Introduction to the BJP

Proclaim with Pride:

Liberalization, the Media, and the Rise of the BJP

“Proclaim with Pride we are Hindu!” BJP supporters declared, illuminating the link between national pride and nation as Hindu in the reimaging of India from the 1970s through the early 1990s. This reimagining was to manifest as a major political force, tied to economic liberalization, under the saffron banner of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In this changing political climate, economic liberalization and the expansion of print and television media functioned as two sides of the same coin, contributing in complex and intertwining ways to the re-imagining of India as a middle-class Hindu nation from the 1970s through early 1990s. Although the Congress Party attempted to harness the political power of the new Hindu Nationalism, the BJP stood in a better position to effectively co-op and re-frame the reimagining of India as a Hindu nation, contributing to the political ascendance of the BJP in the late 1980s and early 1990s. 

The Emergency and the Fallout

On June 26, 1975 Indira Gandhi proclaimed a state of Emergency under article 352 of the Indian Constitution. Dissent was suppressed in the press; [1] up to 100,000 of Indira Gandhi’s political opponents were detained.[2] Slums were demolished, their residents displaced;[3] sterilization was purchased, coerced or forced.[4] Unsurprisingly, when Gandhi called new elections in 1977, the Congress Party was roundly defeated by the Janata party and its allies, who won control of 331 of 542 seats in Parliament[5] in the Congress Party’s first national defeat in the history of independent India.[6]

Rudolph and Rudolph argued that, “During the emergency large sections of the population… discovered, in effect, that they have rights to be violated. Democracy… acquired a mass base in India.”[7] In the years following the Emergency, political participation increased, leading to an increase in the number and power of interest groups and political parties,[8] all of which jockeyed for political power.

Among the parties which emerged and rose to power following the Emergency was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was formed in 1980 as an expression of the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangha (RSS),[9] itself a part of the Janata Party, an alliance of right-wing, Hindu and farmers’ parties.[10] The leadership of the RSS was jailed during the Emergency, which benefited the RSS and later the BJP by both lending the movement the respect due suffering, and by politicized the “rank and file” who formed a strong second-tier leadership[11] and grassroots organization.[12]  

The BJP espoused Hindutva, a Hindu-specific nationalism which linked Hinduism to the concept of the Indian nation, inviting Hindus to define themselves as “true Indians,” and giving Hindus exclusive claims to “Indian-ness,” particularly in political contrast to the Congress, which was portrayed as elitist and not “of the people.”[13] A vote for the BJP was portrayed as a vote for both the Hindu faith and the Indian nation. Conversely, any perceived failures of or insults to the Indian nation, past or present, could be blamed on non-Hindus/non-Indians, or a lack of political will to unite India under a Hindu banner.

Indira and Rajiv Gandhi both appreciated the power to be garnered from Hindu nationalism. Both sought to leverage this power, and the Congress Party’s attempts to harness the power of Hindutva helped politicize religion.[14]  However, the Congress Party began as a secular movement, as understood in the Indian context, and its platform and appeal depended in part on the history of the Party’s separation of religion and politics. [15] Ultimately the Congress Party was unable to claim Hindutva for their platform or control the power of religious politics. In contrast, the BJP, due to their pre-established linkages with Hindutva and superior strength ‘on the ground,’[16] were able to use Hindutva as a powerful plank in their platform, where the Congress Party was not.  

The ideas which informed the politics of the BJP can be traced to the years leading up to Independence.[17] However, it was only after the Emergency that the ideas of India as a Hindu nation gained power as a political movement with central power. What forces made the rise of the BJP as a Hindutva party in the late 1980s and early 1990s possible?  Specifically, what roles did economic liberalization and the media play in the electoral success of the BJP as a Hindutva party in the years following the Emergency?      

Reimagining India

In post-Emergency India, the canvas on which a reimagined India was painted and reflected was the media. The India reimagined during the years following the Emergency was urban, middle-class, [18] and Hindu, and was defined in advertising, Bollywood, political rhetoric, and public discourse, [19] as well as on television, and was made possible and sustained by economic liberalization. This reimagined India was neither culturally nor politically neutral; it transmitted both cultural and political ideals, which were harnessed by the BJP to further the party’s political ascendency.    

