Ulrich Demmer
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- October 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199466818
- eISBN:
- 9780199087303
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466818.003.0006
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture, Politics, Social Movements and Social Change
Chapter five examines how the modern state of Tamil Nadu imagines concepts of a good life in a public political performance. It explores both an acultural concept and a cultural vision of a good life ...
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Chapter five examines how the modern state of Tamil Nadu imagines concepts of a good life in a public political performance. It explores both an acultural concept and a cultural vision of a good life proposed by the State. It shows how the cultural imagination of an alternative modernity repeats the twofold political agenda as it was developed by the Dravidian parties: social reform, justice, equality, the affirmation of everyday life, and secularism. In addition, this imagination of a cultural Tamil modernity is defined by Tamil ethics and identity. The chapter also describes how Tamil modernity is imagined in acultural terms of development, progress, economic and materialistic prosperity. It turns out that Tamil alternative modernity is imagined as depending on two powers, the state apparatus and the power of what has been called the ‘myth’ of the state, which depicts both the state as much as the power of the ‘amman’ (mother) embodied by the female chief minister as essential for well-being, safety, and modernity.Less
Chapter five examines how the modern state of Tamil Nadu imagines concepts of a good life in a public political performance. It explores both an acultural concept and a cultural vision of a good life proposed by the State. It shows how the cultural imagination of an alternative modernity repeats the twofold political agenda as it was developed by the Dravidian parties: social reform, justice, equality, the affirmation of everyday life, and secularism. In addition, this imagination of a cultural Tamil modernity is defined by Tamil ethics and identity. The chapter also describes how Tamil modernity is imagined in acultural terms of development, progress, economic and materialistic prosperity. It turns out that Tamil alternative modernity is imagined as depending on two powers, the state apparatus and the power of what has been called the ‘myth’ of the state, which depicts both the state as much as the power of the ‘amman’ (mother) embodied by the female chief minister as essential for well-being, safety, and modernity.
