The Making of Neoliberal India: Nationalism, Gender, and the Paradoxes of Globalization

by Rupal Oza

This is an ambitious study of gender and politics in India, and will be of interest to scholars of women's studies, globalization, postcolonialism, geography, media studies, and cultural studies, as well as India more generally.

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Conrad Barwa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting books that used 3 sites: advertising for durable consumer goods in the 1990s, the holding of the Miss World 1998 beauty pageant in Bangalore and the Nuclear tests at Pokhran in May 1998. Oza weaves a convincing argument that ''cartographic insecurity'' and the fears created by the forces of globalisation and the loss of economic sovereignty to global capital led a rise in insecurity by the Indian middle class which was filled by the rise of Hindu nationalism. This rise was enabled by the Hindu right being able to offer a form of cultural nationalism, with sovereignty over the cultural realm, womens' bodies and notions of an Indian culture that could resist the forces of globalisation and threatening changes that accompanied economic dislocation created by liberalisation.

[Shriya · Rating 3 out of 5]

An astute and readable book. Oza succinctly elaborates the ways in which neoliberalism via globalisation has influenced the nationalist and gender narratives in India. She focuses on the issue of the opening of the economy, the rise of the middle classes and the rise of hindutva as the 3 'sites' which use the woman as the conduit for exercising their gendered economic insecurities. In the way she explains issues revolving around the advertising of products for women, the 'cartographic anxiety' regarding the influx of foreign media series, the miss India pageant and the nuclear program, Oza brings out how women's bodies are fused with the borders of the nation. Women are the representatives of the nation as a feminine entity, that must remain pure, and must be protected from external masculine corruption. This approach is used to justify restrictions on women and their conduct in India. A good book that should be read to have an idea about the Indian nation, gender, culture and the impacts of globalisation or 'glocalisation'