Economic conditions in India changed considerably during the 1970s and 1980s. The average annual increases in employment fell from 2.28 percent in 1972-1978 to 1.55 percent for the years 1983-1988,[20] adding to the number of unemployed those workers who lost their jobs as a result of privatization and efficiency measures,[21] which has been estimated at up to 20 million.[22] Among the unemployment were between 5.5 and 8.6 million young people in 1987-88,[23] including many educated young people.[24] Hunger rose and the per capita availability of foodgrain for consumption declined.[25]

In response to the growing recognition that economic changes were needed, economic reforms were undertaken in the mid-1980s by Rajiv Gandhi. Under Rajiv Gandhi, import tariffs were loosened, taxes were cut, stock market participation expanded and the middle class grew. [26]

Economic liberalization advanced the reimagining of India in several ways. Rajiv Gandhi very specifically targeted reforms which would benefit the middle-class: tax rates were cut, and middle-class consumption was encouraged through the loosening of import restriction, including those effecting automobiles and electronics, and other durable consumer goods.[27] The increasing availability of consumer goods encouraged middle-class support for and identification with liberalization policies and shifted consumption patterns towards consumer durables and other visible signs of economic prosperity. Additionally, these liberalization policies shifted the emphasis of development and economic policies away from anti-poverty efforts and towards middle-class aspirations, contributing to the public reimagining of India as middle-class.    

The BJP, Recruitment, and Media Expansion

One of the consumer durables which became increasingly available in India in the years following the Emergency was the television. Doordarshan, India’s state-run television station, was introduced in 1958, but it was not until the 1980s that television became available to large swaths of the population. Between 1982 and 1991 the number of transmitters increased from 26 to 523, increasing the reach of television from less than 8 percent of the population to close to 80 percent. [28] The number of television sets purchased rose from 5 million in 1985 to 35 million in 1990,[29] purchases facilitated by Rajiv Gandhi’s economic reforms. The introduction of satellite broadcasting to India arrived during the Emergency, when experiments aimed at eventual nationwide broadcasts for propaganda purposes were first undertaken.[30]  

Print media also grew in importance during the years following the Emergency, which is credited with increasing demand for newspapers,[31] particularly vernacular newspapers, which began to spread and grow in prominence during the 1970s.[32] This growth in print media continued throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.[33]

The Congress party appreciated the relationships between the media, Hindu imagery, and liberalization, and sought to harness these forces for political gain. In 1983, only a few years after the Emergency, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi created an extensive plan to “expand television throughout India,” in part for propagandist purposes. [34] The airing of the Mahabharata and Ramayana on state television in the late 1980s illustrated the recognition on the part of Congress of the power of Hindu nationalism, and the desire to create and exploit a pan-Indian identity.[35]  Rajiv Gandhi also envisioned Doordarshan playing a key role, “in the building of modern India”: an India that was to be consumer-driven, and middle-class[36] in a clear intersection of liberalization and the media. Rajiv Gandhi was also photographed and shown in the press wearing red thread outside his clothing, in recognition of both the power of Hindutva and the media. It is useful to note that Indira Gandhi also appreciate these intersections, as illustrated by her flirtation with Hindutva in the years after the Emergency.[37]  

Advertising, the Ramayana, and the Press

As television and print media expanded with economic liberalization, accompanied by the increasing domestic competition, as well as the introduction of foreign firms and foreign competition, advertising grew at a tremendous rate in the years following the Emergency, from 37.38 crores of rupees in 1975 to 930.9 crores in 1990-1991.[38] In Bombay in 1960 there were 93 advertising agencies, compared to 425 in 1988.[39]

Advertising engages in the “production of national narratives.”[40] Advertisers seek to appeal to as many members of their target audience as possible, which leads to strategies which “invoke nationalist narratives,” and “borrow from older, historically significant meanings.” In India, this lead to an, “expanding use of Hindu religious imagery in advertising,”[41] contributing to the imagining of India as a Hindu nation.

