems facing Indian painters at that time, discussing audience, influence (of the past, the ‘West’, regional Indian visual cultures, and other painters), mysticism, form, materiality, colour, criticism, location, the figural, landscape, and the eternal problem of pink. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Successive Indian governments have attempted to tackle the formidable task of creating a clean India, with varied results. With the country's rapidly growing middle class eager to participate in a sanitised global consumer capitalism, many Indians are becoming frustrated with the ‘unruly’ nature of their urban landscape, its dirty streets and public spaces. This is particularly discernible amongst India's middle-class youth, who seem impatient with the state's apparent inability to manage waste and disorder, and it is clear that several civil society campaigns designed to promote a clean India explicitly target Indian youth. In this paper, I explore what the ideological premise of cleansing initiatives reveals about the aspirations, needs and anxieties of India's youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The invention of dactylography in the nineteenth century was inextricably linked to the imperial encounter between the British and their colonial subjects in India. Represented as a scientific technology, fingerprinting was used to produce abstract images of Indian bodies that could be placed within an archival system. The semiotic properties of fingerprinting along with the adaptability of a fingerprint as a visual image were critical to the successful operation of the practice. This article situates the history of fingerprinting in colonial India within a larger system of visual technology used by the British in institutions such as prisons. Through a comparison of different nineteenth-century technologies adopted in India, including photography, anthropometry, and fingerprinting, I argue for the recognition of a visual culture of fingerprinting that was key to the practice’s proliferation as a science. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, I explore the production of political images in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The state is known for the ubiquitous presence of banners, murals and posters in its public spaces, featuring prominent politicians and actors. It is commonly argued that these images help to convey the heroic or exclusive status of political leaders. However, such images are actually produced by party workers and therefore do not simply transpose status and image. Instead, political supporters praise their leader via these images and act as ‘kingmakers’ in constructing reputation and power. Simultaneously, by putting political images on display, supporters also authorise their own power. While praise is important in showing a person's dedication to a political party, the images, in the motivations of their producers, are suffused with ambivalence and competition as well. Hence, I argue, political image practices are not representative of politics, theyarepolitics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Attention to the visual within the political anthropology of India has focused almost exclusively on spectacle and the excessively visible. This paper examines the question of visibility by interrogating the conditions that enable collective agendas to be seen as political, and advocates closer attention to the role of the state in these processes of recognition. In doing so, it emphasises shifts in the visual aspects of communicative networks and uses specific examples of mass protest and blockage agitation to trace longer histories of practice, expanding the domains of both the visual and the political available as objects of scholarly attention. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay explores the rich verbal- and visual-narrative repertoires constitutive of a ‘sense of place’ within the Urdu-languageKhushtar Ramayan, highlighting some of the significant ways in which they converge with and diverge from other prominent textual and visual representations of the Ramayan during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The material history of Khushtar's work as a book is also traced in order to illuminate a number of important linkages and shifts from a ‘local’ courtly economy and ‘sense of place’ to an emergent, proto-national, print-commercial one. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article presents an analysis of an iconographical series that has recently emerged in video compact discs (VCDs) devoted to Sufi Chishtiyya shrines (dargahs) in central and north India. This series superimposes the image of the important shrine of Ajmer onto the map of India, hinting at and employing the popular iconography of Goddess Bharat Mata, especially in its relatively recent versions employed by the Hindu right as a significant agent for constituting a Hinduised nation and public space. What significance does the application of this loaded Hindu formula hold in the spaces of popular Islam? Following Bourdieu’s (1985) theory of the Social Space, I address this iconography as an economy of signs hinting at the shifting contours of Hindu nationhood while simultaneously endowing Islamic symbols with a powerful position, claiming for enhanced political participation and, at times, for authority over the Indian nation-space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the production of visual affect generated by film advertisements as they circulated widely through magazines in the 1960s when film publicity depended largely on billboards, posters and printed advertisements. The film advertisement catered to diverse film publics depending on the readership associated with specific magazines. The article focuses specifically on a collection of film advertisements published in English language magazines like Filmfare, Blitz, The Illustrated Weekly, Star and Style and Filmworld. These advertisements became part of a vast reservoir of visual culture that spilled out of magazine pages, catering to an order of perception that was quite different from that of posters or billboards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay