Dramatizing Democracy through Cinematic Counterdiscourse: A Comparative Analysis of Govind Nihalani's Aakrosh (1980) and Kundan Shah's Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (1983).

This paper analyses parallel cinema from the post-Emergency period in India, that dramatizes the politics of discourse and counterdiscourse in the 'democratic' nation, using Louis Althusser's framework of ideology and ideological state apparatuses. Aakrosh (1980) and Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (1983) mark a...

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Published in:Ekphrasis (2067-631X) Vol. 25; no. 1; pp. 86 - 104
Main Author: TRIVEDI, Bageshree
Format: Article
Published: Babes-Bolyai University, Faculty of Theatre & Television 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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        atl: Dramatizing Democracy through Cinematic Counterdiscourse: A Comparative Analysis of Govind Nihalani's Aakrosh (1980) and Kundan Shah's Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (1983).
      aug:
        au: TRIVEDI, Bageshree
        affil: Ph.D. Scholar, The Maharaja Sayajirao University, of Baroda, Gujarat, India
      su:
        Althusser, Louis, 1918-1990
        Political leadership
        International relations
        Democracy
        Comparative studies
        Function spaces
        Political satire
      sug:
        subj:
          Althusser, Louis, 1918-1990
          Political leadership
          International relations
          Democracy
          Comparative studies
          Function spaces
          Political satire
      keyword:
        Althusser
        counterdiscourse
        democracy
        ideology
        Indian cinema
      ab: This paper analyses parallel cinema from the post-Emergency period in India, that dramatizes the politics of discourse and counterdiscourse in the 'democratic' nation, using Louis Althusser's framework of ideology and ideological state apparatuses. Aakrosh (1980) and Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (1983) mark a crucial period in the nation's consciousness. As the propensity of 'democracy' to collapse into an autocracy and the precarity of ideas like 'equality' and 'justice' were laid bare by the twenty-one months of state-imposed Emergency, despair, suspicion, and angst underscored the veneer of a stable political leadership in the country. Using two different modes of realism and satire respectively, these two films question structures of authority and power persisting in a seemingly egalitarian political structure--questions with abiding relevance in contemporary global politics. This paper analyses these two movies to examine the constitution of hegemony, the silence and self-estrangement of the margins, and 'hegemonic closure,' i.e., the nature of the state as an absolute Subject that functions to preclude a space for counter-voices. It, further, discusses the subversive employment of prevalent cinematic conventions to argue that the cinematic medium itself possesses the potential to transform into a potent medium for a variety of (counter)discourses.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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