This was true in television as well as in print media, which, in the years following the Emergency and concurrent to the expansion of television viewing, grew tremendously. This was particularly true of vernacular newspapers, which grew in number and readership with increases literacy, increased purchasing power and improved communication, as well as the politicizing of India following the Emergency.[42]

Advertising revenue is critical to the sustainability and success of most newspapers. This was also true of Indian newspapers, which relied on advertising expenditures, which grew by five times between 1981 and 1989.[43] In 1974, on the eve of the Emergency, it was declared by advertising practitioners that a “depression in the advertising industry” had begun. Within ten years, “the volume of work- and the profits- of advertising had skyrocketed.”[44] This advertising was increasingly spent in the vernacular press, which is credited for having both expanded the public sphere and becoming an “accomplice of consumerism.”[45]   

            The types of advertising images which appeared in the print media also contributed to the reimagining of India as Hindu and middle-class. Horlicks, for example, ran ads in vernacular newspapers which featured middle-class families, representing “home, family, security and well-being.”[46] Other ads featured middle-class families with cars and other consumer goods and Hindu names,[47] or juxtaposed sadhu in “traditional” and “middle-class” environments, illustrating the continuity of Hindu tradition in times of economic change and reinforcing the identification of India as both middle-class and Hindu.[48] Advertising in both television and print media, by portraying the ideal Indian as both middle-class and Hindu, also contributed to the equation of modernity with middle-class consumerism.[49]

Advertising also contributed to the increasing importance of Hindu imagery in the public sphere by contributing to the rise of Indian entertainment serials, most notably the Mahabharata and Ramayana, which aired on Doordarshan in the late 1980s. The Congress Party influenced and approved the airings of these serials, but corporate funding, which resulted in advertising, produced the kinds of serials people wanted to view.[50] And the Mahabharata and Ramayana were viewed- the Mahabharata claimed 99 percent ratings,[51] and the Ramayana claimed more than 80 percent ratings,[52] up to 80 million viewers per week.[53] The popularity of these series framed the public debated about the true definition of “Indian-ness,” creating space for a widespread redefinition of Indian as Hindu during and after the series airings.[54]

Similarly to the Ramayana, the content of print media also played roles in the rise of the BJP. For example, in 1990, in the wake of the kar seva in Ayodhya and in response to allegations of irresponsible journalism, the Press Council of India prepared two reports, which criticized several newspapers, arguing that, “spreading panic and confusion in an already tense and polarized situation was dangerous to a fault in adding fuel to the fire.”[55] Newspapers such as the Swatantra Chetna of Gorakhpur were strongly criticized for printing sensationalized stories, such as changing the number of dead from 15 to 115; the Swatantra Bharat of Lucknow’s headline read, “Unarmed 'Kar Sevaks Massacred; Up to One Hundred Killed, 25 Bodies Found, Thousands Wounded,” although in the story the paper reported that different sources reported between 14 and 50.[56] Not all vernacular print media outlets came under fire for such reporting, but clearly some vernacular newspapers displayed pro-Hindu biases in the wake of the kar seva events, which has been exploited by the BJP in their own propaganda.[57]

Additionally, BJP supporters owned newspapers, and infiltrated the newsrooms of many others, in a movement termed the “saffronizing” of the newsroom,[58] which ensured that BJP views were voiced in print media. The print media was also owned in part by business interests, who were critical of the Congress state-led economic system.[59] Thus, although the expansion of print media was largely localized, in some localities the print media did promote identification with Hindutva, contributing to the reimagining of India as Hindu and the expansion of the BJP.

In the years following the Emergency and in the wake of economic reforms, television and print media expanded. In both media forms, both advertising and content advanced the identification of India as both Hindu and middle-class. Advertising in turn drove desires for consumer goods and continued economic reforms. These changes were made the most of by the BJP, whose platform included both Hindutva and economic liberalization.