considers the weight and bearing of the idea of precision and the notion of the virtual in relation to commercial artists travelling to India in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Taking as its focus the work of Balthazar Solvyns. my discussion considers the fictional and the factual as relayed by the aesthetic of precision. The aesthetic of precision is by its very nature precarious: to be precarious was to carry something of the virtual and a kind of fictionality which being so performative in its documentary aspect carried its own risk -- especially when confronted with so-called Company School/Mughal artists who were highly critical of such colonial practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The roots of popular visual culture of contemporary India can be traced to the mythological films produced by D. G. Phalke during the decades of the ‘silent’ era from 1912 to 1934. The era of the “talkies” of the 1930s ushered in the “singing’” or musical genre, which together with Phalke’s visual style remains the hallmark of Bollywood cinema. The history of Indian cinema is replete with films made in other genres and styles (e. g., social realism, satires, comedies, fantasy, horror, or stunt) in the numerous languages of the country. However, it is the popular Hindi cinema (now generally termed Bollywood) that has dominated national Indian cinema and its audiovisual culture. It has hegemonized the entire film industry as well as other popular technology-based art forms including the press, radio, television, music, advertising, the worldwide web, the social media, and telecommunications media. The form and substance of these modern art forms, while adapting to the demands of the new media technologies, continued to be rooted in the visual arts and practices of folk and classical traditions of earlier times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The centrality and ubiquitousness of visual culture in contemporary society signifies the potential it has not only in transferring information about every day issues to the masses, but affecting the way people understand and respond to these issues. Working with the premise that visual culture, specifically cinema, draws on wider hegemonic discourses circulating within the public space to construct its own narrative of spaces, places and people it represents, this article aims to present a symptomatic reading of three Hindi films of the 1960s about Kashmir; Junglee (1961), Kashmir Ki Kali (1964), and Jab Jab Phool Khile (1965). It will contrast these with post-1989 films such as Roja (1992), Mission Kashmir (2000), and Lamhaa (2010) to examine how Bollywood has participated in the historical construction of the Valley of Kashmirwhile decisively intervening in that history by producing two polarized images of both Kashmir and Kashmiris. By closely analyzing the visual, narrative, cinematic and affective aspects of this development and contextualizing it against the local politics of Islam, the article aims to contribute to a better understanding of how Bollywood has used religious markers decisively at a certain historical juncture so as to open up new possibilities for the ideological assimilation of the long standing Kashmir conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the evolution of the myth of Durga, the famous Indian goddess, outlining a circular trajectory: it begins with the present-day festival organized to venerate the Goddess, then it undertakes a short journey into the past to unravel some mysteries of history and the legend of Durga in the cultural context, and lastly it revisits the tumultuous contemporary India bringing the gift of the old Sanskrit ślokas that live in splendid glory even today. Durga embodies the feminine energy of the universe and, as this article purports to emphasize, she has appeared over the years in various figures (murti) entailing different meanings, symbols and aesthetic values determined by the social change and the historical events; also, the festival has become a sort of modern tradition. This essay foregrounds just a few, and the most important, of the innumerable forms and manifestations the Goddess has in Indian culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work of creative non-fiction, accompanied by coloring book plates of his own design, the author explores recent changes in Indian visual culture. An investigation of hand-painted political graphics in Mumbai revealed very little painting and a great deal about the rapidly advancing digitalization of visual space in India. As idiosyncratic and individual creative efforts are replaced by mass-produced digital printing, in what ways are India's political networks enhanced, in what ways are India's creative networks destroyed? Translators, police officers, political activists, and artists are presented through the eyes of an outsider whose own expectations about creative expression and political participation are challenged. The conclusion considers how once recycled visual culture artifacts are now junk destined for the landfill, and urges readers to color-in the whitewashed spaces of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the process by which tea, a plant and product introduced into the Indian subcontinent in the early 19th century as a colonial cash crop, became indigenized and popularized as chai, often regarded today as India’s ‘national drink’. This process mainly occurred during the 20th century and involved aggressive and innovative marketing by both British and Indian commercial interests, advances in the technology of processing Assam tea, and changes in social space and practice, especially in urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

tThe article examines the role of India in providing opportunities for visual culture in a polycentric world by examining the four periods in the country's history. The country's dominance in a polycentric world contributed to the popularity of its visual products and provided a way for India to accept other visual products. The author discusses the third century BCE Maurya empire, the seafaring and sea-trading Chola empire, the impact of pilgrimage on visual culture, and Indian print culture.

