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Muraleedharan, Sruthi (2019) Symbolic encounters : identity, performativity and democratic subjectivity in contemporary India. PhD thesis. SOAS University of London. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/30897 Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non‐commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", name of the School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination. Symbolic Encounters: Identity, Performativity and Democratic Subjectivity in Contemporary India Sruthi Muraleedharan Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD in Politics and International Studies 2019 Department of Politics and International Studies Faculty of Law and Social Sciences SOAS, University of London Abstract This thesis focuses on symbolic politics as ‘meaning-making’ and a ‘co- constitutive’ form of representation. It seeks to analyze subject formation in the context of symbolic political mobilizations in contemporary India. By symbolic politics, I mean political rituals, cultural symbols, commemorative memorials and spectacular performances. Through deploying Bourdieusian idea of symbolic power and Butler’s framework of performativity and subject formation, this thesis contributes to rethinking of the relationship between symbolic politics and subject formation. It critically engages two dominant frameworks for the study of the politics of symbolism and the nature of political subjectivities–elite manipulation, where the subjectivities of the participants are assumed to be contrived, and the dismissal of performative politics as not democratically substantial because of the passionate subjectivities involved. I demonstrate this based on the study of three contemporary symbolic mobilizations – Modi’s 2014 election campaign around the figure of Vikaspurush, Mayawati’s construction of B.R. Ambedkar Parivartan Sthal and the Anna Hazare- Kejriwal led Anti-Corruption movement in India. By combining field-work based on interpretive and visual ethnography, this thesis makes the following three claims. First, it argues that people’s participation in symbolic mobilization plays a crucial role in political subject formation as claim making subjects whose identities are constituted through their struggles for rights and recognition. Second, claim-making outside of institutional spaces, the negotiation between legal and cultural citizenship may signal the emergence of democratic subjectivities, even as non-democratic forms of political mobilization are also present. Third, the thesis challenges the contrast between symbolic and material politics. Symbolic politics by making spatial assertions activates time and space and thus has an equally significant material dimension to it. 3 This work illustrates that far from being inconsequential; the symbolic political field operates as a space wherein political subjectivities are constituted through the consolidation of citizen-subjects. However, the field of contention and mobilisation in symbolic politics could also signal a limitation in performative political action as it can also constitute co-opted subjects, limit democratic subjectivities and render some subjects invisible. 4 Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................... 3 Table of Figures ...................................................................................................... 9 List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................. 15 Glossary ................................................................................................................. 18 1 Introduction: Mapping the Symbolic Terrain of Indian Democracy: A Sketch24 1.1 The Symbolic Political Triad ......................................................................................... 24 1.2 The Symbolic Terrain: An Overview ........................................................................... 31 1.3 Symbolic Terrain: Meaning and Practices ................................................................... 36 1.3.1 Symbolic politics: getting meaning-making back into politics .................... 37 1.3.2 Visual practices: visualising and reordering the political ............................. 40 1.4 Structure of the Thesis ................................................................................................... 42 2 Studying the Symbolic Terrain: Methods and Sources .................................. 46 2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 46 2.2 Interpretive Ethnography .............................................................................................. 48 2.3 Mapping the Symbolic Terrain: In the Field .............................................................. 54 2.4 En-route: ‘Visual’ in Ethnography ............................................................................... 64 2.4.1 ‘Framing’ the Field ............................................................................................ 67 2.5 Limitations ....................................................................................................................... 70 2.6 Ethics: Ethnographic Encounter ................................................................................. 70 2.6.1 Positionality and privilege: the ‘insider’ and the ‘outsider’ .......................... 71 2.6.2 The only woman with a camera: media enclosures ...................................... 72 2.6.3 Academic representation of images: safety of subjects ............................... 73 2.6.4 Researching the Right: the ‘reflexivity of discomfort’ ................................. 74 5 3 Political Performativity: Identity, Symbols and Democratic Subjectivity ..... 75 3.1 Symbolic Participation: Performative Identities and Spatial Claim-making .......... 77 3.1.1 Political performativity: identity, performance and symbolic power ......... 78 3.1.2 Spatial claims: city, counter-space and subjectivity ...................................... 81 3.2 Symbolic Representation: Identity, Habitus and Political Action ........................... 87 3.2.1 Political field: symbolic habitus ....................................................................... 88 3.2.2 Political field: elite manipulation or co-constitutive representation? ......... 90 3.3 Democratic Subjectivity, Performative Political Action and Symbolic Political Field ........................................................................................................................ 97 4 Performing Development: Modi as Vikaspurush (Development Man) ....... 101 4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 101 4.2 Mapping Spatial Developmentalism: From Vadodara to Varanasi ....................... 105 4.2.1 Developmental rituals: Vadodara, of spectacular summits and the yatras ........................................................................................................................... 106 4.2.2 Replicating the smart city: Varanasi – of sacred geography and the Gujarat model ................................................................................................................ 114 4.3 Developmental matrix: Of darshan, it’s all about seeing .......................................... 120 4.3.1 ‘Marut’ Purush: transition from a divisive to a decisive leader ................. 122 4.3.2 Chai-pe-charcha: absence of charcha...only darshan ....................................... 130 4.4 Political Subjectivity: Modi’s Management of Hindutva Idioms and Parochial Ties ...................................................................................................................... 137 4.4.1 ‘Vadil’ – the paterfamilias ............................................................................... 141 4.4.2 Turning a blind eye: invisible Muslims......................................................... 151 4.5 Statue of ‘Patel’ Unity – Of Contestations, Interlude and Resurrection .............. 156 4.6 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 162 6 5 Performing Defiance: B.R. Ambedkar Samajik Parivartan Sthal and Statues164 5.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 165 5.2 Spatio-material Dalit Assertion ................................................................................... 172 5.2.1 Disrupting the manuwadi sanitised vision: Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Samajik Parivartan Prateek Sthal, chowk and statues ............................................... 175 5.2.2 Inverting the pollution line: re-naming and redistributive justice ............ 189 5.3 Statues of Dis ‘order’ ..................................................................................................