The political propaganda used by the BJP also resembled advertising;[60]

Hindu-ness became a commodity to be publically bought and sold.[61] Although the use of the media as a means of transmitting political messages to the voting public was also used by the Congress Party, the mirroring and identification of Hindutva images which appeared in commercial advertising in political propaganda was new,[62] as was the understanding of voters as analogous to consumers, customers to whom both political platforms and political commodities such as buttons, posters and cassettes needed to be sold.[63] This change in the nature of voters and elections can be traced back to the Emergency and the changes in electoral politics unleashed when “Democracy… acquired a mass base in India.”[64]         

The Constituency

The sale of the reimagined India was epitomized in the growth and expansion of the BJP, which used a variety of methods to sell Hindutva to voters, who were already accustomed to viewing ‘Indian-ness’ in specific ways- specifically, India as middle-class and Hindu. Indeed, the majority of the BJP’s consumer base of voters came from the middle-class, particularly small industrialists, traders, and lower rung professionals,[65] who were sold the fully-accessoriesed story of India as told by the BJP. In this story, they, the middle-class, Hindu, true Indians, had been victims of Nehruvian policies which prevented the middle-class, and India herself, from reaching their full potential.[66] Although the Congress Party initiated, and sought to claim, economic liberalization, their ability to do so was limited by the Nehruvian planning policies espoused by the Congress before the Emergency.[67] Although the BJP espoused the Congress’ state-led economic policies until as late as 1984,[68] by 1990 the party had re-positioned itself as the party for liberalization, which was presented as the way to restore Indian greatness.

This story, of a middle-class, globally significant, united Hindu nation was balm in the face of challenges and sometimes harsh realities presented by liberalization, which was coupled with fears (and actualities) of loosing state protection, and accompanying job looses.[69] The middle-class was not an economically homogenous group, and for some, a job loss could lead to a slide back into poverty.[70] The BJP emphasized discipline and efficiency and more authoritarian social controls, and opposed welfare expenditures and taxes,[71] economic policies which also appealed to comparatively insecure middle-class voters. Additionally, the BJP used economic politics to attract small town and rural voters, who were targeted by the BJP with promises to waive all governmental and co-operative loans of small and marginal farmers in the lead-up to the 1989 elections.[72] Policies of economic liberalization were also credited with the BJP’s appeal to the upper classes.[73]

Selling Hindutva and Ram Janmabhumi

The reimagining of India in the context of Hindutvua, media expansion and economic liberalization coalesced around the Ram Janmabhumi movement, which aimed to “reclaim” the site where Hindu nationalists claimed Ram was born, and upon which the Babri Mosque was built. Although in the centuries since the construction of the mosque conflict over the site flared on more than one occasion, the BJP did not seize upon the site as an important political site until 1984, when Lal Krishna Advani, then a leader of the BJP, took over leadership of the campaign to claim the site for the construction of a temple to Ram.[74]

Hindutva can be understood in the context of Gramsci’s framing of cultural hegemony and the State, in which hegemony, as practiced by the State, is described as both “supremacy manifesting as domination” and ‘intellectual moral leadership” within society.[75] Thus, “A social group can, and indeed must, already exercise ‘leadership’ before winning governmental power (this indeed is one of the principal conditions for the winning of such power), it subsequently becomes dominant when it exercises power.”[76] Only the “class claiming to be capable of assimilating the whole society, and which was really able to express such a process,”[77] possesses the agency to political hegemony.

Hindutva, “simultaneously speak[s] of participation and exclusion, of consent and force, of faith in democratic laws, which are undercut by carefully orchestrated civil society violence,”[78] aimed particularly, though not exclusively, against Muslims as an imagined national enemy in a reimagined India. Thus, in addition to economic liberalization, the BJP articulated anti-Muslim and anti-Christian sentiments, and the return of Hindu/Indian greatness by the unification of India under a Hindu banner. The BJP made specific efforts to appeal to the nationalism of voters with “utopian and nostalgic” national narratives,”[79] as well as slogans such as Bharat Mata ki jai: ‘victory to Mother India.’[80]

Within this context the Ram Janmabhumi was embraced as an issue by the BJP around which public support could be gathered. To garner this public support, massive public relations campaigns were undertaken by the BJP, in which Hindu nationalism was packaged and sold within the context of liberalizing economic and media markets, which had already undergone significant transformations in the years since the Emergency. In Ayodhya books were sold including photographs of “martyrs;”[81] 12,000 replicas of Ram’s sandals were sent to 550,000 villages and used as mobilization and fundraising devices;[82] audio-cassette tapes containing Hindutva speeches and songs[83] were widely used as tools by the BJP in the wake of the ever-greater availability of technology, in addition to buttons, posters and other consumer goods.[84] Additionally, Ramayana-themed consumer goods were widely available; and although the links between the airing of the Ramayana serial and the destruction of the Babri Mosque should not be over-simplified, the role of the serials in the Ram Janmabhumi movement, which was approved by the Congress Party but seized upon by the BJP, cannot be underestimated.