Why has the story of the vernacular cartoon-based newspapers in colonial India, which were versions of the British Punch, remained obscure? Specifically, what does the story of the Urdu Punch and Hindi Punch among other vernacular Punches tell us about colonial politics? Approaching memory and history as forms of knowledge, this article draws upon archival research to construct an alternate history of Punch and the vernacular Punches in colonial India. By focusing on two plots—the fate in India of the British humour magazine Punch and a debate around humour in vernacular cartoons—this paper brings attention to the cartoon as a space for rethinking the history of Punch and the narrative of mimicry and modernity. I argue that memory of cultural practices, such as cartooning, can be hegemonic and tactical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Taj complex was built in the mid-17th century, the mausoleum has been an object of wonder and delight, yet viewed differently by each era. The Mughal emperors saw it from across the river Yamuna, reflected in the river's waters and in the fountains of Mahtab Bagh, and framed by the balconies of the Red Fort. The Europeans painted, photographed, and made it an object of romantic gaze in a picturesque setting that fitted their notions of the exotic and mysterious East. The post-colonial period has seen proliferations of its image for virtual consumption and commodification, making the Taj the most visited tourist destination in India. Today, the Taj complex is a tourist enclave that is cut off from its surroundings, and limited movement patterns restrict visitor views and experiences of the monument. This article proposes that ways of seeing the building should include perceiving it as a "figure in the landscape." "Landscape" is understood to be not just the neocolonial version of the Mughal garden that dominates the foreground of the Taj's ubiquitous imagery, but also the larger cultural landscape of the river Yamuna and its flood plain, rural hamlets and farmfields, and the streets and open spaces of urban Agra. By knitting together the public gardens, parks, and other landscapes in a continuous system of open spaces, a green belt can be created around the Taj to protect it from environmental pollution and provide recreational spaces. View corridors proposed in this landscape will function as conservation easements and will engage the visitor in an extended visual experience of the Taj. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the role of design in Ladakh, a remote region in northwestern India that was opened to tourism and trade only 35 years ago. The shift in the prevailing socio-economic structure is manifested within the region's forms of visual communication, spanning a continuum from photographic advertising to hand-painted wayfinding systems. One questions the cumulative effects these graphic artifacts have on local people's perception of the region and their identities integrated with it. Workshops were conducted in which participants were introduced to the abstract visual language of maps then sketched their home villages. Content analysis of these externalized cognitive maps reveals a consistency of visual representation strategies across all participants. References to natural and manmade features reflect reverence for the land and an understanding of agrarian systems. Currently graphic design in Ladakh is in service to profit outside interests. The author seeks a role for design that values the local constituency as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1980s, modernist artists, like much of India's secular intelligentsia, have struggled to understand the nature of the threat that Hindu nationalism poses to more inclusive forms of national culture. Visual culture, and particularly Hindu iconography, was perhaps the form most obviously targeted by Hindu nationalist political practices. Artist and writer K. G. Subramanyan has been the most influential articulator of a secularist form of visual culture. A semiotic analysis of Subramanyan's modernist versions of Hindu icons not only explicates his model but also shows how his images facilitate a social interaction between artist and viewer that can be seen as a practice of secularism in everyday life. By studying secular forms of visual culture as social practice, this article contributes to the anthropology of secularism without reducing visual culture to a mere reflection of political ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the role of 'space' in Indian and Pakistani public sector universities in fostering national pride. University spaces have been highlighted, in both countries, for being used by the governments as agents fostering the national narrative yet there is limited research on how these spaces contribute to the visual culture of educational institutions and in the inculcation of nationalistic values. This article adds to the conversations regarding the fostering of national belonging and pride in universities by exploring space as a constitutive element of the visual culture of the higher education environment in India and Pakistan. In both countries, the physical spaces of public universities have become platforms for channelling student voices. This research uses two state-funded universities, from Delhi (in India) and Lahore (in Pakistan), and Lefebvre's conception of space to conduct a discourse analysis of bulletin boards, graffiti, statues, sculptures, and any other imagery found online pertaining to the campuses and analyse how it is a 'conceived' and 'perceived' aspect of the visual culture of the universities. It adds to current scholarly conversations on national pride and consciousness in India and Pakistan by showing how university spaces can potentially play an active role in promoting the state's narrative in students' or educators' everyday educational experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]