The results of the reimagining of India as middle-class and Hindu in the years following the Emergency were bloody. On December 6, 1992, the Babri Mosque was torn down by a mob which included supporters of the BJP. The riots which followed the destruction, in Ayodhya and throughout India, were extraordinarily violent: 2,026 people were killed and 6,957 people were injured.[85]             

Conclusion

The years following the Emergency in the 1970s and through the early 1990s brought tremendous changes in the economy and media in India. These changes contributed to the re-imagining of India as middle-class and Hindu, the rise of Hindutva and the BJP, and the eventual destruction of the Babri Mosque and resulting massacres. In its rise of prominence the BJP benefited from the economic liberalization and expansion of the media; by taking advantage of the changing economic and media configurations, and by espousing pro-liberalization and Hindutva platforms, the BJP was able to effectively co-op the reimagining of India as a middle-class Hindu nation, contributing to the party’s political ascendance in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

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[1] Lloyd I Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, “India's Election: Backing into the Future,” Foreign Affairs 55.4 (1977): 836-837.

[2] Arvid Rajagopal, Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the reshaping of the public in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 47.

[3] Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1997), p. 46.

[4] Carolyn Henning Brown, “The Forced Sterilization Program Under the Indian Emergency: Results in One Settlement,” Human Organization 43.1 (1984): 50.

[5] Lloyd I Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, “India's Election: Backing into the Future,” Foreign Affairs 55.4 (1977): 839.

[6] Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1997), p. 48.

[7] Lloyd I Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, “India's Election: Backing into the Future,” Foreign Affairs 55.4 (1977): 844

[8] Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1997), p. 50.

[9] Arvid Rajagopal, Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the reshaping of the public in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 51-52.

[10] Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1997), p. 48.

[11] Arvid Rajagopal, Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the reshaping of the public in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 56.

[12] Ibid., p. 54.

[13] Arvid Rajagopal, Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the reshaping of the public in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 44.

[14] Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1997), p. 56.

[15] Arvid Rajagopal, Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the reshaping of the public in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 19.

[16] Ibid., p. 54.

[17] Himani Bannerji, “Making India Hindu and Male: Cultural Nationalism and the Emergence of the Ethnic Citizen in Contemporary India,” Ethnicities 6:3 (2006): 364.

[18] Arvid Rajagopal, Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the reshaping of the public in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 30.

[19] Ibid., p. 30.

[20]Ibid., p. 40.

[21] Ibid., p. 40.

[22] Ibid., p 40-41.

[23] Pravin Visaria, “Unemployment among youth in India: Level, nature and policy implications” (International Labour Office Geneva 1998), p. 45.

[24] Ibid., p. 27.

[25] Arvid Rajagopal, Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the reshaping of the public in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 41.

[26] Leela Fernandes, India’s New Middle Class: Democratic Politics in an era of economic reform (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), p. 30.

[27] Ibid., p. 37-38.

[28] Purnima Mankekar, Screening Culture, Viewing Politics: An Ethnography of television, womanhood, and nation in postcolonial India (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999), p. 5.

[29] Ibid., p. 5

[30] Arvid Rajagopal, Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the reshaping of the public in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 73.

[31] Sevanti Ninan, Headlines from the Heartland: Reinventing the Hindi Public Sphere (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2007), p 58.

[32] Ibid., p. 62.

[33] Robin Jeffrey, India’s Newspaper Revolution: Capitalism, Politics and the Indian-Language Press, 1977-1999 (St. Martin’s Press: New York, 2000), p. 52.

[34] Purnima Mankekar, Screening Culture, Viewing Politics: An Ethnography of television, womanhood, and nation in postcolonial India (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999), p. 59.

[35] Ibid., p. 6.

[36] Ibid., p. 46.

[37] Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1997), p. 54.

[38] William Mazzarella, Shoveling Smoke: Advertising and Globalization in Contemporary India (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2003), p. 292.

[39] Ibid., p. 292.

[40] Leela Fernandes, India’s New Middle Class: Democratic Politics in an era of economic reform (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), p. 41.

[41] Ibid., p. 42-43.

[42] Sevanti Ninan, Headlines from the Heartland: Reinventing the Hindi Public Sphere (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2007), p 58.

[43] Jeffrey, Craig, Patricia Jeffery, and Roger Jeffery. Degrees without freedom: education, masculinities, and unemployment in North India. (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008), p. 53.

[44] Ibid., p. 57.

[45] Ibid., p. 51.

[46] Ibid., p. 52

[47] Leela Fernandes, India’s New Middle Class: Democratic Politics in an era of economic reform (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), p. 51.

[48] Leela Fernandes, India’s New Middle Class: Democratic Politics in an era of economic reform (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), p. 45.

[49] Purnima Mankekar, Screening Culture, Viewing Politics: An Ethnography of television, womanhood, and nation in postcolonial India (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999), p. 48.

[50] Arvid Rajagopal, Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the reshaping of the public in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 79.

[51] Purnima Mankekar, Screening Culture, Viewing Politics: An Ethnography of television, womanhood, and nation in postcolonial India (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999), p. 72.

[52] Arvid Rajagopal, Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the reshaping of the public in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 326.

[53] Ibid., p. 84.

[54] Purnima Mankekar, Screening Culture, Viewing Politics: An Ethnography of television, womanhood, and nation in postcolonial India (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999), p.181.

[55] Aeghar Ali Engineer, “Press on Ayodhya 'Kar Seva'.” Economic and Political Weekly 26.20 (1991): 1263.

[56] Aeghar Ali Engineer, “Press on Ayodhya 'Kar Seva'.” Economic and Political Weekly 26.20 (1991): 1265.

[57] Overseas Friends of the BJP. “BJP News: Kar Seva the happiest moment for mAdvani.” Overseas Friends of Bharatiya Janata Party Friends, 2009. Web. 13 December 2010. <http://www.ofbjp.org/news/0601/2.html>.

[58] Sevanti Ninan, Headlines from the Heartland: Reinventing the Hindi Public Sphere (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2007), p. 226.

[59] Arvid Rajagopal, Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the reshaping of the public in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 33.

[60] Arvid Rajagopal, Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the reshaping of the public in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 68.

[61] Ibid., p. 69.

[62] Ibid., p. 71.

[63] Ibid., p. 71, 68.

[64] Lloyd I Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, “India's Election: Backing into the Future,” Foreign Affairs 55.4 (1977): 844.

[65] Arvid Rajagopal, Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the reshaping of the public in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 57.

[66] Arvid Rajagopal, Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the reshaping of the public in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 272.

[67] Ibid., p. 18.

[68] Ibid., p. 56.

[69] Ibid., p. 58.

[70] Purnima Mankekar, Screening Culture, Viewing Politics: An Ethnography of television, womanhood, and nation in postcolonial India (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999), p. 9.

[71] Arvid Rajagopal, Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the reshaping of the public in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 58, 64.

[72] A Correspondent. “Emergence of BJP.” Economic and Political Weekly 24.32 (1989): 1823.

[73] Arvid Rajagopal, Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the reshaping of the public in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 18.

[74] Correspondent. “Timeline: Ayodhya holy site crisis.” BBC News South Asia, 30 September 2010. Web. 10 December 2010. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11436552>.

[75] Himani Bannerji, “Making India Hindu and Male: Cultural Nationalism and the Emergence of the Ethnic Citizen in Contemporary India,” Ethnicities 6:3 (2006): 369.

[76] Antonio Gramsci, in Bannerji, Himani, p. 362.

[77] Antonio Gramsci, in Bannerji, Himani, p. 369.

[78] Himani Bannerji, “Making India Hindu and Male: Cultural Nationalism and the Emergence of the Ethnic Citizen in Contemporary India,” Ethnicities 6:3 (2006): 364.

[79] Arvid Rajagopal, Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the reshaping of the public in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 274.

[80] Ibid., p. 59.

[81] Ibid., p. 219.

[82] Ibid., p. 217.

[83] Ibid., p. 71, 68.

[84] Ibid., p. 225.

[85] Arvid Rajagopal, Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the reshaping of the public in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 17.